I know that the rest of the world could not give a ‘monkeys’ about what the London Development Agency (LDA) is up to, but I do know that Capital Enterprise members are obsessed about finding out the latest ‘Market Intelligence’ on the LDA’s plans for ‘Enterprise Support’.
After all, they remain the single largest source of funding for ‘Enterprise Support’ in London, and so with apologies to the wider, saner world but today’s blog will be of sole interest to Capital Enterprise members because it concerns some very interesting news from the LDA. For anyone else who has tripped over this article you are well advised to stop reading or undertake the certain risk of being very, very bored.
For first time readers, I should clarify again that in this blog ‘Market Intelligence’ is a combination of on-the-record correspondence sent to this author by a reputable authority – the FACT – and a second hand un-attributed report by a member repeating a conversation they had, in this case with the LDA, that I am now about to share with the world via this blog.
Firstly, the fact
I received today an e-mail from Rob Knott, the recently appointed interim Director of Contract Management for Business Support and Promotion at the LDA. Rob and Kate Pender are leading for the LDA on the development and contracting out of the Business Link Successor service in London. As most of you no doubt know, the tendering procedure was suddenly halted by the LDA in December. This left SERCO, the present delivery agent of the Business Link service in London, to deliver the service until the contact ends at the end of next month. Rather than summarise what Rob Knott said in his e-mail, I thought I would just lift a direct quote. So here goes:
“We [the LDA] have now taken the decision to put the programme [tendering of the ‘Business Link Successor’ service] on hold while we undertake a more comprehensive review, covering our strategy and approach, the overall scope required, the service specification and related budget (existing and future) and a range of other key external factors, such as the upcoming general election. This, understandably, includes the Competitive Dialogue procurement, which has also been put on hold. The scope of the review incorporates our existing delivery partners and it is our intention to complete this work by early April, when we will be in a position to communicate our next steps. Our aim is also to ensure the review is aligned to the Mayor’s new Economic Development Strategy for London and the LDA’s Investment Strategy.
There are two potential outcomes from this stage of the review:
- we may elect to procure a successor contract, likely to be through a Restricted Procedure
- we may elect to extend the existing contracts (within specific parameters) to continue working with our existing delivery partners, potentially, up until March 2012
We do appreciate your forbearance over the last few weeks, but I am sure you will appreciate this is a significant undertaking and we are working to achieve an optimal outcome.”
I will leave you all to ponder what the above passage means, but the reference to the impact of the upcoming election may be a reference to the Mark Prisk article in the Sunday Times.
Secondly, the unconfirmed
If this piece of news is, according to my definition, a ‘fact’, then the next piece of news on the LDA plans is an unconfirmed, un-attributed, interesting only to us, rumour on the LDA plans for European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under-spend.
At a recent meeting between a member and the LDA ERDF team, our source was told by the LDA that it is very unlikely there will be another open tendering round for the remainder of the unspent ERDF for London. This had not yet been confirmed by the LDA, despite my repeated calls, but I can confirm senior managers at the LDA have told me, that from now on, open tendering rounds are, when feasible, to be replaced by commissioning. In the case of ERDF, this means that the LDA will decide the exact service they want to see delivered under the various ERDF priorities, and once the specification and budget is settled, the LDA will subsequently place this service contract out to tender through the CompeteFor website.
As it stands the LDA have told my source that they have different plans for the different ERDF priorities. The unconfirmed intelligence is as follows:
Priority 1: “ Innovation Support-Knowledge Transfer” – In this priority area there is an estimated unspent allocation of between £12-14m. Discussions are underway at the LDA to match this pot and for the LDA to use this fund to support relevant ‘Solutions for Business’ products. Although there may be some small projects commissioned by the LDA in June, my source reports that the bulk of the funds will be commissioned after the Autumn.
Priority 2: “Increasing SME’s Access to Finance” – The LDA have up to £20m from the ERDF pot to spend on this priority and apparently they are likely to put this money into a Venture Capital Loan fund in collaboration with the European Investment Bank.
Priority 3: “Sustainable Places for Business” – This priority has £6m of capital funding which is to be matched with JESSICA funding on “god knows” what. Any news would be welcomed, but I expect it will be spent on something to do with the Olympics.
Priority 4: “Technical Assistance” – The LDA has £5m to spend on so called ‘Technical Assistance’ but from personal experience the LDA’s definition on what this money can be spent on is so tight that it is almost impossible for them or anyone else to spend. If I get a clear steer from the LDA that Technical Assistance funds can be spent on measures, such as capacity building organisations or processes to deliver present and future innovation focused programmes, then Capital Enterprise would be very much interested in assembling a consortium of members to approach the LDA. If you are interested and have match funding please let me know.
Finally, a bit of funding-related news
I spent two days this week in Edinburgh trying to bolt Capital Enterprise, and at least two members, into an Edinburgh Council led bid for Transnational European Intereg 4C funding to support innovation. I think it went well and if things go to plan we will be part of a large bid with partners in Edinburgh, Dublin, Normandy, Germany, Belgium and Somerset.
There are other European Funding bids coming up and if you are interested in finding out more then do not forget to contact Abigail Freeman – Capital Enterprise European Funding consultant.
So here ends, what for anyone not interested in delivering publicly funded enterprise support programmes in London, must be the most boring blog ever posted on the web. You were warned.
