Dear Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy,

According to the Contracts Finder website, Technopolis Ltd received a Letter of Appointment dated 23 March 2021 to "conduct a process and impact evaluation of the University Enterprise Zone (UEZ) pilot to determine the effectiveness of the UEZs in increasing the commercialisation of high-tech innovation in a local area."[1]

Although the Final report is not due until 2024, the Letter states that "Monitoring of the UEZs will take place each year, beginning 2021, and will be reported in the annual report."

Under the Freedom of Information Act, please may I have:

(1) A copy of the Pre-fieldwork paper stating the project plan for this research submitted by Technopolis

(2) A copy of the annual report for 2021 concerning these UEZs.

(3) Any correspondence with the Liverpool universities concerning a review of the use of the now vacant Sensor City building.

Background Information

The Universities of Liverpool and LJMU submitted their UEZ application form to build Sensor City in 2014. This form contained no evidence for a demand for its services or a market failure that needed to be addressed.[2] Having received the grant, the building was constructed in 2017 within a budget of approximately £11million.

In May 2019 the University of Liverpool Council minutes report that "the original income targets had been optimistic" along with a "proposal to undertake a full review of the future use of the Sensor City building... noting the need for a joined up approach in communications with BEIS."[3]

Finally in March 2022 Sensor City Liverpool Limited released its Annual report and financial statements 31 July 2021 and disclosed that: "As of 15 October 2021 all Sensor City Liverpool Limited employees were made redundant, as previously discussed at an Emergency Board meeting of 17 August 2021."

The reason I would like the earliest possible report is that it shouldn't be necessary to wait two more years for an official confirmation that this project is a failure so that lessons can be learned in time to inform the current round of innovation funding.

[1] CR20101 - University Enterprise Zone: Final and process evaluation
https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov....

[2] https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/u...

[3] Meeting of the Council minutes 22 May 2019, Section 3.5
https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/media/livacu...

Yours faithfully,

Julian Todd

Dear FOI Requests,

Thank you for your reply on 18 May 2022 refusing my request for information concerning the impact evaluation of the University Enterprise Zones.

You have applied a blanket Section 43(2) on all three parts of my request that is wholly unjustified and unreasonable.

There can no expectations of confidentiality associated with most of this information as it is gathered with the express intention of eventually compiling it into a public report.

Part (1) of my request is not commercially confidential as any published report will implicitly reveal the Technopolis Ltd's project plan and will make no difference to their commercial business owing to the fact that they have already won the contract and are being paid.

There is no indication whatsoever in the Letter of Appointment that the annual reports mentioned in Part (2) of my request are going to contain anything more commercially sensitive than what is presented in the final report. Even if it contained any sensitive information, you can redact just those parts and release the remainder.

And Part (3) is about communications from one public body (a university) to your department about a now-defunct operation whose commercial plan was a failure. If there are any commercial interests to respect it is of those local businesses who have had to compete with this heavily state subsidized outfit for the last six years who have a right to know if this is going to happen all over again in the absence of any lessons being learnt.

Please pass this on to the person who can deals with the internal review and who can release the information I have requested.

Yours sincerely,

Julian Todd

Dear FOI Requests,

Do you have an estimate of when I can expect a response to this request for an internal review?

For extra context, the partner in charge, LJMU, has confirmed they have no plans to commission the report into lessons learned that was requested by the Governors in the Finance Committee last year.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/s...
This means that BEIS is now the only organization that is compiling results from this UEZ policy experiment, which seems to involve constructing new empty office space at vast expense without checking if it's actually wanted by the people whom it is intended for.

Yours sincerely,

Julian Todd