While the UK was a member of the European Union, the coverage and schemes were regulated as part of the EU's regional policy.
The assisted areas of Great Britain are based upon a map drawn up and agreed with the European Commission in October 2006.
Under new EU guidelines, the proportion of the UK population covered by Assisted Areas has been reduced from 30.9% in the period from 2000 to 2006, to 23.9%.
[3] The basis of the map is to provide Tier 1 and Tier 2 areas for Regional Selective Assistance grants (RSA), recently re-titled as Selective Finance for Investment in the English Regions (SFI), but remaining as RSA in Wales and Scotland, and additionally large areas of the UK, where a lower level of grant aid can also be made available to small and medium-sized enterprises.
Responsibility for delivery of the schemes in England is mainly from 1 April that of the regional development agencies for RSA grants, whilst the Small Business Service handles both EGS and SMART, although larger RSA applications still have a direct involvement in the decision taking process by the DTI (over £2M).