UKSPF Festivals and Events Grant - Round 2 - Grants

The deadline was midnight on Sunday 10 March 2024.

If you have submitted an application please see the section What happens next for further information about the process and dates.

We aim to fund festivals and events that align to one or more of the following interventions from the UKSPF investment priority - communities and place:

Herefordshire Council core interventions - E6: Support for local arts, culture, heritage and creative activities.

Activities should deliver the following outputs:

• Increased visitor numbers
• Increased number of festivals and events
• Increased number of volunteering opportunities

Any organisation with legal status and a bank account in the same name can receive funding to deliver a UKSPF intervention, this includes:

• Charities, voluntary, community and not-for-profit organisations including CIO’s and social enterprises who are formally constituted/incorporated groups i.e. registered with charity commission, companies house or have a constitution and bank account in the organisations name
• State and independent schools (as long as your project benefits and involves the community and does not deliver activities that are part of the standard curriculum)
• Town and parish councils
• Religious organisations - as long as the project or activity benefits the wider community and does not include religious content
• New businesses less than 12 months old must be formally constituted and registered with Companies House or have an HMRC/UTR number. Sole traders, small and micro businesses must provide their HMRC/UTR number. To meet our definition of a small or micro business, the business must employ 49 or fewer employees

• Individuals
• Applicants which are registered outside Herefordshire, except when they are in partnership with Herefordshire business, charity or organisation delivering benefits in Herefordshire.

Year 2024/25:

• Events and festivals must start no earlier than 1 April 2024
• Activities must have taken place no later than 31 January 2025

The grant is for events and festivals which must be held in Herefordshire. All members of the public must be able to attend (via a reasonable charge if necessary) at all times.

The grant will support a range of festivals including (but not limited to):

• Food festivals
• Beer festivals
• Music festivals
• Cultural festivals
• Theatre festivals
• Arts festivals

The grant will support the following activities related to events (but not limited to):

• Ceremonies
• Concerts and music
• Dancing events
• Meals, eating, and drinking
• Parades
• Parties
• Performances
• Singing

This grant can be used to contribute to the revenue costs of ongoing operational expenses required in the running of the project, including:

• Staff salary costs (including employer NI and pension contributions)
• Overheads related to employing staff involved directly in delivering activities funded through the grant - capped at 15% of direct staff costs
• Volunteer-related expenses (travel and refreshments)
• Cost of business travel
• Hiring of equipment
• Marketing and publicity costs
• Small items of equipment under £250 directly attributable to the event
• Temporary event notice, first aid equipment
• Software ticketing
• Signage

Successful applicants are required to work closely with Herefordshire Council to develop promotional resources and to ensure recognition of funding through the necessary UKSPF branding.

Activities the grant cannot be used for:

• Award ceremonies
• Business expos or trade fairs
• Wedding fairs
• School or village fetes
• Regular street markets, auctions, car boot sales, or agricultural markets
• Sports matches, race meetings or sporting competitions

The following costs are considered ineligible and must not be included in applications:

• Paid for lobbying, entertaining, petitioning or challenging decisions, which means using the fund to lobby (via an external firm or in-house staff) in order to undertake activities intended to influence or attempt to influence Parliament, government or political activity including the receipt of UKSPF funding; or attempting to influence legislative or regulatory action
• Payments for activities of a party political or exclusively religious nature
• VAT reclaimable from HMRC
• Gifts, or payments for gifts or donations
• Statutory fines, criminal fines or penalties
• Payments for works or activities which the lead local authority, project deliverer, end beneficiary, or any member of their partnership has a statutory duty to undertake, or that are fully funded by other sources
• Contingencies and contingent liabilities
• Dividends
• Shares or bonuses
• Bad debts, costs resulting from the deferral of payments to creditors, or winding up a company
• Expenses in respect of litigation, unfair dismissal or other compensation
• Costs incurred by individuals in setting up and contributing towards private pension schemes
• Alcohol
• Any cost incurred before receiving a grant offer

Grants will be awarded as follows:

Match funding

50% match funding is required to maximise the value for money and impact of the fund.

Applications to this fund are now closed. The deadline was midnight on Sunday 10 March 2024.

