Deadline: 15-Oct-21
Applications are invited from organisations for the Future Support Offer (FSO) Grant Program to assist those UC Claimant(s) in England, Scotland & Wales (not Northern Ireland) requiring additional support to make and maintain their Universal Credit (‘UC’) claim, up until their first correct UC payment.
Purpose
Strategic Objectives of the FSO are to:
- Provide accessible support through telephony and digital channels (including webchat)
- Provide support to a person to make and complete a new claim to UC up to the first full correct payment of UC
- Provide support to a person to help them maintain a new claim to UC by themselves
- Deliver high quality support, such that there is consistent quality of outcomes
- Identify wider issues such as debt; housing etc. and refer to appropriate support
Funding Information
- Any individual costs for capital items over £2,500 will need to be clear and justified. Bulk asset purchases of items which are individually below £2,500, but collectively greater than £2,500 (e.g. Laptops) should be captured and pooled for capital reporting purposes.
- This information should be submitted at a project and work package level. The Applicant will need to provide an inventory of any capital costs over £2,500 at the end of the FSO Grant Funding Agreement.
Eligible Expenditure
- The Authority will only pay the FSO Grant in respect of expenditure incurred by the Grant Recipient to deliver the Funded Activities (“Eligible Expenditure”) and the Grant Recipient must use the FSO Grant solely for delivery of the Funded Activities as set out in the FSO Grant Competition Specification.
- For the avoidance of doubt, the following costs/payments will also be classified as Eligible Expenditure incurred for the purposes of the Funded Activities:
- fees charged or to be charged to the Grant Recipient by the external auditors/accountants for reporting/certifying that the FSO Grant paid was applied for its intended purposes
- giving evidence to Parliamentary Select Committees
- attending meetings with government ministers or civil servants to discuss the progress of a taxpayer funded grant scheme
- providing independent, evidence based policy recommendations to local government, departments or government ministers, where that is the objective of a taxpayer funded grant scheme, for example, ‘What Works Centres’
- providing independent evidence based advice to local or national government as part of the general policy debate, where that is in line with the objectives of the FSO Grant
- The Authority may, from time to time, issue further guidance in writing to the Grant Recipient on what constitutes Eligible Expenditure.
Eligibility Criteria
- The Applicant organisation must be a UK registered organisation with headquarters in the UK and operating in the UK.
- The Applicant must have a UK Bank Account that has been operational for at least 3 years.
- The Applicant must deliver FSO on a not-for-profit basis – that is, no profits are to be made by the Grant Recipient as a result of delivering the FSO. You must be able to evidence this requirement.
- The Applicant must currently be registered with the appropriate Authority, and must have been for at least the last 3 years, and have no late and or missing filings with the appropriate Authority e.g. Companies House, Charity Commission, as required
- The Applicant must have filed accounts with the appropriate Authority e.g. Companies House, Charity Commission, for at least the last 3 years, as required.
- The Applicant organisation must have no history of insolvency.
- The Applicant organisation(s) must have other sources of income for the period of the Grant, and
- The Applicant organisation must provide evidence satisfactory to the Authority of delivering welfare benefits advice.
For more information, visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/apply-for-future-support-offer-grant-funding-to-support-people-to-claim-universal-credit