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Award, feedback and reapplication
The panel will score against the assessment criteria and provide feedback upon request. You will be given the opportunity to discuss your application with a member of The National Archives’ Grants and Funding team.
The National Archives’ decision regarding any application is final, and no appeal process is in place: it is the lead applicant’s responsibility to make sure that all of the information provided in the application is correct, their proposal meets the eligibility criteria, and all sections of the application are complete. Applications that are deemed ineligible will be excluded from consideration. Any points you wish to make should be made clearly and concisely in the application form.
The fund is designed to support urgent interventions, therefore if your application is unsuccessful, it will be unlikely to receive funding from any reapplication. However, the panel will endeavour to provide constructive feedback that enables positive solutions and clear next steps when requested. There are no restrictions on institutions submitting an application for a different project.
If you are awarded funding, The National Archives’ Grants and Funding team will contact you with a Grant Funding Agreement, which should be signed by an appropriate member of your organisation. For grants of a value lower then £20,000, 100% of the grant’s value will be paid to you up front, except in circumstances where The National Archives, in consultation with the grantee, deems that an alternative payment structure is necessary for the successful delivery of the funded activities. For grants of and over £20,000 in value, payments will usually be made in two instalments, at the start and end of your projects.
Reporting, evaluation and knowledge dissemination
Every applicant will be required to provide a project budget at application stage, using the costing template provided. Successful applicants must also provide a final project expenditure statement, based on actual expenditure. If final expenditure falls below the amount agreed in the Grant Funding Agreement, The National Archives may ask grantees to return any unspent funds at the end of the project. The National Archives will not cover the cost of any project spend above what has been agreed in the Grant Funding Agreement.
Alongside the final expenditure statement, all grantees will also be required to provide an end-of-project report, summarising key achievements against the activities outlined in the application. Some grantees may also be required to provide progress updates throughout the delivery of the project; this will be decided by on case-by-case basis at award stage, based on the complexity of the project proposed. All reporting requirements, including the timing and nature of reporting, will be made clear to successful applicants at award stage.
All grantees will be expected to take steps to address delivery issues or delays if they arise, and inform The National Archives as soon as possible, should an issue arise that poses a significant risk to the successful delivery of the funded activities within the agreed timescales. It is possible that The National Archives’ team may visit your project, during or after your grant (we will not visit applicants as part of the assessment process).
Grantees will also be required to demonstrate the benefits and key performance indicators (KPIs) that the competition is seeking to realise. Successful applicants will be required to provide evidence against these measures. The measures against which applicants will be required to report, and the reporting intervals, will be agreed at award stage. Whilst benefit & KPI reporting is compulsory for all applicants, performance against these indicators is for the purpose of measuring the impact of the funding programme only, and does not affect eligibility for the grant.
Our approach to monitoring and evaluation is informed by our vision: through our grant-making, we want to build evidence for investment in archives, celebrate grantees’ success, and advocate for the archives sector, while keeping our reporting requirements as flexible and accessible as possible.
Grant conditions
All grantees will be required to comply with the Code of Conduct for Recipients of Government General Grants and all relevant legislation, as well as the monitoring and evaluation conditions outlined in previous sections. Further conditions may be outlined within the Grant Funding Agreement.