Form

UK Youth Parliament Programme 2021/22 - Guidance for Applicants

Published 12 March 2021

Applies to England

1. Introduction

The UK Youth Parliament is a longstanding programme, delivered as a partnership between central government, House of Commons and the youth sector since 2002. DCMS remains committed to this important and well-established opportunity for young people to participate in the democratic process and share their views to shape national, regional and local decision making.

The objective of the UK Youth Parliament is to support young people across the UK to participate in the democratic process, enabling them to express their voices and be heard on issues that matter to them. This programme continues to represent a key mechanism for supporting meaningful engagement between young people and decision makers at all levels.

DCMS is competing the grant, which contributes to the delivery of this programme, in line with best practice in grant-making across government. A grant of up to £233,300 is available for the delivery of the UK Youth Parliament in 2021/22.

• up to £183,300 of this grant is expected to fund the core costs of the programme
• up to £50,000 to ensure young people from the devolved nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can participate in elections, induction, training and associated activities

We expect this grant to fund around 70% of the total programme costs, therefore the successful applicant will also be expected to secure external funding to support delivery of the programme.

This guide introduces the UK Youth Parliament and provides details of how to apply.

This grant competition is inviting charitable, benevolent and philanthropic organisations in England to apply for funding. The key criteria are that:

• applications should be for up to £233,300
• applicants should be able to demonstrate that they can deliver activity across multiple regions in England, and also in the devolved nations
• applicants should be able to demonstrate that delivery can continue under a range of Covid-19 restrictions
• applicants must be able to draw down and deliver all funded activity by 31st March 2022
• applicants should demonstrate that they will be able to secure external investment and partnerships to supplement this grant

1.1 Notes

Please note that:

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

Successful applicants will be informed by April 2021. We expect the grant agreement will be finalised with the successful applicant by the end of April / early May. Exact timing may vary.

1.2 Application details

Please note that:

• the deadline for applications is 12.00pm on Friday 26th March 2021
• all applicants should answer all questions on the application form
• completed applications should be returned to Christina Kerr and Andrew Hodgetts at: christina.kerr@dcms.gov.uk and andrew.hodgetts@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 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. Background

DCMS expects support for young people across the UK to participate in the democratic process, and enabling them to express their voices and be heard on issues that matter to them, to be achieved through a range of activities grant-funded through this programme including, but not limited to:

• election of young people aged 11-18, mirroring representation in the UK Parliament (300 Members of Youth Parliament and 300 Deputy Members). You may be able to rely on existing elections of youth representatives in some cases. It is essential that all MYPs are elected. Delivery of elections in Scotland and Wales are already planned separately to this grant, therefore, this grant will fund elections delivered in England. The grantee will need to work with partners in Northern Ireland to ensure young people are elected and able to be representatives in the UK Youth Parliament. (see the ‘Geographical reach of proposed projects’ section for further information about participation of young people in devolved nations).
• online (and, restrictions permitting, face-to-face) induction, training and support for young elected members across the UK
• national, regional and local events bringing together young elected members and young people more broadly to engage young people in the democratic processes, including a national debate. In previous years this debate has been hosted in the House of Commons, and DCMS continues to work in partnership with the House of Commons to enable this, although it cannot be guaranteed for the 2021/22 programme.
• ballot of UK-wide youth views, including promotion of the ballot and its results
• evaluation report on the impact of the programme and key findings, and the reach of the ballot of youth views

These activities will be essential to delivering the programme’s strategic outcomes, which are:

• encouraging young people to participate in the democratic process
• enabling young people to take active leadership and decision-making roles in shaping the programme locally, regionally and nationally
• reaching a target of 600,000 young people (11-18 years old) through the UK Youth Parliament and ballot, eg, through schools and digital engagement
• ensuring young people engaged through the programme are representative of a range of backgrounds and lived experiences
• supporting young people to develop skills for life and work through participation in the programme and associated social action opportunities

3. Criteria for funding

Overall the UK Youth Parliament programme aims to support young people across the UK to participate in the democratic process, enabling them to express their voices and be heard on issues that matter to them. All applications will be assessed against their:

• ability to deliver: applications must demonstrate the organisation’s capability and capacity to deliver the project, including through evidence of sufficient expertise and experience, as well as through outlining a clear project plan
• adaptability to Covid-19 delivery: applications must demonstrate the organisation’s ability to reach a large number of young people despite the limitations of Covid-19 restrictions, reaching a target of 600,000 young people aged 11-18 through the ballot of youth views and wider programme activities
• representative group: applications must demonstrate the organisation’s ability to reach young people with a range of lived experiences and diverse background
• value for money: applications must demonstrate how the greatest value for money will be delivered, including providing plans for how activities will achieve social impact
• ability to secure external funding: applications must demonstrate the organisation’s ability to bring in external funding sources and partners, to supplement the funding from DCMS
• partnerships: applications must demonstrate the organisation’s ability to build links with local authorities, schools and other partners
• evaluation: applications must provide plans for robust evaluation of the project, including the level and number of outputs and outcomes to be measured

We are particularly interested in proposals increasing digital engagement with young people through programme delivery, including a strong focus on online communications and engagement.

4. Guidance for applicants

4.1 Who is managing this grant funding?

The Civil Society & Youth directorate, which is part of the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will run and manage this grant funding.

4.2 Who can apply for this grant funding?

This grant funding is open to individual, and consortia of charitable, benevolent and philanthropic organisations in England, that propose clear projects that fit the criteria for funding.

