Guidance

Youth Worker Bursary Fund 2021 - 2022: Guidance for Applicants

Updated 21 December 2021

Applies to England

1. Introduction

The purpose of the Youth Worker Bursary Fund is to provide financial assistance to those undertaking approved qualifications in Youth Work, by providing bursaries to those individuals.

This guide introduces the Youth Worker Bursary Fund and provides details of how to apply.

This funding round is inviting charitable, benevolent and philanthropic organisations from across England to bid into the fund; the key criteria can be found below:

• Applications should be for £700,000
• Applicants should be able to demonstrate that they can deliver impact across multiple regions in England
• Bursaries must be allocated to students undertaking either of the following approved qualifications:
  • Level 2 qualifications in Youth Work Principles (tuition fees)
  • Level 3 qualifications in Youth Work Practice (tuition fees)
• Applicants should be able to demonstrate how they will ensure that bursaries will be provided to individuals who would otherwise experience financial difficulties in accessing Youth Worker qualifications (e.g. bursaries should not be provided to individuals whose workplace would ordinarily pay for their Youth Worker qualifications)
• Applicants must be able to draw down and commit all bursaries to students by 31st March 2022

Notes:

• this fund is open to charitable, benevolent and philanthropic organisations from across England
• all funds must be spent by 31 March 2022
• the value of the grant requested must not represent more than 50% of the applicant organisation’s, or consortia collective, annual income for the financial year
• where applicable, bids must include details of arrangements for safeguarding children and vulnerable adults as part of their planned activities

Successful applicants will be informed in January 2022. We expect the grant agreement will be finalised with the successful applicant in January 2022. Exact timing may vary.

Application details:

• the deadline for applications is midday on Friday, 7 January 2022;
• all applicants should answer all questions on the application form;
• completed applications should be submitted via simran.kalsi@dcms.gov.uk;
• all applications received by the closing date will be assessed following the closing date;
• any applications received after the closing date will not be assessed;
• all available information and guidance relating to this round of funding is contained within this document and the application form;
• as the application process is competitive, we are not able to answer individual questions or respond to requests for support in completing the application.

2. Criteria for funding

Overall, the Youth Worker Bursary Fund aims to support people who would otherwise not be able to access funded placements, to undertake Level 2 and Level 3 qualifications in Youth Work in England.

All applications will be assessed against the following criteria:

• Ability to Deliver: Applications must demonstrate the organisation’s capability and capacity to deliver the project, including through evidence of sufficient specialist expertise as well as through outlining a clear project plan;
• Evaluation: Applications must provide plans for robust evaluation of the project, including the level and number of outputs and outcomes to be measured;
• Partnership: We are particularly interested in proposals that involve partnership working. Please note: where applications are made by a consortia evidence of partnership arrangements must be provided.

3. Guidance for Applicants

3.1 Who is running the fund?

The Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)’s Civil Society and Youth Directorate will run and manage the fund.

3.2 Who can apply to the fund?

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

3.3 How much funding will be given?

We will consider applications for £700,000. We can not fund capital projects or items of capital expenditure which exceeds 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 £700,000 grant, the collective annual turnover needs to be £1,400,000 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.

All funding must be drawn down and committed to students by 31st March 2022. Applicants will be informed whether or not they have been successful in January 2022. Although exact timing may vary, we expect the grant agreement will be finalised with the successful applicant in January 2022. 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.

3.4 Geographical reach of proposed projects

The Youth Worker Bursary Fund is an England wide fund.

Applicant organisations do not need to have a national remit but must demonstrate how proposed activities will be delivered across England.

3.5 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.

3.6 Safeguarding

DCMS is committed to protecting people from harm. All applicants must include a copy of their safeguarding policy, along with a statement that confirms the applicant has effective and appropriate safeguarding procedures that protect employees, beneficiaries or volunteers from harm, and that explains how any concerns and incidents are managed.

3.7 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. You will need to support this with a detailed budget breakdown. Your drawdown requests and budget must fit the DCMS financial year.

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

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 drawn down by the end of the financial year will become unavailable.

DCMS makes payments in arrears and only pays 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 application 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 the 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 Youth Worker Bursary Funds. Youth Worker Bursary 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.

3.8 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 to explain the data collection and monitoring systems that will be put in place to enable these to be evidenced and for the work to be properly evaluated, proportionate to the value and length of the project.

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

3.9 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.
• 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:
  • successful applicants can use Youth Worker Bursary 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)
  • however, the following can not be funded by the Youth Worker Bursary 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

4. Completing your application form

4.1 General tips

There are a number of guidance notes contained in square brackets in the application form, please read these carefully and respond to all relevant points. Please delete or overtype the information in square brackets once you have read and understood it.

Write clearly and concisely avoiding the use of jargon or abbreviations; remember that the assessor reading your application may not have a background in your field of expertise.

Do not exceed stated word limits.

4.2 Section 1 - Lead organisation details

This section requires you to input details relating to the lead organisation; we welcome applications from consortia, but require one organisation to take the lead role as the applicant, main point of contact, payee for funds, and responsible body who agrees to ensure the terms and conditions of the grant offer are upheld by all involved.

Please ensure that the contact details given are for the day-to-day contact for all enquiries relating to the project application.

