Scotland Investing in Communities. Guidance Notes. Making it Work. Supporting lone parents with the challenges of family life, childcare and work

Transcription

1 Scotland Investing in Communities Guidance Notes Making it Work Supporting lone parents with the challenges of family life, childcare and work

2 Investing in Communities Making it Work Stock code BIG-IIC-MIW Further copies available from: or Phone Textphone (this is for those with a hearing impairment) Our website Accessibility Please contact us to discuss any specific communication needs you may have. Our equality principles Promoting accessibility; valuing cultural diversity; promoting participation; promoting equality of opportunity; promoting inclusive communities; reducing disadvantage and exclusion. Please visit our website for more information. We care about the environment The Big Lottery Fund is working towards sustainable development and the use of sustainable resources. Our mission We are committed to bringing real improvements to communities and the lives of people most in need. Our values We have identified three values that underpin our work: making best use of Lottery money, using knowledge and evidence and being supportive and helpful. You can find out more about us, our values and the funding programmes we run by visiting our website The Big Lottery Fund is committed to valuing diversity and promoting equality of opportunity, both as a grantmaker and employer. The Big Lottery Fund will aim to adopt an inclusive approach to ensure grant applicants and recipients, stakeholders, job applicants and employees are treated fairly. Big Lottery Fund, March

3 Contents Welcome to Making it Work 4 What are we trying to achieve? 4 What is Making it Work? 4 Where will Making it Work be targeted? 6 What do we mean by complex circumstances? 6 What types of projects will we fund? 7 What are the changes we would like to see? 7 Who can apply? 8 How much can you apply for? 9 What can we fund? 9 How to apply 10 Application timescales and process 11 Contact us Enquiries line: Phone: Textphone: Fax: makingitwork@biglotteryfund.org.uk Web: Big Lottery Fund 1 Atlantic Quay 1 Robertson Street Glasgow G2 8JB. Please contact us on the numbers above if you have any specific communication needs. 3

4 Welcome to Making it Work Making it Work will work with lone parents to realise their potential and support them to move towards or into employment. Making it Work is part of the Supporting 21st Century Life investment area of Investing in Communities, through which the Big Lottery Fund (BIG) Scotland invests in projects that bring real improvements to communities and the lives of people most in need. Making it Work will invest 7 million to support lone parent families affected by poverty. The needs and challenges for lone parent families in Scotland There are over 174,000 lone parents with 295,000 children in Scotland, with just below half living in income poverty. In Scotland 22 per cent of all households are headed by a lone parent, with 90 per cent being headed by a female lone parent. Many lone parents are looking for work, and often when their children are at a young age. Although many lone parents want to work, escalating competition, childcare challenges and fewer jobs may leave some lone parents struggling to secure or sustain a job. Lone parents often live in the weakest local economies and can face additional challenges seeking work, especially if they have been out of work for some time. Those barriers include: the cost, quality and flexibility of childcare; feelings of isolation because they believe they have no worthwhile experience and skills; lack of confidence and poor self esteem; perceived difficulties in asking for time off work if a child is ill; and concerns about financial vulnerability if they transfer between benefits and employment when there is no guarantee a job will work out. Our research tells us that for lone parents with complex circumstances those challenges are magnified and require intensive support to overcome. What are we trying to achieve through Making it Work? Making it Work wants to help lone parents get the challenges of family life, childcare and work right. It aims to improve the quality of family life for lone parents and their children. It seeks to improve access to effective services for lone parents furthest from the labour market, whose complex set of circumstances suggest they are less likely to benefit effectively from mainstream support. What is Making It Work? Making it Work is lone parent centred, and aims to build on the legacy of Working for Families, by joining up services to tackle the barriers lone parents face to going back to work and creating more sustainable local partnerships to support lone parents in the future. Making it Work offers funding for a model of support for lone parents that has been identified in our research and consultation as good practice. This model includes: signposting and accessing existing support service provision; key worker support; and linking between employability and support services to childcare. The model of support, illustrated overleaf, includes the following stages: XXEarly engagement: making connections. Focuses on reaching and engaging lone parents. XXPre-engagement: personal development, planning for work and childcare. Focuses on identifying improved and accelerated access to effective services for lone parents. XXEngagement: access to mainstream provision (much of which will be delivered by mainstream services). Focuses on supporting lone parents in engaging with Job Centre Plus, ensuring effective access and support. X X Post employment: in work. Focuses on working to support job retention and progression for lone parents and encourage family friendly policies by employers. 4

