The Investment Plan was developed following extensive consultation and engagement with local partners to establish how UKSPF funding could be most effectively allocated in our district. The government approved the Investment Plan in December 2022.

The Investment Plan sets out how funds have been allocated across each of the three priorities and 13 interventions for the duration of the programme. These allocations are indicative.

Read a summary of the district's local investment plan (PDF, 98KB)

Please note that our UKSPF programme has now committed funding for projects that fulfil our investment plan for many of the interventions.  Therefore, this latest call for proposals is prioritising specific interventions to fulfil our initial investment plan.

The latest application window has opened for Year 3 (April 2024 – March 2025) of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund for projects only under the following interventions:

• Support for Local Business E19 - Increasing investment in research and development at the local level
• Support for Local Business E26 - Growing the local social economy
• People & Skills E33 - Employment support for economically inactive people
• People & Skills E35 - Activities such as enrichment and volunteering to improve opportunities and promote wellbeing
• People & Skills E38 - Support for local areas to fund local skills needs
• People & Skills E39 - Green skills courses targeted around ensuring we have the skilled workforce to achieve the givernments net zero and wider environmental ambitions

The application window will be open from Monday 15^th January until 5pm on Monday 5^th February.  

Important information for applicants

• The application window is primarily for revenue funding only. If capital funding is essential for your project, please detail this so that we can assess accordingly.
• The earliest start date for projects will be 1^st April 2024
• The UK Shared Prosperity Fund Programme ends in March 2025.  All projects need to demonstrate a project schedule to deliver outcomes by the end date of March 2025.
• Please read our Summary of Interventions to aid applications.
• We will accept projects with expenditure profiles ranging from £50,000 to £300,000.

Click here to watch the UKSPF Public brief that was held on Friday 19th January  The brief explained some overall information on UKSPF along with the application process.

Projects funded to deliver interventions will need to demonstrate and evidence an ability to deliver outputs and outcomes for that intervention. You can find a summary of each of the interventions and outputs/outcomes related to this project call below, with some suggestions for project delivery.

Support Local Business

E19: Increasing investment in research and development at the local level. Investment to support the diffusion of innovation knowledge and activities. Support the commercialisation of ideas, encouraging collaboration and accelerating the path to market so that more ideas translate into industrial and commercial practices.

*We are particularly interested in project ideas for research and development projects to support a transition to a green economy and to deliver business support to encourage and incentivise this transition.*

1) Research the challenges and opportunities for businesses of all sectors, when transitioning to more carbon efficient business practices. Applicants need to state how their project would support businesses either with grants or via advice, guidance, mentoring or training (output).  Small grants could be available for businesses that take part in the project, to acquire low carbon technology or attend a green skills training course. These outputs should result in increased business productivity, sector growth or the increased adoption of new technology and processes by businesses (outcomes).

2) Business engagement programme to research and develop sector growth for the green economy, such as retrofit. Providing business support for ‘green’ businesses either with grants or via advice, guidance, mentoring or training (output). These outputs should result in increased businesses productivity, sector growth or the increased adoption of new technology and processes (outcomes).

E26: Support for growing the local social economy, including community businesses, cooperative and social enterprises.

Provide guidance and/or training to businesses or business start-ups (output) to grow alternative business models such as community businesses, co-operatives, or social enterprises. As result of business support and training, projects should create jobs, safeguard jobs or increase investment into  businesses that have alternative business models (outcomes).

People and Skills

E33: Employment support for economically inactive people

Deliver training and support to people that are NEET (not in education, employment, or training) to access basic skills or employability skills (output). The project should enable people to attain basic skills or gain employment (outcome).  This would reduce the number of people that are NEET in the district.

E35: Activities such as enrichment and volunteering to improve opportunities and promote wellbeing.

Deliver a programme of enrichment activity and secure volunteering opportunities for individuals experiencing barriers into employment and/or skills provision (output). Report on the impact and experience of volunteers because of the project with the aim of reducing structural barriers into employment and into skills provision (outcome).

E38: Support for local areas to fund local skills needs. This includes technical and vocational qualifications and courses up to level 2 and training for vocational licences relevant to local area needs and high-value qualifications where there is a need for additional skills capacity that is not being met through other provision.

Training programmes for people to gain a vocational licence (output). Training provision would increase the number of economically active individuals that are engaged in mainstream skills education and training (outcome).

E39: Green skills courses targeted around ensuring we have the skilled workforce to achieve the government’s net zero and wider environmental ambitions.

The greening of the economy will inevitably change the skills required and the tasks involved in many existing occupations. Projects for this intervention need to deliver Green Skills provision so that people can acquire the skills to gain employment for diverse career paths. Green skills provision could focus on engineering, technical or construction skills.

Sector based training schemes for people to gain technical skills to aid existing or future employment (output). Training and skills provision will result in people either completing an industry led course or gaining a recognised qualification (outcome).

We recognise that competitive funding processes come with significant challenges and that the success of our district is in how local partners work together.

We’ll be much better able to shape a strategic and collaborative UKSPF programme - and avoid some of the downsides of competitive funding - if we can see how projects fit together between different partners.

This means we will particularly welcome joint applications between partners working in similar areas, as this will allow us to invest in a joined-up programme.

We are also interested in any partnership projects with a consortium of applicants, so that projects are not funded in isolation. The transition to a low-carbon, resource-efficient economy requires systemic changes that will result not only in new products and services but also in changes in production processes, business models, training and skills development.

Projects funded to deliver Support for Local Business and People and Skills interventions should work collaboratively to grow a green economy and support individuals to develop skills and career paths. We encourage stakeholders to develop such partnerships.

This window has a deadline for applications of Monday 5th February 2024.  Please don’t hesitate to contact us on UKSPF@lancaster.gov.uk during this time for any queries or assistance with the application process.

All applications will follow Lancaster City Council’s evaluation and democratic decision-making process.

Applications will be considered based on the "five cases" model developed by the Treasury, and also their overall strategic fit with both the UKSPF goals and the council’s local priorities for our district.

We’d expect decision-making to take place during March 2024. We will of course keep applicants informed and we may be in contact during this time for any minor clarifications to the information submitted to assist our evaluation process.

Once decisions to award funding have been made, we’ll meet with all successful applicants to finalise their project details and of course launch their projects at the earliest possible opportunity.

We envisage that the earliest start date for projects will be April 2024.

Please read all the guidance on this page and within the application form carefully before completing the documents.

Once the application form and appendices are complete, and you have collected any other supporting information, please email all documents to UKSPF@lancaster.gov.uk by the end of Monday 5th February 2024.

• UKSPF Application Form (DOCX, 1.7MB)
• Appendix A (Subsidy Control) (DOCX, 33KB)
• Appendix B (Monitoring & Evaluation Plan) (XLSX, 19KB)

The Lancaster UKSPF Project Team can be contacted by emailing UKSPF@lancaster.gov.uk