Answers to your questions posed to the Business Improvement and Commissioning Team
Management Information System / MYPAS
Voluntary Youth Manchester has agreed with Manchester City Council that in partnership with 4CT they will continue to offer the MYPAS service to anyone who wishes to use it. If you wish to use this service, please indicate this in your Youth Fund bids. For further information, contact Ross Grant on 0161 830 4779
1) What is the total pot of funding available/how many contracts will be awarded under each lot?
As indicated in the Youth & Play commissioning pack we are unable to confirm the available commissioning pot as this is dependent on Local Authority budget settlement due to be announced in January, SRF allocations cannot yet be provided until the total commissioning pot is known. The number of contracts will be determined by application/evaluation and available funding. There is no set limit in place.
2) Is it possible for one organisation to apply for two contracts under lot 1 to work in different areas within the 5 SRF areas?
Yes, there is no limit to the number of applications an organisation can make. Therefore an organisation could make multiple applications to an SRF area, application(s) to any or all SRF Areas and apply to Citywide as well.
3) Would it be possible to apply for a city-wide contract under lot 2 to work with a specific target client group on a city-wide basis e.g., teenage parents?
Yes you are able to apply for a citywide contract to work with a specific group, but your application will need to clearly show detail of the group, their specific needs, that these are not able to be met by other services and how your organisation will meet need and impact on the outcomes.
4) We specialise in working with young single parents, who need child-care in order to participate. Because of the cost of this, we cannot offer the same value for money as providers who only work with young people who are not parents. Will this be taken into account by the evaluating panel?
Your application should show the needs of the target group you are intending to provide services/activities for and how you will meet these. We appreciate that certain work can prove more costly to deliver and the evaluation process will account for this.
5) In the specification for the Youth fund Lots you outline Applications are sought for activities / services with contract values with a minimum value of £5,000 and a maximum value of £35,000 are these figures per year or for the lifetime of the contract?
The values stated are for the full 21 month period of the contracts.
6) Who cannot apply?
• Cultural organisations in receipt of strategic investment from Manchester City Council (if you are unsure of your status please contact us before proceeding further with the application). These organisations cannot be included in partnership or consortium applications;
Can you clarify what funds this specifically relates to - if there is a list that would help us to help groups check their eligibility
Manchester City Council has cultural strategic investments with organisations such as Manchester International Festival, National Football Museum, Home (formerly cornerhouse and library theatre company), Halle and Zion -Arts. The Council does not wish to double fund these organisations at the expense of voluntary, community and faith organisations who traditionally deliver youth and play provision.
7) If (for example) 3 organisations form a partnership and submit a partnership bid together with a lead organisation as suggested in 2. Specification (i) Partnerships, is the maximum amount they could
collectively apply for under one partnership bid still £35,000? Or can three organisations submit a joint bid for £105,000 split three ways?
The limit for any single youth application is £35,000 regardless of how many organisations are involved in the project. For Play there is no upper limit other than the relevant SRF allocation. For any applications to Youth & Play projects one organisation must be the lead applicant who would complete the approrpiate documents and take full responsibility for any partnership or consortia. This includes all finance, monitoring and management responsibilites.
8) Are there any restrictions on who can provide references – eg. can a City Council employee provide a reference?
No restrictions have been specified but for good practice, no Council employee involved in either commissioning process would be eligible or appropriate. Referees should really be able to clearly demonstrate a
knowledge not only of the applicant organisation and partners where applicable, but of the proposed provision also.
9) I’m assuming that you need the references signed by hand and then submitted electronically, along with all the other additional documents requested. Is that correct?
Yes
10) We are a registered charity – with a charity number and showing on the Charity Commission website, but I’m not aware of ever having a certificate of registration. What other evidence would you like us to send?
The Charity Commission website has clear and precise details of how you may obtain a certificate as evidence for funding bodies. Please follow this link for further details: https://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/FAQS/Requests_for_information/ID223.aspx
11) Under Lot Definitions, Lot 1 Youth Positive Activities – Targeted Universal/Personalised Support (5 x SRF Areas only) sub-section Neighbourhoods developing links with other services and identifying workforce Requirements. Is there not an expectancy for organisations to engage with the support and/or training where it is available which includes training on Mental Health education and support along with the other areas listed?
Yes, unfortunately a line of text has been omitted from the specification. This should read;
Organisations will be expected to engage with the support and/or training where it is available on delivering education, support or signposting on mental health issues affecting young people;
Apologies for any inconvenience caused by this omission.
