Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of permitting Business Improvement Districts to operate as a delivery partner for Reopening High Streets Safely funding.

Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) have been a key tool in providing business led improvements to local areas since 2004. They remain an important part of our high street and town centre agenda, and the Government is committed to supporting them.

BIDs also have an important role to play in ensuring our high streets and town centre areas can open in a safe way in order to reinvigorate our local economies and get people back to work and the shops. This is why, through our £50 million Reopening High Streets Safely Fund (RHSSF), local authorities can procure BIDs as a contractor or supplier and pay for eligible services through RHSSF funding.

In order to reduce the administrative burden in delivering the fund, BIDs cannot be delivery partners for the RHSSF, however, local authorities are able deliver eligible RHSSF activity through delivery partner arrangements with other tiers of local government. We have provided further guidance on which organisations can operate as delivery partners under the RHSSF programme: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/925276/Reopening_High_Streets_Safely_Fund_FAQ_V6.pdf.