Valid as of 1st March 2010.
Please note: These guidelines have been updated. Please read them carefully, even if you have made CSCF applications in the past.
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1.Preparing a budget during the application process2.Managing your budget throughout your project3.Payment of funds4.Annual Audited Accounts (AAAs)
1.1 When do I have to submit a budget? 1.2 Is there a template to help me prepare my budget?1.3 What should I think about when preparing my budget? 1.4 What UK expenditure can I include? 1.5 What cannot be included in a CSCF budget? 1.6 How is my budget assessed?
We do not ask you to submit a budget at the Concept Note stage but merely to give a rough indication of how much you think it will cost to carry out the project activities. A full budget is not necessary at the Concept Note stage because we are only looking to assess whether or not your proposed project meets the basic criteria of the Fund. If you are invited to submit a full proposal, you will be required to include a full budget at that stage.
All proposal budgets must be prepared using the CSCF budget template. You may add or delete rows or columns as appropriate but all proposal budgets must use the same budget sub-headings and data fields.
Please do not produce a budget which breaks expenditure down by output.
Other points related to the presentation of your budget:
It is important that your budget is in line with your narrative proposal. The budget should clearly include provision for all of the project activities you are proposing to undertake.
When preparing your budget, please be realistic. Experience has shown that many project budgets are often set too high for the early years. This leads to requests to move unspent balances into later years. Because we need to ensure full spend on the overall CSCF programme, we are unlikely to be in a position to be flexible over re-allocation of under-spends so it is important you get your estimates right.
Your budget must be in Sterling (£) and not in local currency or US dollars.
You must state the source and value of any exchange rates you have used to calculate your budget. We recommend that you use the Financial Times to find the correct exchange rate.
Your budget must always fit within DFID financial years i.e. 1 April to 31 March. This should be maintained even if your project starts or ends in the middle of a financial year. For example a 3 year (36 month) project starting on 01 July 2011 should be broken down as follows:
Year 1: 1 July 2011 – 31 March 2012Year 2: 1 April 2012 – 31 March 2013Year 3: 1 April 2013 – 31 March 2014Year 4: 1 April 2014 – 30 June 2015
Inflation rates used in the project budget should not exceed the UK Treasury Rates of inflation for each financial year (01 April – 31 March). These rates, referred to as ‘GDP deflators’ can be found on the UK Treasury website . For financial years in the future where the Treasury has not yet set the predicted rates, please use the last available rate.
You must clearly show the proportion of the budget you are requesting from DFID, i.e. if you are requesting 100% funding or some other portion.
You must break down your budget to provide sufficient detail to justify the budget estimates. For instance, we would not accept a budget line which said simply:
Local Staff Costs £100,000
You should break this down such as –
It is highly recommended that you also include detailed notes with your budget to explain budget lines (there is a worksheet of the budget template for this purpose). It will affect the outcome of the appraisal if there are budget items or estimates that are not explained in sufficient detail.
External Evaluation is an important aspect of any project and we expect to see a separate budget line for this. We allow budget allocations for external evaluation of up to 5% of the total overseas budget requested from DFID (i.e. excluding UK expenditure and Building Support for Development).
All information and/or dissemination costs must only be shown under the Information and Dissemination sub-heading (unless they are for UK expenditure or Building Support for Development in the UK).
You must show the budget related to any capital purchase in the year in which the purchase is planned. You must not spread the cost over the lifetime of the project i.e. we would not expect to see a budget which had half of the cost of vehicle purchase in Year 1 and half in Year 2.
All items of UK expenditure must be shown separately under the UK Expenditure sub-heading, the total of which must not exceed 8% of the total overseas budget funding requested from DFID in any one year. For the purposes of this calculation, UK expenditure includes:
but excludes:
Where UK expenditure includes staff costs, you must give job titles and the percentage of time they will spend on the project. This should be expressed in Full-Time-Equivalents (FTE).
Building Support for Development in the UK is considered a separate component of the project and should have its own budget sub-heading. We will allow up to 5% of the total overseas budget funding requested from DFID for these activities. This can include related staff costs.
There are a number of budgets items which we do not allow in CSCF projects:
NB: This list is not exhaustive. There will be other budget lines that we cannot accept. If you are unsure about any item please contact Triple Line on +44 (0)208 788 4672, or send your query to cscf@tripleline.com
Your full proposal, including the budget will be appraised by a team of experienced assessors.
If we agree to support your proposal you will receive a letter confirming this decision but stating that the offer is provisional and dependent on our reaching agreement over budget (and possibly other technical) issues identified during the appraisal of your proposal.
2.1 My project has been offered provisional support – what do I do now?
2.2 What happens once my budget has been agreed?
2.3 What happens if my budget needs some fine tuning once the project has started?
2.4 What do I do if the project can’t spend all the money allocated for the currerent financial year before 31 March?
Triple Line will contact you, identifying any areas that require clarification. Final confirmation of funding is dependent on any issues being resolved. As the period following notification of our decisions is an exceptionally busy time, you should wait for your Triple Line to contact you.
Once Triple Line is satisfied with your budget and outstanding project queries have been resolved, you will receive two copies of the Grant Funding Arrangement (GFA). Along with your GFA you will also receive a budget summary containing budget sub-headings for claim purposes. There are 8 budget sub-headings:
You should sign both copies of the GFA, returning one copy to Triple Line. Once they have received the signed copy you are then able to request payment of funds (see section 3, below).
If your annual allocation for a financial year will remain unchanged, there are 2 ways in which you can make changes to your budget.
