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New Anglia Investment Appraisal Committee
Public Meeting Minutes (Unconfirmed)
25th May 2022
Present:
Committee Members
David Ellesmere (DE)
Ipswich Borough Council
Dominic Keen (DK)
High Growth Robotics
Martin Williams (MW)
Independent IAC Member
Alan Waters (AW)
Norwich City Council
Sandy Ruddock (SR)
Scarlett & Mustard
Kathy Atkinson (KA)
Valereo
In Attendance
Rosanne Wijnberg (RW)
New Anglia LEP
Melanie Richardson (MR)
New Anglia LEP
Iain Dunnett (ID)
New Anglia LEP
Helen Wilton (HW)
New Anglia LEP
ACTIONS
None
1
Welcome from the Chair
David Ellesmere (DE) welcomed everyone to the meeting.
2
Apologies
Apologies were received from Andrew Proctor.
3
Declarations of Interest
Martin Williams (MW) declared an interest in Item 8 – The Malthouse loan extension
4
Minutes of previous meetings
The minutes of the meeting held on 23rd March 2022 were agreed as accurate.
5
Horizon Paper and GPF Repayments – Confidential
Iain Dunnett (ID) presented the paper and highlighted key items:
The Committee agreed:
• To note the content of the report
6, 6a
Growing Places Fund Programme Performance Report and Confidential RAG appendix
ID provided an overview of the report provided.
He noted the value of scheme to businesses with its combination of grants and loans and cited the
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example of the £3m granted to heritage projects which had levered over £80m in private match funding.
The Committee agreed:
• To note the content of the report
7
Growing Business Fund Programme Performance Report and GBF, SGS and GTI grant
award appendices
Chris Dashper (CD) presented the last GBF report as the project has now closed. He noted the
underspend detailed on the report had been used to fund other projects in order to maximise the spend of
Government money.
Projects will continue to be monitored and outputs recorded. Elements of the scheme are being included in
the new fund being presented to the LEP board today.
CD advised that one member of staff is now dedicated to the GTI scheme and a further person is being
recruited.
DE asked if there would be end of scheme publicity to mark the completion of the GBF and Getting Building
Funds.
CD confirmed that the evaluation and feedback provided by Insight Works would be included in the
promotion of the new scheme.
The Committee agreed:
• To note the content of the report
8
Growing Places Fund: Ipswich Malthouse Loan extension request - Confidential
This item was addressed last on the agenda. MW left the meeting.
The Committee agreed:
• To note the content of the report
9
GBF Clawback report – Confidential
The Committee agreed:
• To note the content of the report
10
Verbal update: Business Net Zero Efficiency Grant Scheme
CD presented the new grant scheme which is also being presented to the LEP Board for approval today.
It was recognised that there was a gap in the market to provide support for SMEs given the reduction in
funds available at the current time and the LEP has had an opportunity to devise a programme from
scratch drawing on elements of past schemes.
The new programme will include elements of the Growing Business Fund and learning from other
programmes while supporting the move to net zero and clean growth. The focus will also be on improved
productivity rather than job creation.
Up to £50k will be approved by the LEP Executive and anything higher will be presented to the IAC for
approval, which will be done electronically if required depending on deadlines.
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The loan programme continues along the lines of the GPF scheme which has worked well with the aim of
setting up an early pipeline of several £500k - £600k loans.
£2.5m is available for each scheme.
Dominic Keen (DK) asked if the metrics for the new schemes would include measuring green outputs.
CD noted that Government had published details of green metrics which will be included in the programme
outputs and criteria..
The Committee agreed:
• To note the content of the report
11
AOB
IPF – SETI: CD advised that the project has not been able to find funds to make up a shortfall of £6,250 in
the project. This is due to a shortfall in match funding. CD advised that the IPF scheme has sufficient
funding available and proposed returning to the original project funding request of £35k which the IAC had
previously reduced to £28,750.
RW confirmed that this was supported from a budget viewpoint.
The meeting agreed that it was disappointing that this amount had not been met by any of the other
partners but agreed to the increase.
The Committee agreed:
• To note the content of the update
• To increase the funding of the SETI project to £35k
