The UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) is the Government’s domestic replacement for the European Structural and Investment Programme (ESIF), which expires in the UK in March 2023.
In England, the fund will primarily operate over the strategic geographies of the Mayoral Combined Authorities and the Greater London Authority, and lower tier or unitary authorities elsewhere. - Delivery geographies - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The Fund is a central pillar of the UK Government’s ambitious levelling up agenda and a significant component of its support for places across the UK.
It provides £2.6 billion of new funding for local investment by March 2025, with all areas of the UK receiving an allocation from the Fund via a funding formula rather than a competition.
The UKSPF will support the UK government’s wider commitment to level up all parts of the UK by delivering on each of the levelling up objectives:
- Boost core skills and support adults to progress in work, by targeting adults with no or low level qualifications and skills in maths, and upskill the working population, yielding personal and societal economic impact, and by encouraging innovative approaches to reducing adult learning barriers.
- Support disadvantaged people to access the skills they need to progress in life and into work, for example the long-term unemployed and those with protected characteristics through funding life, and basic skills where this is not delivered through national or local employment and skills provision.
- Support local areas to fund local skills needs and supplement local adult skills provision e.g. by providing additional volumes; delivering provision through wider range of routes or enabling more intensive/innovative provision, both qualification based and non-qualification based.
- Reduce levels of economic inactivity and move those furthest from the labour market closer to employment, through investment in bespoke employment support tailored to local need. Investment should facilitate the join-up of mainstream provision and local services within an area for participants, through the use of one-to-one keyworker support, improving employment outcomes for specific cohorts who face labour market barriers.
Following the UK’s exit from the European Union, the fund invests in domestic priorities and targeting funding where it is needed most: Building pride in place, supporting high quality skills training and supporting pay, employment and productivity growth.
It will dramatically reduce the levels of bureaucracy associated with EU funds, enable truly local decision making and better target the priorities of places within the UK.
All places across the UK will receive a conditional allocation from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
This flexible approach represents a key shift from the previous EU system. Places will be able to choose from investment in three investment priorities of communities and place, local business and people and skills.
The initial focus of the UKSPF programme in 2022-23 and 2023-24 will be on communities and place and local business interventions, alongside support for people through the Multiply adult numeracy programme.
This is designed to complement residual employment and skills funding from the European Social Fund.
UKSPF investment to support people and skills will follow from 2024-25, when the funding pot reaches its full extent.
Lead local authorities have the flexibility to fund targeted people and skills provision in 2022-23 and 2023-24 where this is a continuing priority for 2024-25 and may be at significant risk of ending due to the tail off of EU funds. However, this flexibility may only be used where provision is currently delivered by voluntary and community organisations, having regard for the focus of the Fund and available funding