Form

Tampon Tax FAQs

Updated 21 May 2020

This form was withdrawn on 29 August 2024

Funding round completed.

Questions and Terms

Who is running the fund?

The Office for Civil Society, which is part of the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will run and manage the fund.

Who can apply to the fund?

This fund is open to individual, and consortias of, charitable, benevolent and philanthropic organisations from across the United Kingdom, that propose clear projects that fit the criteria for the relevant category of funding.

How much funding will be given?

We will consider applications for £1 million or more. We can not fund capital projects or items of capital expenditure which exceed the lead organisation’s capital de minimis.

The amount of grant a grant recipient, or consortia, receives per financial year should not exceed 50% of that financial year’s annual collective turnover/income. As an example: if an organisation (or consortia) applied for a £1 million grant to be received in an equal split over two financial years (i.e. £500k per annum), the collective annual turnover needs to be £1m or more in order that the grant is not more than 50% of the annual turnover/income.

If applicable, we may seek to adjust this figure based on income of the parent organisation.

We will fund up until 30th June 2022. Applicants will be informed whether or not they have been successful in Summer 2020. Although exact timing will vary on a case-by-case basis, we expect individual grant agreements will be finalised with successful applicants in Summer 2020. Projects may start at risk from the date they are directly informed by DCMS that the application has been successful. Expenditure incurred prior to this date cannot be claimed.

If the project will provide onward grants (made on the basis of open competition), you will need to detail how much funding will be used for this purpose and clearly outline in your budget breakdown how much funding will be allocated to project management, services to support recipients of the onward grants, other project activities, etc. It should be noted that if providing onwards grants forms a predominant element of your project, we will provide no more than 6% towards project management costs.

If the Tampon Tax fund will leverage additional resources for the project, please outline any match funding which you have secured.

Geographical reach of proposed projects

The Tampon Tax Fund is a United Kingdom-wide fund.

DCMS will ensure a fair distribution of funding reaches beneficiaries in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. As such, we are seeking to award funds to a range of organisations that collectively support the whole of the United Kingdom.

Individual organisations do not need to have a national remit but must demonstrate how proposed activities will be delivered across a number of regions or, where possible, more than one of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Additionally, all applicants must demonstrate that they have planned how lessons learnt from the funded work will be disseminated through relevant networks. If the work addresses issues specific to one of the four United Kingdom nations lessons learned or insights should be applicable elsewhere.

Please note: successful applications which support more than one devolved administration may be required to sign grant offer letters with each of the relevant devolved administrations (e.g. if your project offers activities in England and Wales, you may need to sign an agreement with DCMS and the Welsh Government).

How many categories can you apply for?

You can apply under one main category, either violence against women and girls, young women’s mental health and wellbeing or the general programme. If you select the general programme category, you can then select one or more of the sub-themes.

If your project addresses more than one of the main categories you should consider the main focus of your project and select the category most relevant to this.

How many grants can you apply for?

If you would like us to consider more than one project, you are welcome to submit more than one application. You must submit a separate, stand-alone application for each project.

User involvement

All applicants will have to demonstrate how user involvement is built into their work. This means that the users (or potential users) of a service or project must be involved in an appropriate way at all stages. The aim should be to give women and girls more choice and control, both individually and collectively and to ensure that the organisation working with them operates in a way that best meets their needs.

Equal opportunities and diversity

All applicants will be expected to show how their project activities are inclusive and operate within an equal opportunities and diversity framework.

Safeguarding

DCMS is committed to protecting people from harm. All applicants must include a copy of their safeguarding policy, along with a statement detailing how you (the applicant) are assured that it has effective and appropriate safeguarding procedures that protect employees, beneficiaries or volunteers from harm, and that explains how any concerns and incidents are managed. DCMS has developed resources to assist organisations with safeguarding policy which you may find useful, please see here. Further useful guidance can be found from NCVO Knowhow here.

Payment model

All applicants will be expected to clearly set out a proposal for how much funding will be drawn down in each financial quarter and therefore in each financial year. You will need to support this with a detailed budget breakdown. Your drawdown requests and budget must fit the DCMS financial year. This grant fund will straddle three financial years.

Please note: The DCMS financial year runs 1st April to 31st March.

If your application is successful, your formal grant offer letter will set out the total amount of grant we will pay in each financial year.

Payments will be made quarterly and in arrears. You will need to provide a breakdown of actual, eligible expenditure in order to make a claim. We will only pay out the amount you can evidence as spent.