5 Making it Work model of support Example Personal development Example Making connections Planning for work Lone Parents In work support Example Childcare Support and access to mainstream provision 5

6 Where will Making it Work be targeted? Our assessment of the scale of need suggests 7 million is not enough money to achieve a significant impact on support services for all lone parents across Scotland. Therefore, we have targeted our investment at the local authority areas where almost half of Scotland s lone parent families are living. Making it Work is targeted at the local authority areas of Glasgow, North Lanarkshire, Edinburgh, Fife and South Lanarkshire. These areas have high levels of lone parent workless households and out of work benefit claimants. How much will be allocated to each area? The scale of need has informed the allocation of investment to each local authority. Making it Work offers up to 1.25 million of investment for Edinburgh, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire and Fife local authority areas. However, because of the issue of scale in Glasgow, with significantly more lone parent families and lone parent headed work less households, additional investment is needed. Therefore, Making it Work offers up to 2 million in investment for Glasgow. What do we mean by complex circumstances? We will target those lone parents experiencing the greatest barriers. We have made a distinction between all lone parents and those with complex circumstances, who have significant barriers to moving towards or into work. The complex circumstances we have identified include: Lone parents with disabilities, or caring for someone with disabilities Lone parents with a large family (three or more) Lone parents living in an area with a depressed labour market Lone parent families living in chaotic circumstances Lone parents with little work experience, or who have been out of work for more than two years. 6

7 below. What types of projects will we fund? We recognise that multi agency partnership working is essential to provide person centred support to lone parent families with complex circumstances. We are not seeking one-size-fits-all approaches. We want to see a personalised service that is unique to the needs of that particular family. We expect your plans to be driven by the needs of lone parent families themselves, and lone parents to be meaningfully involved in the development and delivery of your plans. Successful partnerships will strengthen the voice of lone parents in their local area. Because every family is different, partnerships will need to be able to draw on a broad range of expertise and services to meet their needs. By working together, agencies and organisations can achieve significant impact and effectively fill gaps in local provision for lone parents. We want to add value to planned provision and build upon local infrastructure and partnerships. We will look to fund partnerships with a strong understanding of local needs and established roots into local communities. We expect partnerships to include agencies and organisations from across the statutory, voluntary and private sectors working together. Successful partnerships will have connections to local employment opportunities, local employers and the local labour market. We expect partnerships to reflect the stages of early engagement to post employment in our model of support. We want to support partnerships that take a joined up approach and improve integrated services for lone parents and that can be sustained. What changes do we want to see? We want to fund partnerships that provide person centred support to lone parents with complex circumstances and help them move them closer to the labour market. We have identified an outcome, or long term change, that we want to achieve through our investment. Your partnership must provide this support and must aim to achieve the outcome associated with this investment. The relationship between what we want to fund and the outcome is shown in the diagram What we want to fund The outcome we want to achieve Support for lone parents with complex circumstances More lone parents are able to move into employment 77

8 88 Who can apply? A lead partner, on behalf of a local partnership, can apply to Making it Work. BIG can fund a wide range of organisations as lead partners, but we expect most partnerships we fund to be led by voluntary and community organisations and that voluntary and community organisations will have a critical and crucial role in delivery in all the partnerships. We want partnerships to reflect what works best in that area and will consider funding existing partnerships. Making it Work has limited resources and can only support one partnership in each local authority area. We expect stakeholders to work together and agree a partnership for that area. We will only consider one application per local authority area. Lead partners must have a written agreement with any organisations with which it will deliver the project, making clear the responsibilities of each of the organisations and how they will work together. This partnership agreement can be in principle when you apply, but if you are awarded a grant it must be formalised before any payments can be made. You must also meet our terms and conditions of grant if you are awarded a grant. Unless you are a statutory body your organisation must also be able to meet the following requirements: XXYou must have a written governing document. XXThere must be at least three unrelated people on your organisation s governing body or management committee. XXYou must have a bank or building society account in the name of your group which requires two unrelated signatories to make withdrawals. XXYou must be able to provide your most recent approved annual accounts, signed and dated by your chair, secretary or treasurer, and by your auditor or independent examiner where appropriate. Considerations: Learning and Evaluation Although this initiative builds on the legacy of Working for Families, Making it Work hopes to capture new learning about how to ensure effective pathways back into work for lone parents. Therefore, learning and evaluation are central to what we are trying to achieve. All our successful grant holders will have to carry out self evaluation of their partnership s project. It will help you find out the difference your partnership makes, learn about what does and does not work and provide valuable information for developing and improving your services. We expect all stage 1 applications to tell us how their partnership will meet the outcome, and how they intend to monitor their impact. Partnerships invited to submit stage 2 applications for Making it Work will be expected to agree a suite of qualitative and quantitative indicators by which the success of their partnership can be evaluated these indicators will be discussed with BIG and its evaluation partner. They will be based around improving the quality of family life, distance travelled and progression towards employment. Partnerships will be evaluated on their development, integrated service provision, engagement with lone parents and sustainability. BIG will commission an independent evaluation partner who will be closely engaged with the programme throughout its duration. We will bring partnerships from each of the local authority areas together to share learning, encourage peer support and promote the exchange of ideas. Equalities, environment & empowerment In order to bring about lasting change, equalities, environment and empowerment must be at the heart of the projects we support. We believe that they are connected and that communities and organisations that take them to heart will be stronger and achieve better outcomes in the long term. Before you apply we want you to consider equalities, environment and empowerment in the design and delivery of your project. We will ask you about these as part of our stage

