West Yorkshire Investment Plan
The West Yorkshire Investment Plan (WYIP) is the current method of accessing Yorkshire Forward Single Pot Funding - an important source of finance for economic development and regeneration programmes.
The WYIP is co-ordinated at a sub-regional level by the West Yorkshire Economic Partnership, with the Leeds input co-ordinated by a sub-group of the Economic Competitiveness and Transport Priority Board.
The WYIP consists of:
- spatial renaissance activity led by the local authorities, and
- thematic activity around skills development, business support and connectivity led by the West Yorkshire Learning and Skills Council, West Yorkshire Business Link and METRO.
The WYIP will end in March 2009 and will be replaced by Yorkshire Forwards new Geographic Programme Approach.
Yorkshire Forward Geographic Programme
The Geographic Programmes replaces the sub-regional investment planning process.
It will come into effect in April 2009 and has been designed as a response to the government's Sub National Review of Economic Development and Regeneration (SNR).
A key principle of the SNR is to ensure that decisions are made at the right spatial level. Geographic Programmes will provide the mechanism for the delegation of funding to local authorities and will be the basis to integrate the spatial dimension into delivery of the Yorkshire Forward Corporate Plan Objectives.
Yorkshire Forward will work principally with local authorities to develop Geographic Programmes, as well as with other key partners such as Local Strategic Partnerships, the local business community, the LSC, Job Centre Plus and universities to ensure that the Geographic Programmes are fully integrated with other investments.
These Geographic Programmes set out Yorkshire Forward’s contribution to Local Area Agreements and will draw heavily from the experience and approach of the previous renaissance work