Variations between proposed drawdown amounts and actual drawdown requests across quarters of the same financial year will be accepted, with explanation and justification. However, we will not be able to vary funds across financial years. Any funds not drawdown by the end of the financial year will become unavailable.

DCMS makes payments in arrears and only pay in advance by exception. If you wish to be paid in advance, you will be asked to explain and justify your reasons in your application, this includes ensuring that your request fits with one or more of the ‘payment in advance’ criteria outlined in the form. Your request will be considered as part of the assessment process. If your application and request to be paid in advance are approved, you will be expected to provide quarterly reconciliation details for the duration of your project detailing any underspend against funds received. You will be required to reconcile any underspend before further funding is released. You will also be required to complete a formal Financial Reconciliation Statement (FRS) form at the end of each financial year.

Whether paid in arrears or in advance, you must be able to transparently report on a quarterly basis and provide evidence of expenditure on the use of Tampon Tax Funds. Tampon Tax Funds must be shown as restricted funds in your accounts and you must be able to identify separately the value and purpose of the grant in your audited accounts. You will be asked to describe the financial management systems and processes you will put in place to ensure you can achieve this in your application.

Monitoring, evaluation and learning

We are committed to ensuring that funded work is appropriately monitored and evaluated and that lessons learnt and examples of good practice are made widely available; evaluation and sharing of good practice should be built into every application.

Applicants will be expected to list anticipated outputs and outcomes and to explain the data collection and monitoring systems that will be put in place to enable these to be evidenced and for projects to be properly evaluated.

Applicants must also demonstrate how lessons learnt from the funded work will be disseminated through relevant networks.

Risk Management and Assurance Approach

This year, we require applicants to set out their approach to managing the risk related to delivery of the grant activities and outputs by sending us your Risk Register and a document setting out your approach to risk management. This should set out how your organisation has assessed and captured risks, the consequences of these risks and the likelihood and impact of each risk.

You should also explain how each risk is mitigated and how often risks are reviewed. Please also explain how you will obtain assurance that actions to mitigate these risks are effective, as well as other assurances that basic controls are effective. This information will not be assessed as part of your application, but will be considered as part of the DCMS due diligence process, should your application be shortlisted. (We will also ask to see a copy of the risk register, and fraud risk assessment that you will maintain if you are awarded the grant to give us confidence that risks are being managed).

Exclusions

We will not fund:

• academic research - We will not fund academic or desk-based research projects. However, applications for action research, including pilot projects to test new ideas, are welcomed (please note: funding for any follow-on work is not guaranteed)
• appeals
• arts - unless projects demonstrate significant benefit in terms of social inclusion
• campaigning and awareness raising
• capital projects - we can not fund capital projects or items of capital expenditure which exceed the lead organisation’s capital de minimis
• continuation of projects already in receipt of Tampon Tax Funds - there is no automatic guarantee of continuation funding from the Tampon Tax Fund. Applications will be considered for projects that are genuine new developments of previously funded projects provided there are new outcomes and there is a proven need for the proposed service. Any new applications will be processed through the competitive application process;
• core costs - other than for those that can be evidenced as directly related to the project outlined in the application
• debts or loans
• fees for professional fundraisers
• individuals
• organisations that are mainly fundraising bodies
• party political organisations
• projects outside our funding priorities
• promotion of religious beliefs
• rapid response to emergency situations
• retrospective funding
• schools, colleges and hospitals
• services run by statutory or public authorities - we will not support work that is a statutory duty. However, we welcome applications for projects working in partnership with statutory organisations and those involving both the voluntary and public sectors, provided they are led by a voluntary organisation
• vehicles
• advocacy and lobbying

The purpose of the Tampon Tax Fund is to allocate the funds generated from the VAT on sanitary products to front line projects that directly improve the lives of disadvantaged women and girls. The Fund’s purpose is not awareness-raising or campaigning.

Successful applicants can use Tampon Tax Funding to promote their project to potential beneficiaries, and to organisations and individuals which may refer beneficiaries to the project, i.e. successful applicants may raise awareness of the project and the services provided by that project.

As part of a funded project, Tampon Tax funds may be used to provide vulnerable and disadvantaged women with one to one support, including advocacy to access services, for example by attending sessions with her to help her to ensure she can clearly express her needs.

However, the following can not be funded by the Tampon Tax Fund: activity intended to influence or attempt to influence Parliament, government or political parties, or attempting to influence the awarding or renewal of contracts and grants, or attempting to influence legislative or regulatory action.