Community Learning Trust Responsiveness Fund
GUIDANCE FOR APPLICANTS
The CLT Responsiveness Fund is funding by Staffordshire Skills Funding Agency (SFA) through Neighbourhood Learning in Deprived Communities (NLDC) funding. The funding is for the delivery and benefit of training for the adults returning to learning.
This funding is open to organisations to deliver a needs led project within Staffordshire. There is £250,000 available in total, with £130,000 for voluntary and third sector organisations only and £120,000 available for all adult
learning providers. All projects will need to comply with Skills Funding Agency rules. Decisions on funding will be made by the Community Learning Trust Board Sub-Group based on:
Funding priorities based on evidenced local needs An even geographical distribution of funds
Alignment to the Business, Innovation and Skills New Challenges, New Chances Community Learning objectives ( see Appendix 1 of guidance document)
Alignment to the Adult and Community Learning Service
Commissioning priorities – local and countywide ( see Appendix 2 of guidance document)
Projects should:
be delivered to adults 19 years and over
have clear learning aims that will result in adults being better prepared to move on to further learning, work or volunteering
be delivered by tutors with appropriate teaching qualifications They also:
can have an aim of improving the local community
can be centred on improving volunteers’ skills and qualifications can be accredited to level 1 if the course is not able to be funded
through the Adult Skills Budget
Staffordshire Community Learning Trust is a joint project between
Staffordshire County Council Adult and Community Learning Service and adult learning providers from all sectors in the county.
The Vision of the Trust is that:
"Staffordshire has happy, healthy, well integrated and active communities that learn together, support each other, and enable all community members to prosper and thrive"
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Our belief is that adult learning is the property of the community and that all applications to this fund will have to clearly demonstrate local support for the project by reference to local consultation.
More information about the Trust can be found at www.communitylearningtrust.org.uk
Programmes should be targeted at one or more of the following groups: Adults aged 19 years and over who are one or more of the following:
Unemployed
Economically inactive local residents in any Staffordshire district People with no or low qualifications.
Adults with learning difficulties/disabilities. Adults from ethnic minority groups.
Adults experiencing mental and/or physical health issues. Older people.
Carers.
Homeless adults and adults living in hostel accommodation Lone parents
Volunteers
Organisations can apply between July 2013 and March 2014. The sub-group will meet approximately every 6 weeks (dates can be found on the application and assessment document) with applications to be received 1 week before the sub-group meeting date.
Guidance for completing the application form:
General commentPlease try to answer every question, by omitting answers you may hold up your application.
Section 1 Organisation Details
These are details about your group/organisation. This will help the sub Group to understand who you are and what you do within the local community.
The UKPRN number is a registration with the UK register of all providers of adult education. There is no cost to register and the website for registering can be found at www.ukrlp.co.uk
Your organisation is not required to be a member of the Locality Working Group, but this will assist you in detailing the local need and understanding local priorities. It is strongly recommended that groups take an active part in their Locality Working Group. Details of these can be found at www.communitylearningtrust.org.uk or Julie Staniforth. An application that does not detail the members of the management
An application that has not been approved by your group/organisation will not be considered.
A group/organisation that does not hold a minimum 2 signatory bank account will not be considered. Providers must, as a minimum, hold insurance at the following levels:
Public Liability Insurance of not less than £2 million (two million pounds sterling) in respect of any one occurrence; and
Employers’ Liability Insurance of not less than £5 million (five million pounds sterling) in respect of any single claim or series of claims made in respect of any incident
If and to the extent that the activity includes the provision of
professional advice by the Provider, professional indemnity insurance in respect of any one occurrence will be required.
A group/organisation that can not provide evidence of the policies listed will not be considered.
A group/organisation that can not provide evidence of the insurances listed will not be considered.
A group/organisation that can not provide evidence of their accounts will not be considered.
A group/organisation that does not/will not carry out risk assessments will not be considered.
Details of where you heard about the funding will help us in our
marketing of the fund in subsequent years so please give us as much information as you can.
A group/organisation without a constitution or set of rules will not be considered.
If your organisation has an Adult and Community Learning service main contract you will need to explain why you cannot use that contract funding to deliver this project.
Section 2 Teaching and Learning
Anyone delivering courses funded by the Responsiveness Fund need to hold or be working towards a registered teaching qualification, for example the initial teaching qualification of Preparation for Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector (PTLLS), a Certificate or Diploma in teaching in the lifelong learning sector or equivalent.