4.3 How much funding will be awarded?

We will consider applications for £233,300. We can not fund capital projects or items of capital expenditure which exceeds the lead organisation’s capital de minimis.

The amount of funding a grant recipient, or consortia, receives per financial year should not exceed 50% of that financial year’s annual collective 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 delivered by 31st March 2022. Applicants will be informed whether or not they have been successful by April 2021. Although exact timing may vary, we expect the grant agreement will be finalised with the successful applicant by the end of April 2021. 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.

4.4 Geographical reach of proposed projects

The UK Youth Parliament Programme will involve young people from all four nations of the UK. The DCMS grant is intended primarily for funding activity in England. However, the grant may, subject to agreement with DCMS and relevant partners, be used to fund necessary activity in the devolved nations.

The project must build connections with partners in the devolved nations, and may make use of pre-existing elections where appropriate. Scotland and Wales already have in place their own youth elections, which can provide MYPs from those nations. Northern Ireland is in the process of establishing a Youth Assembly; the successful applicant may need to work with colleagues in Northern Ireland to ensure that there are suitable youth elections which can provide the mandate for the young people to participate in the UK Youth Parliament.

The three devolved nations already have training in place to support young people to engage in youth representation activity; but the successful applicant might need to use part of the DCMS grant (or other external funding) to ensure that MYPs in all four nations are adequately trained and supported to participate in the UKYP events.

The youth ballot should be UK-wide; the successful applicant will need to work with partners in the devolved nations to promote the ballot.

Up to £50,000 of the grant may be used to enable election and training of young people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The successful applicant will need to work with partners in the devolved nations in order to enable full UK-wide participation.

4.5 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.

4.6 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.

4.7 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 1st April to 31st 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 funding to deliver the UK Youth Parliament Programme 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.

4.8 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.

4.9 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 activity that is party political
• 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 funding for the UK Youth Parliament Programme 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.

5. Consideration of Employee Issues - “TUPE”

In relation to the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (“TUPE”), Potential Grantees should note the following:

1. The UK Youth Parliament is currently undertaken with the support of the Authority by one incumbent (“Former Grantee”).
2. It is the Authority’s view that the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (“TUPE”) is likely to apply to this Grant and if Potential Grantees form a different view they should explain their reasons. However, the Authority makes no representations or warranties in this regard and is not liable for this opinion. All Potential Grantees should obtain their own legal advice on the applicability of TUPE to the services provided pursuant to this Grant.
3. All data received from the Former Grantee will be provided, anonymised, on request from christina.kerr@dcms.gov.uk or andrew.hodgetts@dcms.gov.uk (“Employee Data”). Based on the early data provided by the Former Grantee, the Authority understands there are approximately 3 existing employees undertaking activities related to the scope of this Grant, and therefore potentially in scope to TUPE. The Authority understands none of these employees are current, or former, Authority employees. The Authority does not anticipate that any existing Authority staff will be subject to transfer under TUPE regulations as a result of the Grant.
4. Any Employee Data has been supplied by the Former Grantee. The Authority has no control over the content of the Employee Data and has not verified or approved this. It is provided for Potential Grantees who may wish to take their own professional or specialist advice on the basis of the following terms of use: 4.1 The Authority does not make any representations, warranties or guarantees, whether express or implied, that the Employee Data is accurate, complete or up to date; 4.2 The Employee Data is provided for information only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which Potential Grantees should rely. Potential Grantees should obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the Employee Data.
5. By accessing the Employee Data the Potential Grantee hereby confirms and accepts the above terms of use. If the Potential Grantee does not agree to these terms, the Employee Data must not be accessed by the Potential Grantee.For the purposes of bid comparison, Potential Grantees must identify in their bid whether or not they expect TUPE to apply. TUPE costs should be inserted as a provisional, separate, sum so that all Potential Grantees are compared on a like-for-like basis. The Potential Grantee will be deemed to have made due allowance in programming, planning and pricing preliminaries. Potential Grantees should carefully consider how they would manage any TUPE process.
6. The Authority will not pay for any additional margin, mark-up or overheads relating to staff transfers.

6. Completing your application form

6.1 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.

6.2 Section 1 - 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.

6.3 Section 2 - Project Overview

This section asks you to provide an overview of the UK Youth Parliament Programme funded project. You are required to:

• (if a consortium application) 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 the grant
• (if applicable) explain how and where the UK Youth Parliament Programme project fits into any wider projects or programmes being run by your organisation or consortium

6.4 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 quarter. 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.

6.5 Section 4 - Project Finances

This section asks you to set out:

• the total cost of your project (including funding outside of the DCMS grant)
• the amount of UK Youth Parliament Programme funding 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 1st April to 31st 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 the UK Youth Parliament Programme can be accounted for, on a quarterly basis, accurately and transparently

6.6 Section 5 - Mandatory documentation 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.

6.7 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.

6.8 How we decide

Applications will be assessed on their individual merits according to:

• overall clarity of application - how easy it is for us to understand what you are proposing and how well this meets the strategic outcomes and key outputs 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, including ability to secure external funding for programme delivery
• 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.

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.

When we are making our decision:

• we will give equal consideration to all applications that meet our criteria
• we will 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

6.9 If you are offered the 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 that:

• 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 UK Youth Parliament Programme 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 Christina Kerr and Andrew Hodgetts in the Youth Team at christina.kerr@dcms.gov.uk and andrew.hodgetts@dcms.gov.uk in the first instance.