12) Are organisations allowed to make application to both Youth (Lots 1 & 2) and Play (Lots 3 & 4)?
Yes. A more detailed response is included in the FAQ list displayed on MACC/VYM website
13) There is no mention of MYPAS reporting and reference to developing one’s own monitoring and reporting systems. Does this mean that MYPAS reporting in the future will not be required?
Yes. A more detailed response is included in the FAQ list displayed on MACC/VYM website
14) Section 1a) Manchester Play Fund highlights the need to link resources with child poverty and deprivation. Is it envisaged that a relationship will evolve between the project and the appropriate section in MCC Children’s services? Will information about targeted need be shared? (Notwithstanding Child Protection, Confidentiality and Data Protection?
The need to link resources with child poverty and deprivation is very much a priority for the Play Fund. This is reflected in the SRF Funding Allocation mechanism detailed in the pack, whereby overall allocations for each SRF area have been calculated on the basis of child poverty, and in the emphasis on organisations being able to demonstrate in their application how they meet local need. Levels of deprivation and child poverty at Ward level within each SRF will also be taken into account when projects are evaluated by the commisisoning panels. It is further reflected in the emphasis on the specified vulnerable groups referenced in the specification which organisations should demonstrate how they plan to engage and work with. It is not envisaged that a relationship between the project and departments of Children's Services will evolve on individual children in the normal life of a project, although all providers must be willing to participate in Manchester Common Assessment Framework (MCAF) to provide early help if appropriate for a child, and should be willing and able to signpost children and families to other services.
15) As MYPAS will no longer will operated through the authority are there any arrangements for monitoring centrally?
As the impact of services and activities on the achievement and development of young people and the need to be able to demonstrate this becomes more important the latest commissioning rounds for Youth and Play are moving away from solely considering output targets only. As a result the management information system, MYPAS will no longer be provided by MCC. However, it is expected that organisations submitting applications will clearly describe their methods of managing performance and impact of their provision on the specified outcomes, which will include data collection of outputs. Where an offer of funding is made following evaluation an organisation's performance management method of choice will be agreed during contract negotiations.
MCC will carry out monitoring of commissioned organisations, which will include a requirement for quarterly progress reports to be submitted. These will include details of children and young people engaged. Youth Inclusion Lead Officers will undertake regular visits to review quality assurance and contract management.
For those still wishing to utilise a version of MYPAS to record quantitative data, negotiation is taking place between VYM, 4CT Ltd and Everis Ltd (MYPAS owners) for a version of the system to be made available. Please be aware that use of the system will incur a cost, though every effort is being made to keep this to a minimum. Any organisation considering the use of MYPAS in the future should liaise with VYM for the latest position on the system's availability.
16) What will be the form of verification for the use of the Safeguarding Toolkit?
The requirements section of the current Youth and Play commissioning specification states that all organisations seeking to deliver youth or play provision will be mandatorily required to have completed the Safeguarding Self-Assessment Toolkit by the time of submitting their application. The verification of this (by MCC) will take place during the contract negotiation stage, with those organisations that have been recommended to be commissioned needing to provide evidence of the completed Safeguarding Toolkit Self Assessment.
17) If people decide to submit a partnership bid is the maximum amount they can apply for still £35,000?
The maximum amount for any individual and/or partnership bids is £35,000. Individual organisations, collaborations and partnerships can bid more than once for different pieces of work based on identified need.
18) Is Mypass going, will it be replaced or can it continue to be used?
Please see response already posted
19) Are there issues with SRF wards if not in East Manchester as the application states that some wards we consider to be East are in North or South?
The commissioning core group elected to use the defined SRF areas for contract purposes. It isn't possible to alter these, however applicants should apply to any SRF area where the predominance of activity or engagement of young people will occur. We are aware that children and young people don't recognise ward or area boundaries therefore applicants should include any information in describing their proposed provision which may show a need by a vulnerable group which will result in cross boundary engagement.
20) The limit of £35,000 is this for one year or two?
Please see response already posted
21) Are we allowed to charge a minimum fee to participants in activities if the money is put back in to the programme?
Organisations are entitled to charge a membership or entrance fee if they wish. If organisations choose to make a charge it is their decision as to how this money is utilised.
22) Do we need 2 referees for each separate Lot we apply for? For example, if we are applying for both Play and Youth in on SRF area, do we need different referees for each ie four referees?
