That:

(a) the assistant director communities be authorised, following consultation with the chief finance officer, to submit a bid for EAFRD funding based on cluster prioritisation on behalf of Herefordshire Council, Gloucestershire County Council, Shropshire Council and Telford and Wrekin Council;

(b) subject to the bid being successful, Herefordshire Council to be the accountable and procuring body for the project with any resulting contract award(s) being subject to further decision ; and

(c) the Fastershire Broadband Strategy 2017 update (at appendix 1) be approved.

That one of the other council partners take the lead on a joint EAFRD bid. This is not recommended because the potential partners in this project do not have the same degree of procurement experience with regard to alternative Broadband procurement approaches. Whilst, the other partners would be capable of taking the reins, doing so risks delays in decision making and upskilling which would have a knock on impact on Herefordshire’s ability to draw down funding before the UK exits the EU.

That the council goes ahead with an EAFRD bid on behalf of itself and Gloucestershire County Council (in line with the Fastershire partnership agreement between the two parties with Herefordshire Council as the lead partner) but without the involvement of Shropshire and Telford. This is not recommended because the project has evolved to date as a joint initiative between the councils that are partners to the Marches and Gloucestershire local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) in order to secure the funds that were allocated for Broadband from the European Structural and Investment Fund (ESIF) strategies. The RPA have recently announced that the funding will instead be allocated via a national call which in theory reduces the onus to stay true to LEP boundaries, but this would require further work to ‘decouple’ the relevant elements of the bid developed to date.

That the cluster prioritisation approach is rejected in favour of other methodology for instance selecting the largest clusters by premise volume or allowing the market to determine which mixture of clusters to bid for. This is not recommended as such an approach would make the value for money evaluation of competing bids difficult to assess fairly and may not lead to the areas with the greatest economic potential being targeted which is the focus of EAFRD funding.

Not to adopt the strategy update and retain the version agreed by both councils in 2015. This is not recommended as the original strategy attested that the document would remain live and reflect as far as possible the prevailing position. Now is an opportune time to update the documentation based on the latest position.