Contents
1. Overview
This guide is for organisations that want to apply to the BFI National Lottery Skills Fund for funding to design and deliver a programme of Business Development Training that supports the growth and development of screen sector businesses across Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. The BFI has already awarded funding for the design and delivery of a similar programme in England.
The BFI will make one award for a programme of activity that seeks to deliver across the aforementioned nations. A partnership approach is encouraged by applicants to maximise effective delivery across the selected geography.
Your programme should be designed to support companies that are unlikely to be fully financed by the market at an early stage and so require National Lottery support. Primarily these would be small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) and start-ups in the screen sector that are producing creative content to tell a story and engage an audience such as film and TV companies, games companies, businesses working in VR and AR companies as well as the distribution, exhibition, technology and platform businesses that support the screen sector.
2. Delivering against our National Lottery Strategy
All activity funded through the BFI National Lottery Skills Fund should deliver against the following outcomes of the BFI’s National Lottery strategy:
Primary outcomes
- People from under-represented groups across the UK can access the support they need to develop their careers and skills (3.2)
- Vital skills for the sector that cannot be delivered by the commercial market are developed (3.4)
- Better support available for small and medium-sized enterprises and independents to develop their businesses (4.1)
Secondary outcomes
- Workforce retention is improved by building inclusive, flexible and supportive workplaces (3.3)
- Evidence-based insight and analysis of the screen sector is readily available to all, supporting organisations and driving policymaking (4.3)
- Screen organisations have significantly reduced their carbon footprint (4.4)
In addition, all National Lottery awards must deliver against our three principles for National Lottery funding:
- Equity, diversity & inclusion
- UK-wide – this guidance concentrates on business development training for screen businesses in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales as the BFI has already awarded funding to support similar activity across England. This will ensure that, together, recipients of the BFI’s funding for Business Development will deliver UK-wide coverage.
- Environmental Sustainability
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
The BFI will measure the success of the Fund using the following KPIs. All applicants should draft specific KPIs against the following indicators:
- Partnership funding secured for programme – minimum target 30%
- Number of training interventions delivered and type of approach deployed e.g. one-to-one mentoring, masterclasses, workshops, group training etc – monitoring only
- Number of businesses benefitting from direct training and networking – target 200
- Location of beneficiaries per nation – monitoring only
- Level of online engagement with programme activity e.g. number of individuals accessing / viewing online resources, social media
- Diversity of individual beneficiaries (see below)
You should draft specific KPIs against the following indicators to be measured 12 months after each funded activity:
- percentage of beneficiaries securing increased investment
- percentage of beneficiaries reporting increased turnover or profit
- percentage of beneficiaries reporting an increase in workforce
- percentage of beneficiaries delivering a new product or service
Equity, diversity and inclusion
We champion everyday inclusion at the BFI. A clearly defined and communicated set of Inclusion Targets gives us, our partners and the wider industry ambitious goals for a more diverse screen sector and representative audiences.
The activity of the BFI National Lottery Skills Fund as a whole will contribute towards achieving the BFI’s Inclusion Targets, which are:
- Disability (including those with a longstanding physical or mental condition and those identifying as D/deaf and/or neurodiverse) 18%
- Ethnically diverse 30%
- Gender (50-50 balance of male and female identifying within the gender binary, monitoring trans identities) 50%
- LGB+ (including those identifying outside the gender binary) 10%
- Working class background 39%
We are committed to working with our National Lottery delegate partners, our co-distributors, award recipients and stakeholders across the UK to deliver ambitious targets. Our programmes and funded activity will deliver outcomes that may include a focus on specific communities and demographics and if necessary, activity is designed in line with the needs of specific regions and nations. These will come with specific KPIs that are guided by our overall Inclusion Targets.
BFI Diversity Standards
All activity supported by our funding is informed by the BFI Diversity Standards. You will need to demonstrate how your proposal meaningfully tackles under-representation in relation to disability, gender, race, age, sexual orientation and socio-economic status, while also considering the interactions of these identities and any other barriers to opportunity. For applications to this programme, you are expected to summarise how your activity meets the intentions of each of the Standards A-E overall. See General Guidance for this summary version of the Diversity Standards.
For BFI National Lottery Skills Fund, the areas we expect you to focus on are:
- What representation is considered and offered in your output
- Who works for your organisation
- Early career opportunities, training and career progression
- The diversity of beneficiaries and how you will reach them
- The overall accessibility considerations and commitments
If your application is successful, you will need to report, following the conclusion of your activity, evaluating how you have delivered against the aims of the Diversity Standards in practice.
UK-wide
The BFI funds activity throughout the UK. This includes national, regional, and localised provision to ensure that communities throughout the UK feel the benefit of the screen industries and culture. You’ll need to tell us where your proposed activity will be delivered and how this will support the BFI’s UK-wide principle. For the Business Development Training Programme for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, your proposed activity should be specific to localities within these Nations only.
Environmental sustainability
You’ll need to tell us how you will embed the principle of environmental sustainability throughout your funded activity. This includes describing what you’re doing to reduce your negative impact (such as reducing carbon emissions or minimising single-use plastic) as well as what you’re doing to increase your positive impact (such as training that has a specific focus, for example on environmentally sustainable business practices). If you are offered an award the BFI will provide dedicated expertise to support you in addressing this principle.
3. What you can use the funding for
You can apply for an award of up to £300,000.
An award from BFI will enable you to deliver a business development training programme for the screen sector across Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Your programme should be designed to benefit screen sector companies that can demonstrate a need for National Lottery support.
While your programme may be designed to support a range of SMEs and start-ups in the sector, priority should be given to supporting film companies and those working in interactive and immersive media, such as games companies and businesses working in VR and AR.
