South & East Lincolnshire Councils Partnership

The Partnership, which is the largest of its kind in the country, is made up of Boston Borough Council, East Lindsey District Council and South Holland District Council, with around 1,000 members of staff and over 120 elected members serving over 300,000 residents across 1,112 square miles in total.

Over time the Councils are gradually moving to a shared workforce, with many roles across the three Partnership already shared between the Councils.

All three Councils continue to retain their own identity and to be accountable to their local communities, however, sharing expertise, teams and resources allow us to make significant savings.

The move also provides our councils with a stronger voice when it comes to securing future Government growth funding and influencing how services are delivered locally in the future.

The Partnership has been successful in securing more than £100m in funding from Government to Level Up and transform communities across the whole geographical area.

At the end of December 2023, all three councils approved the first Sub-regional Strategy for the Partnership - a five-year collective vision aligning priorities, aims and ambitions. 

The priorities are Growth and Prosperity, Healthy Lives, Safe and Resilient Communities and Environment with local issues of importance identified for each Council. 

The strategy was the next natural step for the Partnership and replaces the corporate strategies of each sovereign council. 

UK Shared Prosperity Fund and Rural England Prosperity Fund

The Government awarded the Partnership £12.15m of new funding through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) and Rural England Prosperity Fund - £6.14m for East Lindsey, £3.39m for South Holland and £2.62m for Boston  - over the next three years.

All of the funding must have been invested by 31 March 2025 and eligible local organisations are able to submit their expressions of interest for a share of the funding for projects which support communities and place, local businesses and people and skills.

National Portfolio Organisation status

In November 2022, the Partnership was awarded National Portfolio Organisation status for the first time, securing £1,955,799 from Arts Council England to help support arts and cultural organisations across the three councils.

It will also support the creation of cultural centres at The Guildhall in Boston, Ayscoughfee Hall in South Holland and the Colonnade in Sutton on Sea.

Levelling Up

In January, 2023 the Partnership was successful in securing £42.8m in Levelling Up funding after submitting ambitious and bold bids in each district.

£20m was awarded to South Holland District Council for the Castle Sports Complex site in Spalding to transform health and wellbeing;  £14.8m awarded to Boston Borough Council to kick-start regeneration for Boston's Rosegarth Square masterplan, and £8m was awarded to East Lindsey District Council to transform the heritage at-risk Alford Manor House, Alford Windmill and Spilsby Sessions House.

Enviro-crime

The Partnership is also delivering enviro-crime enforcement across the three councils collaboratively. A three-year contract with the provision for this to be extended for up to another two years has been awarded to Kingdom LA Support to provide foot patrols to tackle such this as littering, dog fouling and fly-tipping.

Supporting our employees

To support employees, the Partnership has a shared staff forum, offers opportunities through its in-house Future Leaders scheme as well as external training and development, including employees who have successfully applied to be on the District Councils' Network Staff Development Programme.

You can view our Workforce Development Strategy document, in partnership with Boston Borough Council and South Holland District Council, here: Workforce Development Strategy (PDF) [5MB] (opens new window)(opens new tab)

LGC Awards

In July 2022, the S&ELCP won the Public/Public award at the prestigious Local Government Chronicle (LGC) Awards.

The judging panel was impressed by the Partnership's ability to "demonstrate tangible improvements to local communities with a clearly articulated ambition for the future, despite being a relatively new partnership".  

The Partnership Councils were also acknowledged for their significant work in bringing the three councils to work together cohesively in a such short amount of time.