4.3 Section 2 - Project overview

This section asks you to provide an overview of the Youth Worker Bursary funded project. You are required to:

• list all consortium partners involved in the project – you should complete this section if you are the lead organisation in a formal consortium. It is expected that partnership agreements are already in place, or that you have correspondence from authorised representatives at each partner organisation, that confirms involvement in the project and acknowledges submission of your application
• list all the delivery partners involved in the project - please complete this section if you are applying as a single organisation but intend to work with other organisations to deliver the project
• describe what the project will actually do
• list the expected outputs that will be directly attributable to Youth Worker Bursary Funding
• if applicable, explain how and where the Youth Worker Bursary Funded project fits into any wider projects or programmes being run by your organisation or consortium

4.4 Section 3 - Project delivery

This section asks you to provide details about:

• When (in terms of start, finish and key milestone dates) the project will be delivered
• Where the project will be delivered (in terms of region, locality)
• Who the intended beneficiaries are
• Who will deliver the project (i.e. what staff do you have in place or need to recruit to deliver project activities)
• How the project will be delivered – this includes demonstrating that you have the capacity and capability to deliver the proposed project

In particular this section asks you to detail specific project activities by month. It is important that you offer as much detail (in bullet point format is acceptable) to help us understand what will be achieved during each time period. If your application is successful, this part of your application will be used to inform your project progress and monitoring report.

We also ask you to set out details of your safeguarding arrangements.

4.5 Section 4 - Project finances

This section asks you to set out:

• the total cost of your project
• the amount of Youth Worker Bursary Fund you are requesting

Please note that we can not fund capital projects or items of capital expenditure which exceeds the lead organisation’s capital de minimis.

You are required to submit a detailed budget breakdown which clearly shows expenditure by month and financial year, noting that our financial year runs 1 April to 31 March

You are required to set out your proposed drawdown schedule.

You will also need to set out your financial management and control mechanisms explaining how you will ensure that Youth Worker Bursary Funding can be accounted for, on a quarterly basis, accurately and transparently.

4.6 Section 5 - Mandatory document checklist

We have provided you with a quick reference checklist outlining all the documents you need to submit as part of your application.

Please use the checkboxes to indicate which documents you have / haven’t included.

4.7 Section 6 - Authorisation

Your application form must be signed by someone with the authority to represent your organisation in making the application, for example: the CEO, the head of finance, or the head of the board of trustees.

4.8 How we decide

Applications will be assessed on their individual merits according to the following:

• overall clarity of application – how easy it is for us to understand what you are proposing and how well this addresses the issues outlined
• scale and reach of project outputs
• deliverability – including suitability of timescales, demonstrable capacity and capability, relevant previous experience, and clarity of quarterly activities
• suitability of monitoring, evaluation and learning mechanisms
• value for money
• suitability of financial management mechanisms

Your organisation will also need to pass our due diligence checks which ensure:

• the grant award does not exceed 50% of your annual income or collective annual income if you are applying as a formal consortium
• we have received and reviewed at least 2 references you are registered with the Charity Commission and / or Companies House website and have filed all required returns
• if you have been funded by another part of government, we seek feedback from that department you are not already receiving funding for this project from government, meaning your project is funded twice
• trustees are not related and there is no indication of fraud
• where multiple organisations are located at the same postcode, there is no indication of fraud – if you do have the same postcode as other organisations you will be asked to provide an explanation

Please note: in the event your last financial year end was more than 6 months ago we may request further accounting information at a later date as part of the due diligence process.

The decision about which applications receive funding will also take into account the need to ensure a geographical spread of bursaries across England.

You will not be contacted for clarification or further information. It is your responsibility to ensure your application is concise, fully completed and that you supply all necessary supporting documentation.

The only instance where a government official may contact you is where the level of funding you have requested cannot be met and a lesser amount is being offered. In this case, you will be invited to consider a lesser amount and submit a summary of activities, outputs, outcomes and budget (realigned to fit the revised funding on offer) for consideration. If contacted under these circumstances, please note that the time frame for providing your initial response may be very short.

4.9 When making decisions

When making decision, we will:

• give equal consideration to all applications that meet our criteria
• be open and accountable in our procedures

All staff will be required to declare conflicts of interest. If there is a conflict of interest, they will not be involved in the assessment process or the decision to award a grant.

4.10 If you are offered a grant

Our standard terms and conditions apply to every grant we award.

Your grant offer letter will set out any additional conditions that apply specifically to your grant. The letter will also set out what the grant is for and the payment schedule. Once we have awarded a grant, we will ask you for regular financial and performance monitoring reports and a final project report at the end of the funding term.

Please note:

• grant money will not be paid until we have received your written acceptance of the terms and conditions attached to your grant offer
• if applying as a formal consortium, all partner organisations will also be required to provide written acceptance of the terms and conditions, it will be the lead applicant’s responsibility to seek this acceptance
• you must acknowledge you have received our grant in your annual report and accounts covering the period of the project
• if there is any breach of the terms and conditions, or your organisation ceases to operate before the grant has been spent, grant monies may have to be repaid
• when the grant ends, the Youth Worker Bursary Fund does not have a commitment to provide any further funding for the project
• anyone found to be acting dishonestly in making an application for funding or spending the grant will be reported to the police and may be liable for prosecution

If you have any complaints about the application process, please contact Simran Kalsi in the Youth Team on simran.kalsi@dcms.gov.uk in the first instance.