Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference the National Audit Office report, Review of the Town Deals selection process, published 21 July 2020, what (a) criteria, (b) process and (c) sources of evidence his Department used to assess and rank towns for purposes of allocating funding under the Towns Fund.

The selection process comprised two stages. The first was an initial assessment carried out by officials: scoring, ranking, filtering and prioritising of all 1,082 towns across England against a range of criteria; creating a framework for decision-making to support ministers to select towns. The second was ministers’ selection of towns to be invited to develop proposals for Town Deals. More information can be found within the NAO Review of the Town Deals Selection Process (July 2020).