All tutors must have completed safeguarding training within the last 2 years. Section 3 The Project
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In this section you need to explain the activity or project that you aim to deliver. In the overview and content you should try to tell us:
Why you are delivering the activity How you have identified the local need
How the project relates to the county and local priorities and BIS objectives found in the appendices attached to the application form What you hope to achieve
Who the activity is aimed at
How you intend to deliver it, for example 2 hours a week for 3 weeks The venue you plan to use to deliver
When you plan to deliver it. Please note that the activity needs to be complete no later than 31st July 2014.
Activities can be single short courses or multiple activities. The sub Group need to establish the total number of learners you will be delivering to so please only count learners who are attending more than one activity once. How will you measure impact? Impact is not just about successfully
achieving a learning outcome, but also about the impact on the learners’ life. How will you measure wider outcomes?
Please indicate below how you will collect evidence of change from individual learners. Examples of measures are focus group at the end of the course, ILPs, learner diaries, surveys, interviews.
Please note: projects will be expected to complete an impact measurement tracking sheet.
Section 4 Target Learners
In this section you need to tell us about the learners that you are going to target for your activity. There will be an expectation that you will be familiar with, and have a relationship with, the learner groups you are targeting and will not advertise for learners.
Section 5 Progression of Learners
The funding for the Responsiveness Fund is intended to help individuals from excluded and under represented groups into learning to help them into
employment, voluntary work or further learning opportunities or become active members of their community through voluntary or paid activities. In this
section you need to explain what you will do to help individual learners progress during and after their learning activity.
The sub Group need to know what steps you will take to help learners to seek and secure employment, or progress into further learning or volunteeringor participate further in community life. For example will you be involving other agencies in the learning activity, for instance Adult Advancement and Careers Service, Job Centre Plus, JET, local colleges and voluntary services. We will also need to know what referral processes you have in place to these
Section 6 Costs of Project Funding levels:
There is £250,000 available from this fund, £130,000 is allocated for third sector organisations only, £120,000 is allocated for any learning provider type (school, college, private provider, third sector etc).
There is no minimum amount for a project although we would expect a small project to have a minimum of 8 learners.
Fees: Charging your learners a fee is not mandatory although, where appropriate, we would encourage a fee to be considered at a level that is realistic for your learners or the partner organisation you are delivering to. You will need to identify the costs that you need to meet to deliver your activity- (a) on the costs table. Funding may be requested for payment of:
Teaching staff
Learning support in the classroom Childcare
Carer support
Learner travel costs (not including staff travel) Consumable and materials
Equipment necessary to deliver the learning activity Venue costs
The Responsiveness Fund should not be the only source of funding for the activity and you should indicate the amount of funding that you or another organisation is contributing -(c) on the costs table. Organisations funded through The Responsiveness Fund must not rely on this funding for their long-term survival.
You are also asked to detail any “in kind” contribution you will make and assign it a monetary value - (b) on the costs table.
The cost per learner is the amount of funding that you are asking for divided by the number of individual learners. The sub Group will seek to get the best value from this funding; they will therefore be looking to fund organisations who can deliver high quality learning at a competitive cost per learner. Section 7 Declaration
Applications need to be signed by the person within the organisation who is authorised to claim the Responsiveness Fund. If applications are being sent electronically then a signed back page needs to be forwarded as soon as possible.
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Applications need to be forwarded to:
For Staffordshire
(other than Stoke-on-Trent)
Julia Staniforth
Adult and Community Learning Development Officer Adult and Community Learning Service
Walton Building Martin Street Stafford ST16 2LH E: [email protected] For queries: Julia Staniforth Mob: 07800626536 tel: 01785 278771 [email protected] The Evaluation Process
Completed applications will be reviewed to ensure that all following aspects have been passed:
Section Example Reasons for
unsuccessful application 1. Organisation Detail
Charitable status Organisation is not in the voluntary sector
Committee/Management Board members
Too few people on the committee, not enough members are cheque
signatories. Application approved by
Committee/Management Board
Answer of No and not approved Policies No policy in place for any area listed
Insurance No copies of insurance submitted or
certificate out of date
Constitution Organisation does not have a
constitution/set of rules
Accounts No suitable accounts or bank letter
enclosed
Withdrawal of public funding “yes” and no explanation offered Health and Safety – risk
assessment
No risk assessment carried out and no agreement to adopt ACL standard risk assessment
Health and Safety - Breach Answer of YES to prosecution and no explanation provided and/or
2. Teaching and Learning No information completed, tutors have no safeguarding training within the last two years.
4.Target learners No suitable target learners identified Sections 3, 5 and 6 will be discussed at the steering group meetings and the table below will be completed will a final result allocated.