Please refer to the Q & A already posted on the MACC website in respect of referees. As stated referees need to be able to clearly demonstrate both a knowledge of the applicant organisation or partnership and any proposed provision. If by applying for different lots the proposed and provision differs then applicants should ensure that referees are able to demonstrate adequate knoweldge of all provision.
23) In your Needs Assessment, section 9.1 Youth Fund, under the heading 'At SRF neighbourhood levels' it says both Positive Activities and Personalised Targeted Support 'designed for 10 -19 year olds' elsewhere in the documentation/specification Youth Fund age grouping is 13 - 19 with Play Fund 5 -14. All then says about up to 25 for vulnerable groups. So
a) What is youth Fund 13 - 19 or 10 -19
b) What groups are vulnerable and therefore can be included up to 25?
a) The age range for youth is 13 -19. Apologies for the typographical error in the Needs Assessment.
b) Vulnerable groups are:
young people furthest from the labour market
young people who have a disability
young people from black and ethnic minority backgrounds
young people who are in local authority care
young people who are in temporary accommodation
young people who are at risk of offending
young offenders
young people with mental health issues
young parents
LGBT young people
young people who are NEET
young people needing SRE services
24) When we downloaded the form and saved it in Word it runs altogether as a whole document, can we take out the sections that are not relevant to our bid? (for example, Lot 4, section 4)
Yes, you may extract relevant application sections, complete and submit these. There is no requirement to submit any sections not relevant to an application.
25) When submitting our bid/s, do we send them in one attachment or do we need to do a separate attachment for each Lot? Do we keep Section 1 as a separate attachment.
This is the choice of the applicant. If it is more convenient to supply a single attachment containing all sections then we are happy to accept this.
Alternatively if the applicant finds it easier to submit multiple attachments showing separate sections this will be accepted also.
26) What constitutes an 'appropriate process/system'? Can we have a list of acceptable systems? If not available some appropriate examples of systems?
'Organisations will be required to provide evidence of any existing quality assurance process/system that is currently in use which will provide evidence toward the quality standards. Any organisations not currently using a process/system must show commitment to put an appropriate process/system in place and have completed the self-assessment process by 1 April 2013.'
The choice of a quality assurance process/system sits entirely with each individual organisation. It is expected that an appropriate process/system will either be already in use and this will supply evidence toward the quality standards or in the absence of a process/system the self-assessment document will be completed and confirmation that an appropriate process/system is being implemented. As commissioners it is not appropriate for us to provide information on systems, VYM are offering support including workshops to any organisation desiring advice or guidance on choosing an appropriate system
27) In the request for referees, do we need referees who know our work in each area we intend to apply for. i.e. would we need 10 referees if we applied for the 5 SRF areas?
Please refer to Question 8 on list of FAQs on MACC website. Whilst not wishing to intentionally create additional work it is important that referees are able to demonstrate a clear knowledge of both the organisation and proposed provision.
28) Can we ask Councillors or MP's to act as a referee?
Yes, Councillors or MPs may act as referees provided they meet the criteria of not being involved in either Youth or Play commissioning processes as an evaluator or Valuing Young People Board member and can demonstrate a clear knowledge of the organisation and proposed provision.
29) Can we have a former service user act as a referee?
As in the previous answer provided anyone acting as a referee is able to show they meet all required criteria and there is no conflict of interest is able to act as a referee.
30) Can the same applicants apply more than once for each City area if they have distinctly separate projects?
Yes, applicants may apply for as a many lots as they wish, either SRF or Citywide as long as each application clearly provides all the required information and does not duplicate any others submitted.
31) What is your defining difference between playschemes (separately funded) and 'street and outdoor play available during the school holidays' ? We are thinking of applying for outdoor play during the school holidays in a particular ward under Play Lot 3 but do not want to be rejected on the grounds that is a playscheme.
The Play Fund Round (1) commissioning pack details the criteria, eligibility, monitoring and reporting requirements that must be met as well the four outcomes that organisations should demonstrate their ability and methodology for achieving. Although it is aimed at 'year round' provision, we know that for some projects this does not necessarily mean that projects will run for 52 weeks per year, as with the Parktastic type activties that the needs analysis identifies as being most popular between the months of March and October, including school holidays. Operating for only part of the year will not make a project ineligible for funding from the Play Fund, and the evaluation process will seek to provide an accessible play offer across the SRF areas, which are likely to have variety of access times, including weekend and after school provision, which was identified in the needs analysis as something children and young people would like to see.