It is your responsibility to ensure that your project expenditure is in line with the project budget. As the CSCF is heavily committed each year, it is unlikely that funds will be available to accommodate any carry forward. Therefore late notification of under spends may result in funds being lost. If at any time it appears likely that there will be an under-spend in the agreed annual allocation for the project, you must notify Triple Line immediately.
To request a carry forward, you must submit a full revised budget (in the same format as your original agreed budget) to Triple Line for approval at the earliest possible date. An explanation of the changes you have made to the budget, why these changes are necessary and what impact these will have on the project should accompany the budget.
You should also ensure that your UK expenditure for each year is still within the 8% limit.
Should your revised budget be acceptable you will be issued with a revised GFA setting out the new annual allocations for the project. This must be signed and returned to Triple Line within 30 days of receipt. Please note you cannot begin to report against your new budget until Triple Line is in receipt of your signed revised GFA.
This section will provide you with the information you require to claim funds under your CSCF grant. You must read this guidance together with the information contained in the Grant Arrangement (GA) before submitting any claims.
DFID expects Civil Society organisations to claim funding in arrears. However, if payment of funding in advance is essential, you must contact Triple Line with a request outlining why payment in arrears is not suitable.
3.1 How do I claim funds in arrears?
3.2 How do I claim funds in advance?
DFID will release funds on a quarterly basis. In order to claim funds, you must send us:
”I certify that all the amounts detailed above have been actually, properly and necessarily expended in accordance with the provisions of the CSCF Grant, in accordance with the provisions outlined in the accounting instructions; and additional funds in excess of the CSCF Grant have been secured for this period.”
Claims must be completed on the form provided. Claims presented in any other format will not be paid. You do not need to send any other evidence of expenditure, however, as DFID, or its appointees, reserves the right to examine such evidence, you must keep these documents for seven years under the terms of our auditing procedures.
Any funds not spent by 31 March will not automatically be carried forward to the new financial year.
Any grant money held by you at the end of the project must be refunded to DFID, unless otherwise approved by Triple Line.
DFID will release funds in advance on a quarterly basis. In order to claim funds, you must send us:
A statement of account for the previous quarter (if applicable) detailing your actual project expenditure set against the agreed budget headings (see your Grant Arrangement).
A statement of estimated expenditure set out against each of the agreed budget headings (see your Grant Arrangement).
The advance claim form must be signed by an authorised official and certified. The certification statement includes the following wording
”I certify that all the amounts detailed above have been actually, properly and necessarily expended in accordance with the provisions of the CSCF Grant, in accordance with the provisions outlined in the accounting instructions and the estimated figures are a realistic forecast of the payments likely to be made to the end of the current period. Funds in excess of CSCF Grant have been secured for this period.”
Claims must be completed on the form provided. Claims presented in any other format will not be paid. You do not need to send any further evidence of expenditure however, as DFID, or its appointees, reserves the right to examine such evidence. You must keep these documents for seven years under the terms of our auditing procedures.
You must account for any funds received in the previous financial year by 30 April, or later if previously agreed with Triple Line.
Please note that any unaccounted or unspent funds will not automatically be carried forward to the new financial year. You must contact Triple Line if you do not think you will spend your allocation for any financial year.
DFID reserves the right for the National Audit Office and DFID’s own Internal Audit Department or DFID appointee at any time to inspect the books and accounts relating to the project. In addition the National Audit Office may carry out examinations into the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which your organisation has used its resources in discharging its functions under the Civil Society Challenge Fund.
The whole or part of any DFID Grant funds will be repaid on demand if the project accounts show, to our satisfaction, that the DFID Grant funds have been directly or indirectly, misapplied or misappropriated, by your organisation or agents employed, or otherwise employed by your organisation.
An inventory of all equipment costing £500 or more or those under £500 but termed attractive items (ie, electronic goods) at the time of purchase and wholly or partly funded by DFID should be maintained and provided to DFID if required. Entries of the inventory must include the following:
Equipment must remain the property of the project and should not be disposed of without the prior approval of DFID.
Payment will be made direct to your Bank Account using the BACS system. When you return your signed Grant Arrangement you must also provide details of your organisation’s Bank Account Name, Bank Account Number and sort code. No payments can be made until you provide these details on headed paper with the original signature of an authorised official.
4.1 Your Grant Funding Arrangement (GFA) states that you must send a copy of your organisation’s certified Annual Audited Accounts to Triple Line.
We must be able to assure Parliament that the financial support we provide has been spent as intended. If presented properly the information contained in the accounts will give the documentary evidence we need to fulfil our accounting requirements.
The following Questions and Answers explain what you need to do to present the information properly:
Your must send an original hard-copy of your AAAs for each of the financial years covered by the grant. They must be signed by your Finance Officer and certified by an independent firm of professional auditors as being a true reflection of your organisation's finances.
Each CSCF grant should be shown separately and should be certified to the effect that the grant was expended in accordance with the agreed terms of the GA. Additional funding should be shown for the project or projects not fully funded by the CSCF Grant.
If you cannot show each CSCF grant separately we can accept a certificate signed by the auditors confirming the total income and expenditure in respect of the CSCF grant and additional income.
You must send them within 4 months of the end of your financial year. Please contact Triple Line if you have problems meeting this deadline.
We will acknowledge receipt of your AAAs. We will only contact you if there are any areas which require clarification.
The accounts are reviewed to check that the grant is recorded as a restricted fund and that the amounts received and expended for each specific project agree with our records of grant claims and payments. We also review the status of the organisation’s financial health and any notes associated with the independent audit/certification.
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