All councils have received a share of the Government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund, which aims to build pride in place and increase life chances. Rochford District Council is inviting grant applications between £10k and £50k to support local projects that benefit the district’s high streets or improve the local culture/heritage offer. The total amount to be distributed through this second round of the Rochford District UKSPF grant scheme will be up to £250k for projects delivered between May 2024 and March 2025. This video explains our requirements and how to fill in the application form. For more information, please visit www.rochford.gov.uk #ukspf
a wide variety of different projects that I’m sure you’re all thinking about um just to say at the beginning one of the reasons for asking questions at the end um is so that people who are watching the recording can just see the sort of the whole information section in one go um but please do note them down or as um as Paula said pop them into the chat and we’ll try and pick them up at the end as well um just just to sort of say for those of you who um were working with UKF uh last year in Watford um you will find some slight changes um to the application form um and certainly to the the budget format um and this time what you will be provided with is a draft in word format as you’ve had previously um but you will be asked then to actually apply online um you can uh you’ll see the link uh you’ll be provided with that um but you will need to cut and paste from your word document whereas your Excel and budget documents will just be uploaded straight away in terms of the presentation today what we’re trying to do is to look not just at UKF funding although that will be an important part of it but what we’re trying to do is to impart some of our experience and knowledge um on how we feel you could most effectively um look at your Grant applications not not just for UKF although we will focus on that today um but sort of more General thinking as well okay thank you Lori we could go to the next slide thanks okay this sounds extremely basic um but it’s it’s the first thing that we would do if we were looking at putting in a bid application really understanding what the funer is asking you um you usually find that there is well there’s usually an application form so that’s that’s good to have a look at that understand the types of questions um often uh there’s additional information provided um in the case of UKF you’ll see there’s a a really quite extensive guidance document that also goes through how you can help fill in some of those um some of the the questions um and in some uh types of funding you may be able to look at how they’re going to be scored or how they’re selected as well so you begin to kind of build up a little bit of a picture of um of the sort of waiting that might come into some of the questions check that you are eligible um different Grant schemes have different requirements um some you might need to be a constituted organization a charity or a business perhaps that might be self-employed a freelancer um but just check what is the requirement some people will only work with Charities um for ukpf all of these are applicable but obviously no individuals apply um you might find that there are criteria around um needing to be a local organization um or deliver within a geographic area certainly for ukbf you have to be delivering in the Rochford area but you’re or organization doesn’t have to be based in Rochford and generally if you’re working with people the expectation would be that you were working with local people so if the project doesn’t quite fit the fund’s aims and you need to think about that can you adapt it so you know that might mean they have particular targets or outputs or other requirements that you hadn’t really thought about and this is a really critical question because if you don’t feel that your project quite fits or you can’t slightly adapt it you have to ask whether it’s the right thing to be spending your time on as well okay Lori next slide so an example for UK SPF think about what it is that you are being asked to deliver so this is the sort of overarching funders requirements you’ve got the intervention E1 which is improvements to town Centers High streets better access accessibility and you can include Capital spend and running costs when you look at um Heritage and culture existing cultural historic and Heritage institutions that make up the local cultur Heritage offer so you have to kind of unpick that a bit and think about what those words mean here you can see that government have provided a little bit of an example of what they’re thinking about when they do this but if your project doesn’t quite fit this can you adapt it if it doesn’t fit it at all should you be applying for the funding so this is kind of my sort of First Step that I would go through if I was thinking about a new project um and a funding stream um all of this information is in the guidance so don’t worry as we flick through um one of the things I would always suggest is that when you’re thinking about your project start with a very rough outline write it down um put down your main ideas but then I would actually leave it and I would actually start looking at some of the other key questions especially thinking about my budget any Targets or outputs that I have to hit or I want to hit and then the timings and then I would probably come back to do the full draft and this is the way that we’ve presented the um project the sort of plan as we go through which is thinking about what are the most important things to work on rather than going through a list of the questions so you’ll see we jump about a little bit but it’s where you need to focus so I’m going to assume that you’ve done