MONTHLY STAFF REPORTS

Project Officer's Report August 08

Project Officer’s Report aug 08

Redevelopment Project

Including approved offers of interest free loans, and agreement by AF to provide the remaining shortfall beyond these loans, we now have all our funding in place for the total project costs of 1,509,797, providing our recommendation for ERDF approval is followed up with an approval.

HIE/GCA representative is happy for AF to offer the remainder from their own coffers, so we should be all systems go, following the ERDF meeting next week.

ERDF: Recommended for approval. Various info may be requested from them leading up to next meeting, including further details on the project management we put 30k down for.
Statements of Intent can be submitted any time for SRDP bids.
LEADER: As part of SRDP, this can’t match fund against ERDF, so can’t match fund against the project management included in ERDF. We could still apply for other salary funding.

SIS loan / Triodos loan: We’re still progressing this. It would be very useful for cash-flow during the project, at the very least.

Architect/Design Team
One of our main constraints will be the competitive tendering requirements for ERDF, laying aside the ordinary legal situation.
ERDF National Rules say: Fees for external consultants are eligible where it can be demonstrated that they have been incurred as a result of a competitive tendering process, or where best value can be demonstrated in line with the applicant’s ‘standing orders’.
Such work must be advertised in the Official Journal, where the value is close to or exceeds public procurement thresholds.
For services, the threshold is around £130k net of VAT. The expected net cost of our design team fees is around £100k, with no scope for exceeding the threshold due to limitation of funds.

Log building Course and chainsaw courses
To be readvertised as sent round, in Assynt News, in case anyone interested hasn’t been directly in touch yet.
Chainsaw course dates to be 18th - 19th August, 25th - 30th August (for us to confirm which 2 days within this period) and 29th - 30th September. Which requires 4 people given places being kitted out with chainsaws and gear by the 18th August.
I assume we won’t now be charging trainees, as we’ll be able to access money to match fund against CVS and HC discretionary for those costs. Agreed?
We need to decide allocation method and allocate places on courses. We have already stated that we aim for a local team of log-builders to result from the course, so individuals’ intention to be part of this team will presumably rank very highly, while presumably not being a necessary criterion. Any comments/discussion in advance of board meeting on this would be useful.