The Infrastructure Funding Statement (IFS) is a vital document providing transparency and accountability and is required by law. The Brent IFS for 2024-25 failed to appear when other local authorities' statements were published. When I asked Brent Council why it had not been published they responded, 'because it's not ready.'
In Monday's Cabinet report they now state:
The requirement to produce an annual Infrastructure Funding Statement is set out in the amended CIL regulations (2019). The Council must prepare an IFS for 2024/25 and publish it online. The IFS should have been published on the Brent Council website before 31st December 2025 per the CIL regulations but was delayed. For these reasons it is advised the IFS 2024/25 is published as soon as practical, and no alternative options have been considered.
Still no explanation for the delay of 7 months for an annual report but I publish extracts below. The next IFS is due before December 31st 2026 and will contain information relevant to the pre-election spending bonanza.
A further query was over an update of the borough's Infrastructure Development Plan (IDP). The last IDP was published seven years ago in 2019 and a lot has changed since then.
Brent Council says:
The Council will continue to focus the spending of CIL and S106 receipts on essential infrastructure to support the level of growth outlined in the Local Plan and the projects identified in the IDP. It will do this jointly with partners through effective and ongoing engagement, ensuring key infrastructure is delivered at the right time and in the right place to support growth and development. As reported to Cabinet in May 2025, Brent’s current IDP was published in 2019 and is due to be reviewed and updated over 2026-27.
SCIL funds have matured over several years; prudent financial practice and good future infrastructure planning demands that the fund is judiciously allocated over time. This allows for important infrastructure coming forward in the future to be funded. In view of this, the Council is due to update its IDP to help with the future planning of infrastructure across the borough, ensuring it aligns with the growth anticipated to come forward in the Local Plan and Borough Plan priorities. This provides transparency to residents, members, infrastructure providers and the wider development industry on the type of infrastructure required to support long-term growth and development of the borough.
Transparency and accountability over SCIL was demanded by opposition parties at the July 6th Full Council.
First the sums of Strategic and Neighourhood CIL at the end of 2024-25:
The amount of SCIL and NCIL collected in 2024-25:
So what was Strategic CIL spent on in 2024-25?
The NCIL bidding process was paused during 2024/25 due to a review of the NCIL application and bidding process and no further funds were awarded.
This cleared the way for the mainly centrally directed pre-election spending earlier this year.
Two projects of over £100,000 each required Cabinet approval in 2024-25 and that was granted:
Step Up Hub: Community Safety Community Leadership Programme
The aim of this social infrastructure project is to improve the quality of life for disadvantaged people impacted by development by providing support to further equality, social justice, social mobility, and community cohesion.
The programme combines academic learning, with practical tasks, helping learners address real-world problems. The structured course will be supplemented by mentoring and coaching support. Course content will focus on community cohesion and crime reduction and include delivering interventions to address anti-social behaviour which has increased with the increase in development.
Tenterden Pavilion
This project will provide funding for a new football pavilion at Tenterden Sports
Ground in Kenton, suitable for a grassroots level football club (Forest United (1973) Youth Football Club Limited). The project is required to obtain match funding, and no NCIL funds will be released without evidence of the additional funding, as agreed by Cabinet.
SECTION 106 AGREEMENTS
Brent Council explains:
The Council enters into Section 106 (S106) obligations with developers - a mechanism which makes a development proposal acceptable in planning terms. S106 obligations are focused on site-specific mitigation of the impact of development such as securing affordable housing or requiring improvements to an access road. CIL, on the other hand, is designed to raise funds for infrastructure needed generally as a result of an increase in development in an area and is spent on community infrastructure projects across the borough.
This has increasingly been used to provide affordable housing where a developer is unable to do so on their development:
Other S106 allocations:
I recommend reading the full Infrastructure Funding Statement 202-25 with accounts of projects and their funding. READ IT HERE
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