all the rest of the work and you’re coming back to think about your project I would think about a couple of sentences at the beginning that clearly set it out what your project is and what it’s going to deliver um I think that gives people reading this a really good idea before they start getting down into the detail it’s fixed in their minds what it is you’re going to do provide some information about your organization maybe key stuff that are going to be involved in delivery and perhaps highlight some of the experience I would tend to try and keep this relatively brief I have to say when we’ve done a lot of um project reviews people are often very comfortable talking about who they are what they’ve done but actually what you’re really wanting to do is to just give people a brief idea of who you are and then really talk about the project that you’re wanting to deliver so just be careful of that um also very important to sort of identify quite early on who you’re actually going to be supporting with your project um are they people that you have contacts with or is it a project that you already have um sort of established links have you got the expertise if you’re looking at working with volunteers or participants how are you going to engage them um what connections have you got in the local area and here you might want to think about the numbers and any outputs that are linked to those as well next slide um my next step in the project description would be think about what you’re going to be doing um I find it incredibly helpful to have the timeline in front of front of me uh or a timeline this can be scribbled on paper this doesn’t have to be terribly sophisticated but I find it’s really useful to just think about what’s going to happen when and also how that links to your budget so if you’ve put down that you’re going to put in um some kind of new equipment and that’s going to happen in February but actually it appears in your budget in December um you’re kind of disconnected so it it looks odd and it makes people feel that you haven’t quite thought through your idea um another question that really helps as you’re thinking about your project is why is this work necessary um some questions have um sorry some applications forms have a separate question around need as UK SPF does um but if not I would add that into the description and really importantly and sort of back to this idea about what the funer wants one of the commonest mistakes that we see in applications is that people think about their own project so you’ve got to you’re passionate you really want to do this locally but actually you’re not just thinking about your own project you need to think about the project the funer is actually wanting you to do and so here this is where this idea about outputs outcomes and targets becomes really quite important um because you might think that an output is helping 50 people the funer might say that actually you have a different kind of output or metric that you need to meet and you need to work that in if you can um one other thing um that comes through in some funding programs it’s something that’s important for UKF is there is a lot of confusion around partnership working um and I just wanted to pick that up here um it’s something that if you are deciding on a formal partnership so that’s where you are both going to be drawing funding from the the grant program um you need to think about this as a contract between you so you would need to have a a contract in place to show how you are going to actually deliver different aspects of the work you would need to put that into your project description if you’re working in informal Partnerships so that you’re you’re working uh through different um networks and different communities that’s fine that’s just part of your um your sort of connections that you have in the local community at the bottom of the form you’ll see the question that will appear on the UK UK SPF application form and um the where it will be delivered is important because it is a requirement of the funding it does need to be within Rochford um and you’ll need to also think in this particular case how it fits with those interventions that we looked at before um you can look at one intervention or you could look at two two starts to get a little bit more complicated when you’re thinking about your project plan and description um but think about how it fits you’ll also see on all the application forms on the word document a maximum imum character count and that’s to make sure that when you upload this to the online form um there are minimum uh sorry maximum set on the online form so this this stops you going over that okay and again Lori thank you I’ll now hand over to senen um who’s just going to look at um the financial side of the application as well thank you um obviously when you’re applying to funding um the main the the really important thing is to make sure that your budget is set and your budget items are eligible so the first thing I would do is list every single expenditures um you will have to cover with the ground um you will need to provide enough details so that you can categorize these expenditures for instance um sometime in budgets we’ve seen someone saying um delivery of uh the workshops this doesn’t give enough details to see where your what Your expenditure is and how much is going to be spent on what so what you would need to do is say for instance I need a member of Staff if this person is employed by your organization to deliver uh 15 hours of workshop at a cost of this much um if it’s not a member of staff and you’re going to request a supply of service it could be an artist it could be um someone was specialized in training then you will say that this is a supply of service um the reason why it’s so important especially on