Decision details

Reason for the decision -

Kent County Council (KCC) administers under government contracts (Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy - BEIS) the Regional Growth Fund (RGF) which offers investments to eligible businesses and receives repayment on these investments. Until January 2016 via the former RGF Tiger programme, companies in Thurrock were eligible to receive investment funding.

The Kent and Medway Business Fund (KMBF) was established in 2017 and replaced the former RGF Tiger programme, and the decision was made at that time to restrict access to the KMBF scheme only to Kent and Medway companies (Decision 16/00107) and draw up alternative arrangements for the transfer of funds to the former eligible areas outside Kent and Medway.

Please note, the underlying government contract with BEIS covering North Kent and Medway still includes Thurrock as an eligible area. 

In 2019 KCC agreed to transfer the recovered loan repayments obtained from Thurrock companies back to Thurrock Council in line with a similar arrangement agreed with East Sussex County Council (Decision 19/00019). A KCC Key Decision was published to facilitate the Thurrock transfer (Decision 19/00041). The plan was for Thurrock Council to receive and oversee the use of these funds to support local small and medium sized enterprises in their local authority area. It has not proved possible to transfer these funds to Thurrock Council as this local authority does not have in place the required contract with BEIS.

Options (other options considered but discarded):

The preferred KCC option was to transfer the funds to Thurrock Council but this was not legally possible due to the lack of an existing contract with BEIS. The only way remaining to fulfil our current BEIS contract is for KCC to distribute funds directly to Thurrock companies via a small loan programme on behalf of Thurrock Council, covering the costs of the appraisal, decision-making and monitoring from an administrative charge levied on all loans to Thurrock companies (the same charge is currently levied on Kent and Medway companies). 

How the proposed decision meets the objectives of ‘Increasing Opportunities, Improving Outcomes: Kent County Council’s Strategic Statement (2015-2020)’:

The decision supports the outcome “All Kent’s communities benefit from economic growth and lower levels of deprivation” as it will allow KCC to maintain its contractual obligations to Thurrock Council and BEIS as part of the delivery of the Kent and Medway Business Fund which is seeking to deliver business investment, create new jobs and safeguard existing jobs in the Kent area.