If your event is due to take place shortly after, any costs incurred before the date of any offer letter will not be able to be included.

Once received, we will acknowledge receipt of your grant application. The Delegated Grants team will carry out initial checks for eligibility and an assessment against the criteria before forwarding the applications to the appraisal panel.

The grant application will be assessed by a project panel who will make recommendations either for the application to be approved or rejected, or the panel may ask for further information before a decision can be made. This will require approval.

Grant applications are assessed on their individual merit by an independent panel against the grant funding eligibility criteria, the impact of the project and that it demonstrates value for money. All applications are subject to funding availability.

Based on your application and any further information you may have been asked to provide, we will advise you of the decision to either:

• Offer a grant; or
• Offer a grant with some specific conditions; or
• Reject the application detailing the reasons why the application was not accepted.

When to start your project

If your application meets the eligibility criteria and you are offered a grant, you will receive an offer letter setting out how much grant has been approved and detailing any specific terms and conditions.

If you are happy to accept the grant offer and associated conditions, you will need to return a signed copy within 10 working days.

If you have any queries, please email business@herefordshire.gov.uk

Read more about the Herefordshire UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

If you are offered a grant, you will be sent terms and conditions specific to your project.

Key points to consider are:

• You should not start your project or incur any expenditure until you have signed the acceptance of grant and returned it to the Delegated Grants Team. Any project spend before the date of the grant offer will be ineligible for payment
• You need to keep all paperwork relating to your project, such as all invoices, receipts and bank statements, as they will need to be submitted as evidence with your claims
• Information relating to user feedback and progress towards the outputs of your project should also be kept
• The grant will only be paid on invoices or receipts that have been paid, and are dated after the offer letter has been agreed by all parties
• Other specific conditions of grant will be included within your offer letter

All UKSPF grant projects must also meet the following requirements:

Alignment with local strategies

Applications should demonstrate how they align with relevant existing or proposed local strategies, such as the Herefordshire UK Shared Prosperity Fund Investment Plan, Herefordshire Big Economic Plan, the Herefordshire Cultural Strategy 2019-2029, and Herefordshire's Journey to Net Zero carbon by 3030.

Herefordshire Council is committed to furthering the objectives of sustainable development and expects projects, as far as possible, to take account of all long-term benefits and costs - environmental, social and economic.

All applications should demonstrate how the resulting assets will be run and that they will be financially and environmentally sustainable.

UK subsidy control regime

Applicants must ensure that any project or programme put forward is compliant with the UK subsidy control regime. You are asked to confirm this within the application form.

UKSPF procurement

All projects must comply with UKSPF procurement procedures, this includes three quotes for the purchase of any goods or services between the value of £2,500 and £25,000 and once the value of contract exceeds £25,000 opportunities should be advertised via a formal tendering process. For more details, see UK Shared Prosperity Fund: procurement (8). This will be monitored and checks undertaken before a grant agreement is issued.

Branding and publicity

All projects must adhere to the UKSPF branding and publicity guidance.

Following the assessment process, successful applicants will be required to submit additional supporting documents including copies of insurance, polices and quotes where applicable, copy of organisation's constitution, evidence of financial standing, for example recent bank statements, evidence of match funding, equality and diversity policy.

If your project or budget changes

We will not be able to give you more grant money if your costs increase, but will consider variations within the agreed budget as long as these are approved in advance.

You need to notify the Delegated Grants Team in writing as soon as you realise that you may need to make some changes to your project or budget in order to deliver your project.

How to submit your claim for payment

The organisation is permitted to make two claims based on defrayed expenditure (if required). The first claim must be a minimum of 30% of grant value. The final claim, which will be submitted with a final report, will be for the remainder of the funding.

All claims are based on actual defrayed eligible expenditure as set out in your grant offer and must be supported by invoices, payslips and payroll report, bank statements, photographic evidence of events and festivals, including publicity and promotional activities with the required logos.

When to submit your final report

You will need to submit your final report within four weeks of project completion, along with your final claim as set out above. The report will summarise what your project has achieved. If you are successful, your offer letter will set out the information that you need to collect and provide to the council.