| Let’s look at what you need to think about as you develop your new grant scheme.
Good planning and getting things right at this stage will go a long way towards ensuring the successful launch of your scheme. You will benefit by having a scheme which is attractive (aiding a high take-up) and lets you select the very best of the bidders and projects which come in.
Use the questions below as prompts. Click on each question to see our answer which sets out:
- what you ought to do as a minimum;
- for certain matters, the extra steps for good practice you can consider; and
- the benefits that good practice should bring for you!
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Will I use bidding rounds?
Many grants can be made open to applications at any time over a long period – these will often be grants given by way of statute and grants for long-standing programmes with reasonably secure budgets.
However, in other cases, the grant may come from a new policy idea or from funds which will be available for only a short time. There may also be a much larger pool of potential recipients that the amount of available funds could support.
Bidding rounds introduce an element of competition to help you direct grants to the best applicants and projects. This means that you need to publicise your invitation for bids which will need to reach you by a prescribed deadline so that you can assess them all together.
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How will I publicise?
You should consider how to advertise the scheme and your call for applications – options include the press, newsletters, intermediary organisations and the internet. Grants to individuals can be promoted at public buildings such as local leisure centres, libraries, and community centres.
Make bidding rounds open, aiming to attract a high level of interest from eligible applicants.
However, where it is likely that there may be a flood of applicants, it is good practice to manage expectations and use a targeted marketing campaign.
Doing this will avoid an excessive workload for you at the assessment and selection stage and ending up with a very large number of applicants disappointed because there were insufficient funds to meet so many bids or that their projects weren’t fully eligible.
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How will I evaluate bids and select winners?
Robust and transparent assessment procedures need to be set – with a workable timetable - and then applied consistently.
Applications should be initially assessed against your eligibility criteria.
The eligibility criteria should reflect the sustainable development aims of the public sector in Wales. This means development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It emphasises the importance of a balanced and integrated approach in our response to social, economic and environmental needs and aspirations. It also emphasises the importance of the balance between the developed and developing parts of the world.
The criteria should do this by embedding the five inter-linked guiding principles from the United Kingdom’s shared framework for sustainable development:
- living within environmental limits;
- ensuring a strong, healthy and just society;
- building a strong, stable and sustainable economy; and
- promoting good governanceusing sound science responsibly.
This would include action to promote social cohesion, addressing equalities issues and treating the Welsh and English languages on the basis of equality.
If the eligibility criteria are met, then applications should be assessed in further detail and scored against selection criteria. Any issues arising should be clarified with applicants.
You need to be very clear about all of the eligibility criteria:
- who will be eligible (which types of body and any track record);
- what types of project activities will be eligible; and
- what costs will be eligible (and which will be ineligible).
As extra good practice, different weightings can be applied to individual criteria, according to their relative importance.
This will allow the eventual scores to take appropriate account of the most important criteria.
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