Play Scheme funding will continue to be funded through a small grants process separate to Play Fund (1). For information, Open Access Playschemes provide supervised play activities for school aged children.
Open access means that the playscheme is open to all children in the local community on a first come first served basis and children can attend the activities on offer unaccompanied and the children themselves decide when it's time to leave. Supervised play activities are provided by staff on a sessional basis, and is therefore not normally suitable for working parents and does not constitute care being provided in the absence of parents/carers.
A set of contractual obligations relevant to play schemes and information on applying for Easter and Summer playschemes, that may help you in determining which fund is most appropriate for your project, is available from the Play Quality Assurance Officer (Email: [email protected]). For some projects it may be that the provision offered is in principle eligible for both Play Fund Round (1) or Play Scheme funding (i.e. eligible in principle for both, although we would not look to double fund in this way) depending on the organisations ability to demonstrate they are able to meet the relevant requirements associated with each funding pot.
32) There are a lot of documents to send electronically, can we send our application and supporting documentation in separate emails to make sure that we don’t exceed our e mail limits?
Yes, but the responsibility of ensuring that all appropriate documentation for a single project is sent together lies with the applicant. It won't be for us to piece together a series of e-mails. Therefore organisations who are submitting multiple SRF applications might be best served in sending these on individual e-mails.
33) I e mailed my complete application to a colleague for review and she wasn’t able to open all the attachments, have you made provision fordocuments that might not be compatible with your current systems?
MCC's current system is fairly standard, it being MS WORD. However if we were to receive an application that we could not open or read we would contact the applicant to discuss and resolve.
34) I intend to ask for a receipt for my application when I e mail it, but I am worried in case your system quarantines my application, how will Iknow that it has all been received?
Any incoming email to MCC that is quaratined automatically generates a notice to the email account inbox, in this instance CSI. If we receive such a notice we would ask for release from our ITC Dept. In terms of a receipt should a document be quarantined the receipt will be generated once the document is released into the inbox, unless the applicant requests a read receipt in which instance the receipt would be generated once the application is opened.
35) In the application form you ask about employers liability and public liability insurance. We have £10m of employers and £5m of public liability would we need to increase our public liability insurance?
Yes, the minimum amounts for each are set out in the specifications/applications. This question is also covered in the FAQ list on MACC website.
36) In the application form you ask for audited accounts. Will you accept accounts independently verified by a qualified accountancy service?
Submitted accounts must be signed by company secretary, appropriate organisation representative of sufficient seniority or professional accountant. If verification by a qualified accountancy service meets this requirement then yes it would be accepted.
37) In the application form you ask if we employ a Health and Safety Officer, do you mean do we have a Health and Safety officer? We have a member of staff whose job role amongst other roles, includes Health and Safety monitoring and management is this acceptable?
As long as responsibility for Health & Safety is within a staff members designated remit then this acceptable.
38) I am writing the application on behalf of our organisation, is my signature as applicant sufficient to be eligible or do you need a Trustee, Management committee member or director to sign it?
The person signing the application is responsible for the accuracy and verification of the contents therefore it should be somebody in an appropriate senior position.
39) The application has to be signed to be valid, am I right to assume a signed copy attached as scanned document is acceptable
Yes. However if an application shows a typed signature we may ask for a scanned or original signature to be provided.
40) We have matched funding for the project, but I am not sure where to show this. Is it acceptable to supply a separate sheet for my budget showing the total project costs, what we are asking the council for and what we have already secured?
Add a line to the financial profile called income and provide details.
41) I wanted to include a table to answer a question, and although it took a bit of work I have now found a way to amend your application form to do this, is it acceptable to insert a table in this way?
It is fine to insert a table into/next to/under one of the answer boxes in the application form as part of the answer to one of the set questions on the form. The only thing to be careful of is that the template should not be changed - i.e. no deleting/amending or otherwise changing the set questions or their layout on the template (i.e. by moving questions elsewhere). We can only be consistent in scoring the applications if each has had to answer the same questions.
42) The application form for play talks about economies of scale. We intend to submit an application for a youth work project under lot 1 and a play project under lot 2, for a single SRF area where the economies of scale will occur because we already have equipment on site. If we bid for Play as well as Youth for same SRF area and are successful we can reduce the costs if we dovetail provision how can I show this or link my application which will be sent separately for the 2 lots?
It is indeed correct that the process is encouraging economies of scale where this can be achieved, so the applicant certainly should mention this in BOTH applications (i.e. youth and play). They should include some narrative in the question headed Description of Service/Activity for both applications.