Rotherham Partnership Single Pot Funding

The Single Pot is a fund that is available to providers to help implement the Regional Economic Strategy and the Framework for Regional Employment Skills action Plan. South Yorkshire has produced a sub-regional action plan that aims to focus further into the particular needs of the sub-region within that regional picture. This enables the Single Pot in South Yorkshire to meet sub-regional needs, and link to other major drivers, such as the Objective 1 programme. It takes over from separate programmes and grants previously administered by Yorkshire Forward. However a number of these schemes have still to run their course, such as SRB, so there is still a large number of commitments to fulfil. Thus the Single Pot is currently quite a small fund and for example the amount of funding for South Yorkshire in 2002/03 was £11.2m.

The Single Pot for Yorkshire and the Humber will have:

Regional projects which impact on the whole region and are generally driven by Yorkshire Forward.
Sub-regional projects which impact on the sub-region. The money is allocated to sub-regional bodies such as the Learning and Skills Council, Small Business Service, SY Open Forum and Renaissance South Yorkshire.
Local projects, which must be able to show how they contribute to the economic growth of the sub-region, either directly, or through pilot activity.

The South Yorkshire Sub-regional Action Plan is split into 6 themes and projects are packaged under each theme. The themes are:

1. Enabling radical restructuring of the economic base.
2. Unlocking potential in communities & ensuring inclusion in economic growth.
3. Enhancing business competitiveness and stimulating new activity.
4. Step change in education, training and skills base, and removing barriers.
5. Strategic transport and communications (e.g. ICT infrastructure).
6. Built and green business environments.

Theme 1 is the main priority for Yorkshire Forward and Rotherham has two projects in that theme – Urban renaissance for the town centre and the Magna Business Park.

Further information about how the Single Pot affects Rotherham is available from the Partnership Office.