Publications

Webinar 2-Setting your budget for Delivering Equally Safe

Transcript

Slide 1: Welcome

Welcome to this webinar where we will be looking at developing your outcomes for your application to Delivering Equally Safe.

This is part of a series of webinars which will include advice on completing your application, developing partnership applications and your outcomes and activities.

Slide 2: Meet the team

My name is Monika and I am a part of the Delivering Equally Safe team here at Inspiring Scotland. We are working on behalf of the Scottish Government to manage the Delivering Equally Safe Fund. On this slide you can see some of the other members of our team.

Slide 3: What we’ll cover

This webinar will discuss what funding through Delivering Equally Safe can cover, the difference between core and project costs and look at setting your budget, budget headings and record keeping

Slide 4: What is funding for?

Applications to Delivering Equally Safe must be from organizations and services that tackle violence against women and girls and that meet the aims and priorities of Delivering Equally Safe.

The Scottish Government and COSLA announced changes to the funding in March 2021 at which time an additional £5 million was added to the amount available within the first year of the funding, bringing the total available for year 1 to £18 million.

The funding is available for two years – October 2021 – September 2023, and costs included in your application should reflect this.

There are two types of application forms for the Delivering Equally Safe Fund – a single organization application and a partnership application.

Single applications can be made for the core costs of running a service, or for time limited project costs, or a combination of both

Partnership Applications should be primarily for the delivery of a project or for a programme of work.

Slide 5: Core and Project Costs

We are happy to accept applications for the costs required to deliver the service you are applying for. This can be existing work – you don’t have to try re-package your work as new or as a project development.

We ask you to identify if costs are core or project related.

For this Fund by core, we mean operating and essential running costs for maintaining a service that delivers to the Equally Safe strategy on an on-going basis. This means we will consider costs including existing management, administration, and the delivery staff. You can apply for the true costs of maintaining and strengthening your service. We want to understand the true costs of delivering your service, as it relates to the Equally Safe strategy.

Project costs will include any costs required to deliver time bound specific pieces of new work. This can be costs related to project development as well as delivery costs, including  project staff, external speakers and project evaluation.

Slide 6: Budget headings

To help you complete the financial information, we have created a downloadable budget template in Excel. You should use this to complete you budget.

You will see from the template we are looking for information on 4 main areas of expenditure:

• Staff Costs
• Additional Staff Costs
• Programme and Delivery Costs – the direct costs of the work you are applying for
• Office Costs and Overheads – the indirect costs required to support the work

Our excel sheet has a number of examples of suggested costs to help you. These are just examples, and can be overwritten to allow you to put in your own information and heading into these lines.

Staff costs should include the salaries of staff associated with the work that you are applying for. If these are new staff you can allow time for recruitment so we wouldn’t expect all new staff to be ready to start on the 1 October. The staffing complement may vary during the two years of the budget, particularly if you are developing project work within in the funding period. Reflect this in your budgets and in your activity plan.

Make sure you also include all the costs related to these staff, including National Insurance Contributions and Pension costs

You can also include cost of living increments for each year of the project, so each year’s budget line can vary to ensure you are covering the costs associated with running the planned service and activities.

As part of the Scottish Government’s commitment to tackle pay inequality, we will ask if you are an Accredited Living Wage Employer.  This is to allow us to gather the information – you do not have to be an Accredited Living Wage Employer to apply for funding

The Additional Staff Costs Will include associated costs like travel and training. Even though few of us are travelling far just now, we will need those costs again in the future, so base these costs on your previous experience and what level of travel you will expect again in the future once lockdown has been eased.

For programme and delivery costs you should include the costs of items that are directly associated with this price of work – for instance this could include the costs of sign language interpreters, volunteer costs, or venue hire.

Office Costs and Overheads can include items that are indirect to the activity but are essential to allow staff to carry out their work – so this can include a contribution towards the rent of your office, utilities costs and insurance cover

Slide 7: Completing your budget

The costs identified in your budget should be clearly understandable and identifiable for anyone assessing your application. Tell us if there is anything we should know about the figures in the budget and include an explanation or breakdown to show how main costs were calculated. Any budget line over £5,000 per year will require an explanation of how it was calculated.

You don’t need to have match funding in place, however, if you do have a contribution from another funding source please note this on your budget form and make sure that you are not claiming for the same item from both income sources. We are interested to hear about your links with other Scottish Government departments, and what funding you receive from them.

Slide 8: Record Keeping

If successful in your application you will have to keep good records during the term of the funding and beyond – we may request to see those records to check that the apportionment has been correct and that the spending claimed has been accurate.

Remember that in line with the Charities and Trustees Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 you and your trustees have to keep proper accounting records, and make sure you record how any income was apportioned to meet costs

We will check that organisations adhere to financial good practice in their daily business so all organisations must ensure that one person cannot authorise, make and record payments. We need to ensure there is a clear audit trail for the use of public funds and as such we may ask for more detailed financial records, or a hold a financial monitoring visit during the term of the fund.

We can offer additional support for trustees and staff to help them to understand their roles and responsibilities around governance and finance if needed.

Slide 9: Before you submit

Before you hit submit:

• make sure that your budget form is completed and that all the additions are correct
• That you have included all the costs that you might encounter,
• That you have given us details of the breakdown of larger costs
• And that the costs match to the activities that you are planning

And make sure that you submit before midday on Friday 28^th May 2021

Slide 10: Thank You

Thanks for listening and remember, if you have any further questions about completing your budget then you can get in touch with us at DESEnquiries@inspiringscotland.org.uk