HEREFORDSHIRE Council has agreed to be the accountable body for public funding allocated to the county's new university during its establishment phase.

Funding of up to £15million for the NMiTE (New Model in Technology and Engineering) project from the Department for Education (DfE) was announced in October last year.

The project is also due to receive further funding of £8million through the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

The recommendation before cabinet members was for the council to act as the accountable body for the DfE funding announced and a project accountable body role in support of the Marches LEP funding.

Councillor Nigel Shaw said: "There are two sums of money being given to NMiTE. We are being asked to be the accountable body for the £15million.

"We will also be the accountable body for the project but not for the £8million from the DCLG."

Accountable body status means the council will be accountable for funding allocated to the university project by central government.

It will involve receiving money from the government and ensuring the funds are allocated and spent in accordance with any specified conditions.

However, there were calls to ensure members of the public were made fully aware of what was being agreed to – and what was not.

Councillor Anthony Powers said it was important to make it clear that the council's accountability and responsibility was for the public funding element of the scheme – and not for any further private funding.

He said: "It's not the easiest thing for a lay person to understand what this entails and with the inevitable suspicion of the council being involved with any project of this scale I think there's a communication job to be done following this meeting."

Councillor Tony Johnson, leader of the council, added: "To a lay person it would be easy to assume we have some form of accountability for everything to do with the university which isn't the case as we know.

"That's not necessarily clear to others and one of our jobs is to make sure that we make it clear that it is the initial part we are the accountable body for, not the remaining funding of the university."