Guidance

Annex A: grant conditions

Published 23 March 2021

Applies to England

1) In this annex:

• “the Project” means the commissioning of behavioural (tier 2) weight management services for adults.

• “the department” means the Department of Health and Social Care.

• “the authority” means an upper tier or unitary local authority identified in the Appendix A. “Upper tier and unitary local authorities” means a county council in England; a district council in England, other than a council for a district in a county for which there is a county council; a London borough council, the Council of the Isles of Scilly; and the Common Council of the City of London.

• “the Secretary of State” means the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Prevention, Public Health, and Primary Care.

• “PHE” means Public Health England or any relevant successor body.

• “behavioural (tier 2) weight management services for adults” means multi-component programmes addressing dietary intake, physical activity, and behaviour change for adults who are overweight or living with obesity with the primary aim of promoting health behaviour change, which reduces body weight.

2) Grant will only be paid to the authority to support eligible expenditure.

Eligible expenditure

3) Eligible expenditure means payments made by the authority or any person acting on behalf of the authority, between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022, for the purposes of the Project. Expenditure beyond 31 March 2022 may only be eligible with the express permission of the department. Eligible expenditure may include expenditure associated with setting up individual projects at scale, such as delivering referrals, up to a value of 10% of the authority’s spending on the project.

4) Eligible expenditure must be newly incurred expenditure by the authority. It does not include expenditure that has already been incurred before 1 April 2021 or that has already been earmarked or allocated by the local authority from existing budgets. It does not also include expenditure on activities which do not support the purposes of the project.

5) If the authority incurs any of the following costs, they must be excluded from eligible expenditure:

• a) contributions in kind

• b) payments for activities of a political or exclusively religious nature

• c) depreciation, amortisation or impairment of fixed assets owned by the authority

• d) input VAT reclaimable by the authority from HM Revenue and Customs

• e) interest payments or service charge payments for finance leases

• f) gifts, other than promotional items with a value of no more than £10 in a year to any one person

• g) entertaining (entertaining for this purpose means anything that would be a taxable benefit to the person being entertained, according to current UK tax regulations)

• h) statutory fines, criminal fines or penalties

6) The authority must not deliberately incur liabilities for eligible expenditure before there is an operational need for it to do so.

7) For the purpose of defining the time of payments, a payment is made by the authority when money passes out of its control (or out of the control of any person acting on behalf of the authority). Money will be assumed to have passed out of such control at the moment when legal tender is passed to a supplier (or, if wages, to an employee), when a letter is posted to a supplier or employee containing a cheque, or an electronic instruction is sent to a bank to make a payment to a supplier or employee by direct credit or bank transfer.

Payment arrangements

8) The grant will be paid in quarterly instalments according to the profile of cash need agreed by the department and attached at Annex B. Local authority public health leads should notify their finance teams of this funding.

9) If at any time the authority becomes aware that the above profile no longer reflects the pattern of eligible expenditure during the year, the authority must inform the department as soon as possible.

Statement of grant usage

10) The authority must prepare a ‘statement of grant usage’ for the period 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022 to be submitted to PHE on or before 30 June 2022. The statement of grant usage must be in a form agreed between the authority and PHE and must provide details of eligible expenditure in the period. The statement of grant usage must be certified by the authority’s chief executive that, to the best of his or her knowledge, the amounts shown on the Statement are all eligible expenditure and that the grant has been used for the purposes intended.

11) The statement of grant usage submitted to PHE must be accompanied by a report from the authority’s chief executive or chief finance officer setting out whether he or she has received an audit opinion from the authority ’s chief internal auditor that he can provide reasonable assurance that the statement of grant usage, in all material respects, fairly presents the eligible expenditure in the period 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022 in accordance with the definitions and conditions in this determination (see template at Annex C).

12) The authority must inform the department promptly of any significant financial control issues raised by its internal auditors.

