The Bolsover Local Strategic Partnership with Bolsover District Council as the Accountable Body, manages the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund for the area. The Community Strategy and the Local Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy guide the aims and objectives of the programme, which covers a number of key themes as shown below.
- Improved Health
- Crime
- Education
- Prosperity
- Housing and the environment.
Multi-stakeholder action groups have been established to take each of these themes forward.
The LSP has adopted a commissioning approach to ensure that the allocation of NRF is focussed on the priorities of the LSP. Action groups have each developed their own set of priorities through agreed Action Plans which will ensure that NRF is able to meet our key challenges set by government,
“Tackle social exclusion and deliver neighbourhood renewal, working with Departments to help them meet their PSA floor targets, in particular narrowing the gap in health, education, crime, worklessness, housing and liveability outcomes between the most deprived areas and the rest of England, with measurable improvements by 2010”
NRF is intended to be used in the redesign, delivery or development of services to address the problems of deprived neighbourhoods. Projects and services should be designed to fit with the LNRS to take forward the objectives and targets that have been identified in the Community Strategy and LNRS or Action Plan.
Each action group has an action plan detailing the targets and outcomes it wishes to achieve. This is currently being developed further in order that interventions can be put forward as commissioning briefs.
The commissioning process
- The relevant action group take the lead on the development of action plans and interventions that will be commissioned i.e. a project. The current action plan needs to be developed into the commissioning brief for organisations.
- Action groups / Chair must provide a copy of the commissioning briefs to the Partnership Office who will then arrange in conjunction with the Chair of the group, to issue the invitations to organisations to put forward a full proposal.
- Organisations will then be invited to put forward a commissioning proposal based on the brief that has been worked up. Commissioned organisations are required to complete the proposal addressing the brief that has been provided. This form completes the project design phase, capturing the necessary information required before committing resources to a scheme.
- The completed proposal form will be received by the Partnership Office and a copy sent out to the appropriate Action Group Chair for the group to undertake a review of the proposal against a simple checklist. This is to ensure that the proposal is appropriate in response to the Brief and is where the project is evaluated before resources are committed. The checklist is appended.
- Action groups, after undertaking the review, will make a decision about allocating resources. This may be in done where the review points towards a favourable decision within delegated limits - (£100,000). If a proposal is seeking in excess of this, it will be referred to ESG. Action Groups will support unconditionally or with conditions.
- The Action group chair will ensure that a copy of the review checklist and certificate of support are forwarded to the Partnership Office.
- Where a positive decision is taken on a proposal, the relevant provider organisation (the body that will implement the project) will be issued with an offer letter – i.e. funding agreement by the Partnership Office. This sets out the terms under which the project will be delivered. Both the provider and the accountable body are required to sign this contract. A copy of this contract will be provided to the Action Group Chair.
- Monitoring – the project or services performance should then be monitored by the group on a regular basis to ensure that it is progressing towards the targets and milestones which have been set. This is complimentary to the quarterly monitoring that is undertaken by the Partnership Office.
Commissioning Framework
Jargon explained
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Data
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A single piece of information
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Indicator
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A pointer to a problem in an area (often expressed as a percentage
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Target
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An aim that focuses on tackling a particular problem (often expressed as a number or percentage reduction/increase)
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Outcome
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A result
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