staff and supply of services is because there implications around procurement uh which I will talk about a little bit later um but that’s what I call categorizing your expenditure so it’s to make sure that you say we VAR we VAR a supply of Service Supply of goods or a staff and that you do that by describing your expenditures a little bit more once you’ve done your list of expenditures you will then check your expenditure against the guidance um for instance with ukbf some costs are not eligible uh many of you would have included for instance contingency this is not a cost that is categorized because it’s uh not and it’s not something eligible uh dividends for instance if you’re a business and you draw dividends from the business for your time this is not an eligible cost gifts are not eligible under ukpf hospitality and Catering um when we say hospitality and Catering it doesn’t include Refreshments for volunteers so Refreshments for volunteers are eligible that’s fine not a problem and if you’re um applying for uh I don’t know you you’re in the community you want to deliver a cooking Workshop this doesn’t come under ospitality and Catering it will comment a supply um of the items to be doing the cooking so that would be eligible as well um so doing your list and of expenditures and making sure that you describe as much as you can your expenditures are really important not just for yourself to check this eligible but also for when you apply um the the grand p panel will have a look and the assessors will have a look and see whether Vis cost are eligible and you can get the funding for it um so I’ve already said if you have a staff member for instance you would describe the number of hours at what rate if you are purchasing items I’m I’m going to say for instance two laptops write down that is two laptops at what cost not just the total cost um and this demonstrate that you’ve really fought through your budget um one important part of this application especially under of your applications can be whether your costs are capital or Revenue um it’s important under um these uh UK SPF applications um because obviously there are different um amounts available and you need to be able to put your cost under the right um funding pot um in terms of the capital expenditures these are usually one of costs over 5,000 it can be acquiring something um improving or maintaining fixed assets and it will benefit the organization over a long period of time these expenditures have um to be over 5,000 pound to be classed as um Capital if they are under it will be um considered as Revenue um knowing whether your costs are are what costs they are and how much the cost in total will be very important for procurement which is uh the next slide oh sorry it’s not the next slide but that’s okay we can go through the budget and I go for procurement after um so this is the document you would have to fill in for UK SPF uh in the rro district um here you can see that you’ve got several columns the first one on the left is your expenditures and you can see it’s divided between revenue and capital so this is where you will inser your expenditures with as much detail as you can and if you need more lines on the revenue of course you can add lines the next column is the cost column so that will be your total cost uh for these specific items and on the right hand side you can see that there is a a a procument evidence column so here is just a very simple um a few words to say what will be your process um so we will go through the for the um the the different um I the different procurement processes after but what’s very important is that if you’ve included staff and they are on your payroll of course you can put na the procurement is not it’s not applicable if your costs are under 2500 um you can put for instance uh one quote or direct award if you start going over costs which are more than 2,500 to contract out so it could be a supply of service it could be your going to uh rent a venue um over the the the course of the project and it’s going to cost you £3,000 then on there that’s when you start writing free quotations uh or if it’s over 25,000 pound you will write a full tender process so it’s got to be very on your Excel document it will be a very simple just few words to describe it but it’s very important that you sure you’ve understood the processes you will have to uh put in place so that your expenditures are eligible on the next slide we’re going to go through um a little bit more of the procurement um so you can see here the rules that apply so this is about Public Funding and usually these rules will always be applicable if you’re looking at Public Funding like the way we are for ukbf um so I’m going to just say again so for purchases up to 2004 2499 you can make a direct award so you only need to have one quot one person that said this will cost you this much and you can contract IT contract out and they can invoice you directly for purchases between 2,500 and 24999 you must get request quotes from at least three different suppliers uh the way you will choose your um fa pre preferred supplier is important as well because you would have to give your criteria say Okay I want the cheapest for instance um person or I would like um an organization uh to have you know a relatively good value for money in terms of the price but I also want them to have experience u in the area so you set your criteria and then you choose your preferred supplier um and then once you start having uh purchases of services or Goods over 25,000 this is when you really need to undertake a tender and we would suggest that you look at at um the guidance here um on the um UK SPF guidance because you will have to follow a specific process and publish your tender on contract finder these are mandatory steps um so you will