9 two assessment, and will work with funded projects to help improve practice in these areas. How much can you apply for? Each partnership can apply for grants up to the total allocation for that local authority area which is up to 1.25 million for Edinburgh, Fife, North Lanarkshire & South Lanarkshire and up to 2 million for Glasgow. We can fund projects for up to five years and can meet up to 100 per cent of project costs. Although this is not a requirement, we encourage you to get some of your funding from other sources, including partners, if you can, as this helps to show a wide range of support for your partnership and may help it to be more sustainable. We expect partnerships to represent good value for money and put the needs of beneficiaries first. What can we fund? We can fund all eligible costs of the project you want us to fund. These can include revenue, capital (up to 100,000) and overheads. When we assess your application we may want to discuss your costs in detail, or include and exclude some items. Revenue costs By revenue costs we mean items such as salaries, training, monitoring and evaluation and running costs. Capital costs By capital costs we mean the costs of improving or altering buildings up to a maximum of 100,000. Overheads These are the costs which are necessary for your organisation to operate, but they do not relate specifically to one project. Typically they include overall management, administration and support and premises costs that relate to the whole organisation. We can make a reasonable contribution towards the overheads of running your organisation as a whole. We expect our contribution towards the overheads to be calculated on a full cost recovery basis. By full cost we mean all of the costs directly relating to the project plus the project s share of the overheads. In the application form you are required to explain how you have worked this out. 9

10 A detailed guide to full cost recovery along with a spreadsheet to assist you in calculating your overheads is available from our website: or by calling our enquiries line on: Ineligible costs There are some costs which we can t fund. These include: costs or expenditure incurred before you accept our grant offer any costs which are solely for the benefit of people living outside Scotland any costs which someone else is paying for, whether in cash or in kind items that only benefit an individual travel outside the UK (unless the activity can be shown to offer good value for money equivalent to that in the UK) funds to build up a reserve or surplus loan repayments contributions to general appeals routine repairs and maintenance general improvements to public areas unless they are essential to the project any costs not related to specific outcomes such as contribution to reserves notional costs and costs that will never be incurred costs of activities which promote religion or no belief costs of activities where it is clear our funding will substitute for public funding currently in place costs of political activity for campaigning work where this is the sole reason for the project or where this is of a party political nature. If you are not sure whether a cost is eligible or not please contact us. How to apply The application process has two stages. Please refer to the timescales and processes on page 11. Before you apply we strongly advise that you contact us to discuss your idea. Additional guidance on areas such as outcomes, full cost recovery and how to carry out an options appraisal can be found at: Contact us To discuss your idea or request a stage one application form, please call our enquiries line on: , textphone: or makingitwork@biglotteryfund.org.uk Please contact us on if you have any specific communication needs. 10

11 Timescales and process If you think your partnership will fit with Making it Work and will deliver the outcome request a stage 1 application form. Stage 1 application form submission no later than 29th June Stage 1application forms assessed & feedback provided. Successful stage 1 applications invited to apply. Stage 2 application development August to November Submit stage 2 application no later than3rd December Decisions made February