1.21 The Department made available £195 million to assist in kick-starting the LIFT initiative of which £177 million has been allocated to date. These enabling funds were intended to cover capital expenditure such as purchase and preparation of a site, buy-out of GPs and provision of temporary accommodation. There was, however, some flexibility for Primary Care Trusts to use the funds to cover revenue costs (for example advisory fees and project management) provided this did not exceed 3 per cent of the total enabling funds received by each project team.
1.22 The Department issued enabling funds guidance in November 2002. This states that enabling funds are not automatically refundable but there may be circumstances in which the Department would be keen to reclaim funding to enable it to be recycled into further LIFT developments. A third of project directors remained unsure about how enabling funds would work in practice, resulting in local variation of usage. No subsequent guidance has been issued by the Department. Monitoring of how funds have been used locally was not routinely undertaken - in some cases allocated funding was untouched for significant periods without being subject to central review. As at January 2005 no funds have been paid back to the Department. This has prompted a review of the efficiency of how funds are used and recycled.