Infrastructure Funding Statements

What is an Infrastructure Funding Statement (IFS)?

Planning authorities are required to publish an Infrastructure Funding Statement (IFS) in accordance with the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) Regulations[1]. The purpose of an IFS is to give communities a better understanding of how developer contributions have been or are planned to be used to deliver infrastructure in their area.

Developer contributions in the New Forest National Park include section 106 planning obligations and unilateral agreements (the Community Infrastructure Levy has not been adopted in the National Park).

The IFS should include a register in a format provided by the Government (a CSV file) and an explanatory report which identifies infrastructure needs, the total cost of this infrastructure, anticipated funding from developer contributions, and the choices the authority has made about how these contributions will be used.

Infrastructure Funding Statements must be published annually, before 31 December, and cover the previous financial year running from 1 April to 31 March.

About the register

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC; formerly Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government) recommends that local planning authorities follow their specification on how to format, label and publish their development contributions data.

DLUHC recommend publishing infrastructure contributions in three steps:

• Create three developer contribution CSV files to store the data: one showing developer agreements; one showing the amount and purpose of the contributions; and a third one showing the transactions and their current status (‘secured’, ‘received’, ‘allocated’, ‘transferred’, ‘spent’ and ‘returned’)*.
• Publish the CSV files and a short, written report illustrating the data.
• Submit the data to the national register of developer contributions; set up and maintained by DLUHC.

* ‘secured’: the trigger clauses associated with the contribution have been met, meaning the developer is now required to pay all or part of the contribution

‘received’: the developer has paid all or part of the money due to the local planning authority

‘allocated’: the received money has been allocated to a team within the local planning authority, who will spend the money

‘transferred’: the received money has been transferred to an organisation outside the planning authority (for example ‘Bird Aware Solent’ for Solent SPA contributions or Hampshire County Council for transport contributions), who will spend the money

‘spent’: the received money has been spent on the purpose specified in the section 106 agreement or unilateral undertaking by the planning authority.

Report on the receipts, allocations and delivery of (future) expenditure

Here you can download a written report that should be read in conjunction with the register and which explains in more detail how the income received has been or will be spent.

Licensing

Data is provided under the Open Government Licence.

[1] The Community Infrastructure Levy (Amendment) (England) (No. 2) Regulations 2019: “Part 10a Reporting and monitoring on CIL and planning obligations; paragraph 121A