need to keep your evidence for you to understand a little bit more about the process in terms of expenditures um I’ve got an example so for instance um if across your project you your project is for year in May 2024 you need a graphic designer you’re going to spend a th pound with them and you know you will need a graphic designer again and you will spend 2,000 pound in August you can’t do two direct Awards you have to add these expenditures together so that means that 1,000 plus 2,000 pound will be 3,000 pound worth of graphic designer costs um and you’re going to use you’re planning on using the same graphic designer for the project therefore you should request the free quotation the quotations from three different businesses at the start of your project you can’t split the contract to make it work for yourself because you know you’ll be spend spending £3,000 over the course of the project and that’s true for everything I’ll just give you a free f um an example of a graphic designer because it’s easy to split but it will be true if you do training it’ll be true if you ask someone to do workshops um or you know a venue you’re going to use for the whole part of your project it’s not about the cost of hiring the venue for once it’s it’s over the course of your project are you going to spend more than 2,500 pound and as I said before you will need to request um you will need to keep evidence of the process undertaken so that just in case the funer requests to see the evidence um when I explain this it may seem difficult but actually it’s not very difficult as long as you’ve understood the process is actually most of your project will be in the brackets of under 25,000 pound costs um unless you’re doing a big Capital spend and in that case you would have to go through the contract finder um process but also the council can provide some advice um as well and work with you when you send us your Draft application to have a look at we will review this question and we will provide feedback and help you in terms of identifying you know if you’ve missed one expenditure that should be under the three quotes we will tell you um this is also on the Excel spreadsheet uh this is your timeline so as you’re doing your your your budget I would suggest you do your timeline as well because it really helps you to identify the steps in your project um this is where you will um explain what you’re going to deliver when and um for instance you will ask um okay if I need a new member of Staff when am I going to start a recoupment process you know sometimes it can take a month or two uh what are my key spend activities such as events um the recruitment of volunteers when I’m going to report uh for the expenditures as well and when am I going to achieve my outputs and targets so it’s really to help you out in understanding when you’re going to spend what and what you when you’re going to deliver what so in this you will for instance put as you can see in the example you put recruitment of the workshop facilitator and you will take the box or color the box to say when that’s going to happen if you’ve got specific dates on and you already know when your events are going to be um implemented then you could put okay 15th of June you will go in the June month and you put 15th um it’s very rare we get uh timelines that are V detailed but it’s always very good to see because it shows ready you are to spend the funding um this is not something that you get in every application you will get it in the ukpf funding it’s not in every appc ground program you can apply to but it is a useful and simple tool tool to use for your project management and to develop your budget so it could be something you decide to do for every application you apply for okay you’re on mute yes I’ve just realized sorry okay so um again something that doesn’t appear in um every application form but certainly um we will see this in the UKF one is what is the need um now this is a really important question when people are uh reviewing applications it’s showing that this is not just something that you are passionate about and want to do but it’s something that is actually needed by the community in which you’re working um it could also be that the funer is looking to um to show that you meet the needs um of of other sort of wider strategic programs as well um Lori do you mind just clicking on the next two clicks for me thanks okay so this brings up the two questions that you’ll find in the UK SP application form so one is about the needs um of of meeting sort of health and well-being as part of your application whatever that is within the district and the other one is how do you know the community need or want this project for very large organizations it may well be that they’ve actually commissioned research they might have survey data it’s quite unusual um for most applicants it’s going to be about um perhaps small surveys and that might be people that they are working with already um it could be asking them those questions it could be providing quotes from local people who’ve been engaged in similar things or thing or see it as a gap and a problem that’s something that’s missing it’s it’s actually trying to um build all that sort of evidence um it could be um examples of similar projects that you’ve worked on perhaps outside the area and the kind of impact they’ve had have you tested your idea with the community or maybe even run a pilot so think about how you can demonstrate that there is a need for this and that you can meet the needs of uh the local authorities requirements as well next slide please um many funders have some kind of Target or outcome that they’re trying to achieve with their funding uh the Arts Council uh might be wanting to see audience members or participants there are different things that different