A Guide to managing your grant

Following our Trustee’s Board Meeting, we will send you two messages. The first will let you know you have been awarded a grant and will contain:

• the amount of your grant award
• the Contributing Third Party payment amount
• confirmation that your project is being registered with our regulator, ENTRUST (this does not apply to organisations who are already enrolled EBs)

The second message will be sent within 10 days and will contain:

• access to the Post Award Details Form you will need to complete with required documents and information so we can get your Funding Agreement /Finance Agreement
• the deadline for your Funding Agreement / Finance Agreement to be in place. This will be approximately two months from when your grant was awarded. As it can take a long time to finalise project costs, we recommend you begin gathering the required documents and information as soon as possible.

Your project must not begin until the legal formalities have been completed

Your grant award is based on the details you provided in your Application Form, and this is what has been approved by our Trustees and our regulator, ENTRUST. It is therefore really important that you tell us about any changes at any stage of your project, so we can ensure your project is still eligible for the grant awarded.

The changes you should tell us about are as follows:

• Changes to your project’s schedule of works
• Delays to your project timetable
• Changes to your project budget
• If you need to use a different contractor or supplier to the one you told us about
• A change of bank account
• A change to your organisation (e.g. name, governing documents, legal status)
• A change of contact at your organisation

In order to safeguard the Landfill Communities Fund we conduct a range of checks on the people and organisations applying to us, as well as the information provided as part of grant applications or subsequent processes. The results of these checks are used to inform an ongoing risk assessment. If, at any point or for any reason, the Trust determines that an individual, organisation, or project presents an unacceptable risk, we reserve the right to reject an application or withdraw a conditional grant offer without notice. In order to preserve the integrity of our processes and internal measures, we are unable to offer any further feedback or explanation under these circumstances.

When you have completed the Post Award Details Form and we have received all your required documents and information, two separate agreements will be sent by email for signing.

The Funding Agreement / Finance Agreement is the legally binding agreement between your organisation ‘the Beneficiary’ and us ‘The Trust’ and sets out the terms and conditions of your grant.

• The Funding Agreement / Finance Agreement should be signed by the person within your organisation authorised to commit to the terms of the agreement
• The Funding Agreement / Finance Agreement may be signed by hand or electronic signature
• Once the Funding Agreement / Finance Agreement has been signed and returned, we will check that the individual matches the details on your Post Award Details Form

The Contributing Third Party Agreement is the agreement between the organisation you have identified to make the Contributing Third Party payment and Veolia ‘The Landfill Operator’, who are providing the funds for the grant.

• The Contributing Third Party Agreement should be signed by the person within the organisation authorised to commit to the terms of the agreement. This agreement will be sent directly to the organisation or individual that was confirmed in the Post Award Details Form
• The Contributing Third Party Agreement may be signed by hand or electronic signature
• Once the Contributing Third Party Agreement has been signed and returned, we will check that the individual matches the details on your Post Award Details Form

Along with the Contributing Third Party Agreement, we will send instructions on how to make the Contributing Third Party payment.

• The Contributing Third Party payment should be made by BACS, if this is not possible please contact us
• The organisation named as the ‘The Contributing Third Party’ should make the payment directly to the ‘Landfill Operator’, Veolia. The Contributing Third Party should not transfer the payment to you
• You should let us know when the Contributing Third Party payment has been made so we can contact the landfill operator and confirm receipt

When we receive your signed copies of the Funding Agreement / Finance Agreement and CTP Agreement, and the Landfill Operator confirms they have received the CTP payment, we will email you giving consent for your project to begin. We will also return countersigned copies of both Agreements to you for safekeeping.

Legal formalities have been completed. Your project may now begin.

Your grant will be paid to you by BACS, usually in three instalments:

1. An upfront payment (if eligible) will be made at the time we give you consent to start your project. The payment amount will be shown in Appendix 1, Clause 2.3, of your Funding Agreement.
2. Further payments of the award will be released following submission of your Grant Claim Form, complete with invoices evidencing project spend. We suggest submitting your first Grant Claim Form with invoices evidencing at least 50% of your full award (including spend of your upfront payment).
3. A final payment will be a minimum 5% of your grant award, which is paid in arrears and released when your project completes, is open for use by the general public, and we have received invoices to the value of your grant along with your project completion form.

