Grants and funding

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund was launched by central government in early 2022 in support of the ‘levelling up’ agenda.  All local councils have been allocated a share of the fund to invest in their areas by March 2025. This fund is intended to replace EU funding, which in Hertfordshire was primarily invested in business support and skills development services.

This can be used to support a wide range of interventions to build pride in place and improve life chances, across three investment priorities:

• Community and place
• Supporting local business
• People and skills

Watford Council has been allocated limited funding of £1,000,000 over the next three years. To access this funding, we submitted an investment plan to government on 1 August 2022; this set out the mix of activities we will deliver to meet our local needs. We were notified in December 2022 that our Investment Plan has been approved and we are currently commissioning projects that will run through to March 2025.

Developing our investment plan

In discussion with local partners including the voluntary and community sector organisations, business representatives and other key stakeholders, we identified a mix of activities we will deliver to meet our local needs over the next three years.  This includes making sure that important work by services that have previously received EU funding can continue, as well as several new projects. All projects support delivery of our Economic Growth Strategy 2021-25 and will help support our local businesses, as well as help local people access good job opportunities. The new projects include:

• Skills training for those furthest away from the labour market - The fund will support three projects each targeting specific groups - young people, people with learning difficulties and disabilities, and people with multiple complex barriers (such as mental health issues, long-term unemployment, ex-offenders, carers). The projects will be managed by the Herts LEP and delivered by partners including Hertfordshire County Council’s Step2Skills unit.
• Supporting local business and people - Four projects have been prioritised that will help strengthen the local economy. Three of the projects will focus on the following: provision of general business advice focused on SMEs (small medium enterprises); support for start-ups and new businesses; an online advice portal for employers and students. The fourth project is to contribute towards the development of a Hertfordshire Film Office to promote film and TV-activities. The projects will be managed by the Herts LEP.
• Supporting Watford businesses and developers to invest more for local benefit. We will research and develop/adapt existing software to capture outcomes and share good practice.
• Assisting local businesses to become better equipped to successfully bid for larger local contracts in order to strengthen local supply chains and enable smaller local businesses to grow and employ more people. This includes the construction sector and the opportunity created from local major developments.
• Exploring creative solutions for supporting our Town Centre Independents – considering good practise happening elsewhere across the UK, to help establish a viable approach for Watford
• Supporting entrepreneurs to scale their business where there is potential for high-growth. This will be a targeted programme of support to: enter new markets; bring new products/services to market; develop teams and operations; and become ‘investment ready’.
• Supporting businesses to start and progress their decarbonisation journeys, through an on-going package of information, advice and guidance.

More information

Information about the Shared Prosperity Fund can be found on the GOV.UK website.