funders different charitable trusts are looking for um it may well be that an outcome can be a number or it could even be in some cases as simple as a case study and we have seen examples of that in in small charitable trust work but what we have to accept is that for government funded grants um there is an increasing requirement for what is called outputs and outcomes um we’ve seen this through several programs now and it’s very much linked to their evaluation um program that they do around their funding and they’re trying to work out what’s working well and and what is good value for money so for UKF there are outputs and outcomes and these are one of the areas that people find most difficult to deal with when they’re making their applications um and I know we’ve talked to a lot of people um in the last few months about these uh next slide please Lori okay for people who have um worked uh before on on the program you will have seen this slide uh next two clicks please Lori thank you um the top section are the outputs and the Bott bottom ones are the outcomes um and as Paula said to meet the requirements for the UKF funding you need to actually meet one outcome and one output from whichever intervention you select now if you select two interventions you will need to do that for each of the interventions that’s a minimum um some people uh feel that their projects can can meet more than that and um you know some have actually looked at nearly all of them so a minimum of one output and one outcome now that can be quite challenging when you’re thinking about your project and this is probably the area that is most difficult to um align for some people with their project idea it is very much part of the panel and the scoring review um and this would obviously be something that would have to be met so if we could go on to the next slide please when you look at your application form this is what you will see um uh here for intervention E1 you can see that there are two outputs and four outcomes that you can select from and you will need to provide a number um against any one of these uh one output one outcome or more and importantly you need to give us a little bit of an idea as to how you’re going to collect the data and evidence it now for a series um perhaps um let me just have a look at a decarbonization plan developed um you might just say copies of decarbonization plan simple as that um uh jobs created again this might be something that you have uh some kind of written evidence for um but you will need to be able to evidence it um as part of your reporting uh next slide please um if we look at intervent in E4 there are three outputs and three outcomes that you can select from and again exactly the same as before you need to put in numbers and you need to provide the evidence now one thing that you really need to think about for UKF and these outputs and outcomes is that government has very specific definitions of what these actually mean and I absolutely suggest that you look into the guidance that’s being provided by Rochford and you will find a link to the definitions of the outputs and outcomes and I really strongly recommend that you look at these um because some of these may not be quite uh you might not interpret them in quite the same way as as government does um so you do need to look at that okay um but again something really to get your head around quite early on um don’t leave this to the end and then see if you can add them in you need to weave this into your project description it needs to make it uh work all the way through okay just um conscious of time just picking up on a few of the sort of other questions that you will see um so again on the application form um you’re going to be asked to talk about your quality and diversity and your work and funding um here just really taking a sort of three-point plan approach um that I think is quite helpful I would always think about this in three ways about your organization how you shaped the project um to support quality and diversity and is it something that you’ll be communicating to participants now not all projects fit within that sort of that sort of method you might be doing a major Capital work but it’s thinking about it it’s setting the scene for your own ethos and then how you’ve thought about it within the project next slide please um sustainability Net Zero and climate change is another one of the questions you’ll see on the UK SPF form and increasingly on other application forms as well these are very much crosscutting themes that government and and many other organizations are now wanting to um to support again I think a three step step approach can be useful so organization what are you doing um you might be cutting emissions from your building um you might be thinking about your staff and staff travel um there are other areas that people are working on uh perhaps more in the sustainability area such as recycling up upcycling reusing and so on um and the idea again is to just build that ethos behind you as an organization how have you shaped the project um we’ve seen some fantastic examples um in the creative sector where people have really thought about the types of materials they’re using um upcycling they they’re sort of building their sustainability ideas um into the program based in a park looking at cycling looking at active travel to come to them very centrally based again um is it something you’re going to communicate to participants again uh something not only from creative projects but we’ve seen climate change coming through as part of the design and and creativity work that participants have been involved in but we’ve also seen some very um very uh exciting work through some uh organizations who are providing volunteer and caring support um where they’ve actually been linking