Young Children's Community Grant - application notes

To apply electronically, you must have a valid email address.

Your application must be for over £1,000.

Organisation details (Questions 1-6)

Question 1 Department/grant programme

Select Children’s Services Young Children’s Community Support Grant Children’s Centre (CS YCSG) grants – 2012-2013

Question 2a Contact details

Provide contact details for the applying organisation. This needs to be the organisation who is responsible for administering and accounting for any grant awarded.

Your activity/project/service (Questions 7-10)

If you are applying for more than one activity/project then please ensure that you provide separate headings for each.  This is to ensure that the panel can clearly assess each element of your grant application.

Question 8b Details of your project

NB: your existing project/activity should complement but not duplicate the core delivery of a contracted children’s centre.

• Tell us about your project/service and activities. (what is it you want to do?)
• If it is a service/activity how long will each session be? What staffing will you have in place?
• Tell us briefly what your funding will pay for is successful (i.e. administration costs, salaries, activities, transport, etc.).
• Tell us the venue of the activity ie if you will be using the children’s centre buildings or other community building.
• Explain how you know there is a need for your project (what evidence is there?)
• Detail how your existing project/service meets the local community needs in one or more of the following areas:
  • Health
  • Education training and employment
  • Child development
  • Parenting.

Your response here will be critical in the assessing of your application so you must refer to identified needs in the local community. You should consult with your local children’s centre management team to help identify how your services/scheme/project complement the core activities of the children’s centre and any identified community needs, they can also support you in setting appropriate outcomes that can help measure the impact of the funding.

If your project is targeting isolated rural communities you should indicate this and clearly state the reasons why the project is needed to improve outcomes for children under 5 years old.

If you are uncertain what information to include in this section please contact the team for guidance.

Question 8c Project outcomes

• Please tell us which communities your project/activity relates to. If you are not sure  then please contact the team.
• Tell us about the benefits of your proposal.
• Detail three key proposed outcomes for the project (what do you want to achieve?) These should be specific, measurable and achievable with clearly defined timescales.

Your responses here may be qualitative; for example it may be about improving self esteem and confidence for children and families or it may be quantative; such as increasing the numbers of vulnerable families accessing your service. Both types of outcomes are acceptable however you must be able to capture information that demonstrates your achievement.

Question 8d How you involve service users in the development of your service/activity

• Tell us how children and families have or will participate in the development of the service.
• Tell us how you will work with local agencies and other stakeholders, including children’s centres.
• How will you evaluate your project and seek feedback?

Question 9 Dates and frequency of project

• Is your project a one off activity i.e. an event or an on-going series of activities i.e. a weekly group? (If it is an on-going activity provide dates for the whole year.)
• How often will the activity be delivered?
• How many beneficiaries (children ) and (parents) are expected to attend each session?

Finance (Questions 11-15)

Question 11 Financial Reserves

“Unrestricted” and “undesignated” funds means funding you have available that is not required to be used for specific purposes i.e. they are “free” from restriction. In your last set of audited accounts did your organisation have reserves? If yes, please detail these here.

Question 12 Detail of costs

If you are applying for more than one activity/project then please ensure that you provide separate headings for each. This is to ensure that the panel can clearly assess each element of your grant application.

Please only tell us about costs for the project detailed in the application form. Do not include figures for the whole organisation’s budget.

Please note that funding is available up to the 31 March 2014 and must be spent by this date and cannot include any expenditure prior to 1 April 2012.

Please include as a minimum the following headings in your budget profile:

• Staff
• Premises
• Administration
• Training  
• Other (please specify)

Question 13 Income for the project/activity

Please detail any estimated income that your project is expected to receive for the financial year you are applying for. This includes income from grants, subs, in kind support, funding from your organisation and any other monies you are likely to receive. Include here any other funding applications that you have applied for even if you don’t yet know the outcome of your application.

If it subsequently comes to light that you have applied for funding from another Hampshire County Council Department prior to this application and not declared it here, any future awards may be claimed back.

Question 14a Project finance summary

A summary of the project’s income and expenditure will be automatically calculated using your responses to questions 12 (project expenditure) and 13 (project income). Tell us how much you are applying for.

General information (Questions 16- 20)

Question 16 Quality mark

You do not have to have a quality mark - this will not affect your application.

Question 18 Insurance

You should have insurance cover to the following values:

Funded organisations are required to hold £10,000,000 Employers and Public Liability Insurance. If your application is successful and you hold a lower level of cover you will be asked to submit a risk assessment for consideration.

Hampshire County Council requires all organisations providing advice to young people to hold Professional Indemnity Insurance. This level is currently set at £5,000,000 but may be risk assessed down to £1,000,000, If your application is successful and you hold a lower level of cover you will be asked to submit a risk assessment for consideration.

Hampshire County Council will not award a grant to an organisation that does not hold, or is not willing to obtain the required level of insurance following risk assessment, irrespective of advice given to organisations by third parties.

Question 20 Equalities

Please answer all three parts as best you can. We are not looking for comprehensive policies – just some bullet points, for example: thorough training; information sessions, staff guidebook etc. In addition to information about your policies and procedures please outline how the aims of your project will contribute towards a, b and c.

Examples of things which may be relevant to include are:

• We have an equality and diversity policy. We ensure our staff receive equalities and diversity training. We actively encourage and support all sectors of the community including those having protected characteristics to take part in this project.
• We have an open and transparent recruitment and promotion policy.
• The organisation’s culture fully embraces diversity.
• Our constitution/ this project focuses on fostering good community relations across all sectors of society by...
• This project will advance equality of opportunity for everyone by…

Documentation to be submitted

You only need to send same document once over 12 month period. If you have sent us your documents in the last 12 months please tell us the grant reference number to which they were attached if possible.

We would appreciate electronic document attachments. If, however, you only have a paper copy please write this in the documentation section and send a paper copy in to the grants team (details at the end of these notes).

For all applications

• Child protection/Safeguarding policy
• Evidence of assessment of need and evaluation of impact, if available.
• Confirmation from the local children’s centre that the services to be provided by this grant are not currently being provided by them.  (attach a letter or email from the children’s centre provider)   

For applications over £5,000

As requested for all applications plus:

• Child protection/Safeguarding policy
• Annual Accounts
• Financial plan of each activity/project being applied for

For applications £25,000 and over

As requested for all applications plus:

• Child protection/Safeguarding policy
• Annual Accounts
• Equal Opportunities policy
• Health and Safety policy
• Employers liability Insurance certificate
• Public liability insurance certificate
• Financial plan of each activity/project being applied for

We reserve the right to request further information regarding your application and copies of any policies or insurances.

Monitoring Information (Questions 21-22)

This information will help us to plan and fund areas of work where there are significant gaps and needs. If you need to collect this information from your staff or service users then it is important that you give them a choice as to whether they choose to give this personal information.