In order to fulfil our duty to safeguard LCF funds, we reserve the right to withhold payments until we are satisfied the project is going to complete, and valid evidence of expenditure has been provided. We also reserve the right to make payments only in arrears based on our Risk Assessment of your organisation and project. Our Risk Assessment is partly based on your management of your grant and may, therefore, change during the course of your project.

Your Grant Claim Form is an online form and works in the same way as your application form. We will give you access to your ‘Grant Claim Form’ via your Veolia Environmental Trust user account. This is the form you will need to upload evidence of expenditure (invoices).

• You must upload invoices to the value of your upfront payment as soon as they are available. Then continue to upload invoices regularly so further payments can be made to you.
• If your organisation can reclaim VAT your grant can not be used to cover this cost.
• We only expect to receive invoices from the contractors that you have told us you will be using.
• Invoices should correspond to the ‘Project Elements’ shown in Appendix 1, Clause 1.2 of your Funding Agreement / Finance Agreement.
• All uploaded invoices must include:
  • Supplier or contractor name and address
  • Supplier or contractor VAT registration number (if charging VAT)
  • Date of purchase
  • Organisation name and project site address
  • Itemised costs for items purchased or work completed

We do not accept proforma invoices, quotes, copies of online orders as evidence of expenditure. All invoices must be from after the date you were given consent for the project to start.

The amount of the grant you are awarded is fixed. If your project costs increase and you are unable to raise the balance of funding necessary for your project to go ahead or complete, please let us know.

Our Trustees understand that cost increases are sometimes unavoidable and often due to the nature of the project. In this situation, our Trustees will review your grant offer and may decide to give you more time for fundraising, withdraw your grant award or, in exceptional circumstances, award an additional grant. However, they will want to understand the reasons and what efforts you have made to resolve the issue, so please have this information ready when you contact us.

We consider your project to be complete when physical works are finished and your project site is open to the public.

At this stage, you will need to complete your ‘Grant Claim Form’ confirming the project has completed and continue to complete the questions in the ‘Project Completion’ screen and provide photographs and if available a video showing the completed project. Once you have submitted this form and we have approved it, we will release the final 5% of the grant.

Appendix 1, Clause 4 of your Funding Agreement / Finance Agreement will tell you how long we will monitor your project and any assets once it is completed.

We will contact you by email, once a year, to request a written statement and photographs/video, showing how your project continues to benefit the community. It is also possible that we will visit your project site during the project monitoring period.

We distribute grant funding through the Landfill Communities Fund, which is a regulated scheme. If you do not reply to our request, you will be in breach of the terms of your Funding Agreement / Finance Agreement and risk your grant being clawed back.

At the same time we return your countersigned Funding Agreement / Finance Agreement, we will post you a plaque to display at your project site.

If you are planning to have an official opening event, please let us know. We are a very small team and it may not be possible for us to attend but we would be very happy to promote your event on social media. You can even message us via all social media channels @veoliaenvtrust.

Videos are an excellent way for you to celebrate your project. Why not upload a short video (no more than 2 minutes) to your final grant claim form to show us:

• What you’ve achieved
• How people are now using the site
• The impact your project has had

Interviews are a great way for us to see your community brimming with delight that their wishes have been met. Showing us how people are able to use the site really brings your project to life for us. Interviews are also a great way to hear how the project has been received and you never know, you might find out you achieved more than you anticipated.

Please get the consent of everyone featured in the video. We suggest you get written consent from the guardians of children and vulnerable adults before you share your videos with us.

We may share the best videos on social media, you can tag us on X (Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. Please use the hashtag #TheLCF when talking about your project.

It’s also important to us that people understand the good things that are made possible through the Landfill Communities Fund, so we encourage you to let your local MP know about your grant.