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Provider:
Section 3 comments Section 5 comments Section 6 comments
Result:
The application process
July 2013 – Application process begins
Funding applications received are acknowledged within 2 days.
You may be contacted by a member of Adult and Community Learning Service to discuss your application. Depending on their recommendations your application may be forwarded to
the next available Funding sub Group.
The funding sub Group will decide whether to award a grant or they may request further information. This will usually take place no more than a week after the sub Group meets. See
dates below.
When the application is approved funding will be awarded in two stages; half will be awarded with the contract, the other half
when a successful quality monitoring visit has been undertaken.
Outcomes of applications will be communicated within one week of every Funding sub Group.
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Subgroup Application Review Meeting for 2013-2014 August 22nd 2013 October 3rd 2013 November 14th 2013 January 16th 2014 February 27th 2014 April 10th 2014
Appendix 1
BIS New Challenges, New Chances (www.bis.gov.uk) Extract relating to Community Learning Objectives Community Learning funding will:
Focus public funding on people who are disadvantaged and least likely to participate, including in rural areas and people on low incomes with low skills
Collect fee income from people who can afford to pay and use where possible to extend provision to those who cannot.
Widen participation and transform people’s destinies by supporting progression relevant to personal circumstances, e.g.
o improved confidence and willingness to engage in learning o acquisition of skills preparing people for training, employment or
self-employment
o improved digital, financial literacy and/or communication skills o parents/carers better equipped to support and encourage their
children’s learning
o improved/maintained health and/or social well-being.
Develop stronger communities, with more self-sufficient, connected and pro-active citizens, leading to:
o increased volunteering, civic engagement and social integration o reduced costs on welfare, health and anti-social behaviour o increased online learning and self organised learning o the lives of our most troubled families being turned around Commission, deliver and support learning in ways that contribute
directly to these objectives, including:
o bringing together people from all backgrounds, cultures and income groups, including people who can/cannot afford to pay o using effective local partnerships to bring together key providers
and relevant local agencies and services
o devolving planning and accountability to neighbourhood/parish level, with local people involved in decisions about the learning offer
o involving volunteers and Voluntary and Community Sector groups, shifting long term, ‘blocked’ classes into learning clubs, growing self-organised learning groups, and encouraging employers to support informal learning in the workplace o supporting the wide use of online information and learning
resources
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Appendix 2
Staffordshire Adult & Community Service Draft Commissioning Priorities 2013/14- ranked
1. To provide a community learning offer that contributes to better health and wellbeing, employment and social inclusion for all learners including
individuals with mental health issues and those with learning difficulties and/or disabilities
2. To provide courses for adults who are otherwise least likely to engage in learning, and support them to progress to further learning, employment, self- employment or volunteering
3. To provide access and progression for people who are disadvantaged and who are furthest from learning both geographically and through lack of opportunity and therefore least likely to participate in community learning programmes
4. To provide community learning provision which raises aspirations and promotes progression opportunities, supporting local communities through activity that inspires, enthuses and enables ambition and self-improvement
5. To provide targeted Family Learning programmes to raise the achievement of children and help parents and carers to develop their own learning, parenting skills and progress into economic activity or volunteering
6. To provide community learning provision that maintains high quality standards as determined by Ofsted in the Common Inspection Framework, actively promotes safeguarding issues and delivers equality and diversity duties.
7. To provide community learning provision that incorporates confidence
building activities into courses or offers courses designed to build confidence.
8. To embed English and Maths skills development in programmes and signpost learners to further English and Maths learning where a need is identified
9. To provide community learning provision that integrates quality information and advice for learners.
10. To provide community learning provision in computing to allow Staffordshire adults to access new technologies and the benefits that digital inclusion brings.
11. To provide community learning provision that offers learners, sufficient opportunity to develop social activities
12. To provide programmes of English for speakers of other languages
13. To provide community learning provision that provides value for money and Pound Plus and maximises fee income from people who can afford to pay in order to increase access to learning for people who are furthest from learning.