through to things like fuel poverty and energy bill reduction support so you know really trying to build this into some of the delivery as well next slide please um reporting um in some shape or form most funders want some sort of report um and again this is something that I just try and flick through and think in my mind at the beginning what is it they’re going to want um some people want something at the end of the program um you know Arts Council again look at um an end of project activity report and they want to see how the money has been spent and what you’ve achieved with it it in some shape or form uh you just need to make sure you’ve built that into your project I would suggest um for UKF and other projects you need to think about the role who’s going to actually be responsible for this you might have a team helping but who’s actually going to be the one who’s responsible and that you don’t have to name it can be a role um who’s they’re going to manage the reporting so they’re going to be thinking about making sure the evidence is is fine filed it’s collected it’s filed the finances are being kept up to date the procurement information is stuck in a folder all this kind of stuff that can then be drawn out and provided um for the reporting for ukpf the quart reporting is quarterly um it is not particularly onerous um government have got a fairly light touch but you will need to to have the information available okay um next one please okay um just really to pick up on on something that is not seen in all applications um it’s something that’s quite useful for you to think about and many of you actually do anyway um but is risk um risk assessment risk um and mitigation um it is in the UK SPF form um it’s becoming increasingly so in public of public grants um I find it really helpful to think about the risks um in the wider project sense as well as directly um so this might be the risks for the ukpf would you meet the outputs and outcomes what happens if you don’t get the procurement right could there be a problem of clawback that kind of thing and um or it could be that you need to have DBS checks in place because you’re working with very young people you know just think about what are the key risks um uh as someone who’s assessed Grant applications I have to say some of the easiest to read or where someone puts risk what it is mitigation what they’re going to do about it it’s very easy to read it’s quick to see um and it shows that you’ve thought those through most people are looking for three or four major risks they’re not looking for an enormous risk assessment document so it’s just picking those out next slide please okay and just um just sort of picking up on on something that’s important in all of this grant funding especially Public Funding is Legacy also sometimes described as project sustainability um there are some projects that are very much task and finish um and there may not be um a direct ongoing Legacy but in that case what is the impact of that project so the Legacy still continues to have an effect within the community for other projects it might be something that you’re looking at continuing on um perhaps it’s volunteering or Community project how are you going to continue that afterwards after you’ve got all this excitement enthusiasm you’ve got the volunteers in place what’s your idea for how that’s going to continue do you have to look for more funding or are the volunteers themselves the ones who are going to continue on and provide the Legacy um so again just just to help you as you’re thinking that through we’ve suggested three kind of areas sustainability of project how um what is the Legacy for the beneficiaries and the kind of General impact Legacy so again it might be points that you can kind of think around that help you structure the answer um to that question as well um I should say and I should have said at the beginning but I will say at the end here um the idea behind um your the application process uh this this year is that you would send uh in draft applications so this is written in Word documents and on the Excel budget and timeline sheet and you would then be able to um uh book calls uh with senen myself for about an hour’s worth of guidance um after we’ve had a chance to have a look at your your draft forms um so that is something that we’ll also be able to offer um through this grant program as well thank you very much Lori um okay and just getting sort of onto that final application stage so you’ve done all this work you’ve got it pulled together you you’ve um we’ve had a discussion um you’ve gone back if you felt you needed to make any changes um I just wanted to pick up on it on a piece at the end which has caused a little bit of confusion um when you actually go to do your online application and put all of the documents on you can add quite a lot of document uh to documents to that you’ll need to add on your um uh budget Milestone spreadsheet that needs to be uploaded if you have any evidence in terms of quotes notes or links they need to be added on um and you may uh you’ll need to upload your public liability insurance certificate and then if you’re working with vulnerable people you’re safeguarding policy if you are not a registered charity or a registered uh business um you will have to put in your organization’s Constitution or terms of reference would need to be uploaded as well so this is the sort of final stage of the UKF application um if there’s anything else you want to add um you can do that too um and I just wanted to pick that up because some people had not quite um spotted some of those things when they’d been looking at the draft form okay I think that’s that’s us done so hopefully that’s been helpful um and um I know we’ll stop recording in a minute and then uh very happy to take questions