13) If the statement of grant usage identifies any overpayment of grant, the authority must repay this amount within 30 days of being asked by the department.

14) The Secretary of State may at any time require a further external validation to be carried out by an appropriately qualified independent accountant or auditor, on the use of the grant.

Progress reporting

15) The authority must write to PHE within 30 calendar days from the date of receiving the grant confirming whether they wish to accept or reject the funding.

16) The authority must prepare a progress report at six monthly intervals or at such other intervals as may be specified by PHE, to be submitted to PHE by a date to be specified by PHE. The report must provide details of eligible expenditure incurred to date and progress against the anticipated budget.

Data collection

17) The authority must provide data on weight management service provision as may be specified by PHE, to be submitted to PHE at the end of month one and month twelve from the date of receiving the grant or at such intervals as may be specified by PHE.

18) The authority must also ensure that providers of the project are required to collect, monitor, and provide a minimum data set of anonymised service user level data as may be specified by PHE, to be submitted to PHE on a monthly basis. The minimum data set template will be based on an adapted version of PHE’s tool to collect and record adult weight management service minimum data set. This will allow PHE to monitor related activity and outcomes.

Financial management

19) The authority must maintain a sound system of internal financial controls.

20) If the authority has any grounds for suspecting financial irregularity in the use of any grant paid under this funding agreement, it must notify the department immediately, explain what steps are being taken to investigate the suspicion and keep the department informed about the progress of the investigation. For these purposes “financial irregularity” includes fraud or other impropriety, mismanagement, and the use of grant for purposes other than those for which it was provided.

Records to be kept

21) The authority must maintain reliable, accessible and up to date accounting records with an adequate audit trail for all expenditure funded by grant monies under this determination.

22) The authority and any person acting on behalf of the authority must allow:

• a) the Comptroller and Auditor General or appointed representatives, and

• b) the Secretary of State or appointed representatives

free access at all reasonable times to all documents (including computerised documents and data) and other information as are connected to the grant payable under this determination, or to the purposes for which grant was used, subject to the provisions in paragraph 23.

23) The documents, data and information referred to in paragraph 21 are such which the Secretary of State or the Comptroller and Auditor General may reasonably require for the purposes of his financial audit or any department or other public body or for carrying out examinations into the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which any department or other public body has used its resources. The authority must provide such further explanations as are reasonably required for these purposes.

24) Paragraphs 21 and 22 do not constitute a requirement for the examination, certification or inspection of the accounts of the authority by the Comptroller and Auditor General under section 6(3) of the National Audit Act 1983. The Comptroller and Auditor General will seek access in a measured manner to minimise any burden on the authority and will avoid duplication of effort by seeking and sharing information with the Audit Commission.

Breach of conditions and recovery of grant

25) If the authority fails to comply with any of these conditions, or if any overpayment is made under this grant or any amount is paid in error, or if any of the events set out in paragraph 26 occurs, the Secretary of State may reduce, suspend or withhold grant payments or require the repayment of the whole or any part of the grant monies paid, as may be determined by the Secretary of State and notified in writing to the authority. Such sum as has been notified will immediately become repayable to the Secretary of State who may set off the sum against any future amount due to the authority from central government.

26) The events referred to in paragraph 25 are:

• a) the authority purports to transfer or assign any rights, interests or obligations arising under this determination without the prior agreement of the Secretary of State

• b) any information provided in any application for grant monies payable under this determination, or in any subsequent supporting correspondence is found to be significantly incorrect or incomplete in the opinion of the Secretary of State

• c) it appears to the Secretary of State that other circumstances have arisen or events have occurred that are likely to significantly affect the authority’s ability to achieve the outputs, activities, milestones and targets set out in the bid

• d) the authority ’s chief internal auditor is unable to provide reasonable assurance that the statement of grant usage, in all material respects, fairly presents the eligible expenditure in the period 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022 in accordance with the definitions and conditions in this determination.