§ Mr. StevensonTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is the allocation from the Competitiveness Development Fund to the West Midlands Region; and if he will list schemes supported by the fund in the North Staffordshire sub-region. [120396]
§ Mr. CabornThe DTI's Competitiveness Development Fund (CDF) is available to Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) to spend on priorities they identify for increasing competitiveness in their regions. The CDF allocation to Advantage West Midlands (the 281W RDA for the West Midlands Region) for this Financial Year (2000–01) is £440,000, which represents an increase in funding of over 75 per cent. compared to the previous financial year.
Advantage West Midlands used its CDF allocation of £250,000 for the last financial year (1999–2000) to support a wide range of projects that were designed to have a region-wide effect: none were specifically limited to North Staffordshire. These projects included work on promoting enterprise and innovation, encouraging best practice and developing supply chains.