We intend to offer funding for the duration of the National Lottery Funding Plan 2023-2026: your application should therefore be based on a single award running from 1 November 2023 to 31 March 2026.
If you are successful we will offer funding of up to £300,000 to be cash-flowed over this period subject to:
- Satisfactory performance — you being able to continue to deliver your training programme in accordance with the contractual terms of the offer of funding and the parameters of these guidelines and provided that you can satisfactorily demonstrate (through submission of routine reporting) that you are able to remain financially viable through to the end of the term
- Receipt and approval by BFI of routine reporting including progress against KPIs and costs to date, which can include proposed modifications to the balance of the budget and activity plans to adapt to learnings and changing circumstances, and details of planned activity as those plans solidify.
The amount of funding that BFI can make available for the second or third year may be impacted by the ongoing availability of National Lottery funds at predicted levels. If we have to reduce funding for any year we will ensure that we provide sufficient notice and work with you to modify plans accordingly.
Awards are not intended to substitute existing funding or income that would otherwise be available, or to fund activity that can happen in its own right. National Lottery funds can only be awarded to applicants who demonstrate a clear need for, and public benefit from, the activity being funded.
BFI National Lottery Funding is project-based, time-limited funding, and as such, there should be no expectation of ongoing support beyond the term of any awards made; in this case we are accepting requests for funding up to 31 March 2026.
Eligible costs
You can use the award for programme delivery costs which should be at a level to maximise public benefit and value for money of the fund and can include but are not limited to:
- Direct training costs and any associated costs (e.g. beneficiary travel)
- Direct programme delivery staff
- Programme events
- Resource development
- Marketing that is directly related to promotion of the opportunities available through the business development training programme
- Contribution to core overheads that support the programme (at a reasonable level)
Ineligible costs
Examples of common ineligible costs:
- Core costs for day to day running of your organisation not associated with the programme
- Costs relating to an extension of ongoing work
- Capital expenditure
- Filmmaking projects and workshops including development of scripts or stories
- Activity that is already specifically supported by another external source of funding
- Proposals that focus on other art-forms such as literature, dance on film, poetry film, opera or artists’ moving image
- Costs incurred prior to the offer of funding from the BFI
- Promotional or other activity (stands, printed brochures) which does not support an environmental sustainability policy
This list is not exhaustive and we may inform you that other types of activity within your application cannot be supported by a BFI award.
Please note, if you are registered for VAT, your figures should not include VAT that you can claim back. If you are not registered for VAT, or you are registered for VAT but cannot fully recover the VAT you incur on costs, your figures should include irrecoverable VAT. Grants we make are ‘outside the scope’ of VAT and should be listed in your accounts as a grant and not, for example, as a fee for any services supplied to the BFI. You should get financial advice from your own accountant or the relevant tax office.
Deliverables
In your application you will need to identify the specific activity you will deliver (your ‘deliverables’) using the funding, which will enable you to meet your KPIs. Your deliverables could include training, events, mentoring, resource development and dissemination and specific online engagement.
4. Check if you’re eligible
Your organisation must be a legally constituted organisation centrally managed in the UK. This includes:
- Limited Liability Company or Partnership registered at Companies House
- Community Interest Company registered at Companies House
- Combined or local authority or statutory body
- Charity or trust registered with the Charity Commission
You must demonstrate:
- Evidence of an ability to deliver across Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. We expect this to be demonstrated via partnerships with stakeholders in respective nations.
- Evidence of delivering similar business development training programmes at scale
- Expert knowledge of the UK screen sector particularly in relation to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, and relevant commercial / business expertise required to deliver high quality relevant programmes
- Understanding of barriers faced by those attempting to grow their business
- Connections to relevant screen sector stakeholders, including investors and training providers
Applicants must be applying to deliver their intervention on a not-for-profit basis. Individuals cannot apply.
Partnership funding
For your application to be eligible you will need to demonstrate an element of partnership support which can include cash or in-kind support. Partnership contributions will be taken into account in the assessment of applications and are an important demonstration that there is genuine support for your project from stakeholders, participants and other partners who will benefit from the programme.
We expect the business development training programme to include participation fees at a reasonable rate which must be included in your budget and which must not be kept or redeployed by the programme deliverer. When setting participation fees we encourage applicants to consider reasonable thresholds that minimise exclusion, and to make available bursaries and/or allocate a set number of training places on a gratis basis to aid equality of opportunity.
Partnership funding does not have to be secured at the point of application, but needs to be in advance of payment of any award from BFI and before the proposed project start date. Other BFI funds cannot be used as partnership funding and UK National Lottery Funding from another distributor should not be the only form of partnership funding.
BFI funding cannot support activity that is ongoing or that starts before our award decision has been communicated.
If you’re unsure your organisation is eligible you can get in touch with the team: skillscoordinator@bfi.org.uk
5. How to apply
When you can apply
Applications for this strand of the BFI National Lottery Skills Fund are now closed.
Information you need to provide
In the main application form you’ll need to provide:
- The amount of funding being sought from BFI along with sources of any partnership funding including participation fees
- Executive summary (maximum of 250 words), providing an outline of your organisation’s overall business plan for financial years 2023-26, to provide context for BFI-funded activities.
- Rationale for the proposal (maximum 250 words), evidencing a strong understanding of barriers to growth and key business development needs within SMEs in the screen sector
- Previous experience (maximum 250 words), detailing why you are best placed to deliver this programme of activity. You may want to include proposed team members and bios, delivery partners, and relevant previous experience of delivering similar activity
- Detailed programme delivery plan (maximum 2000 words), a full breakdown of proposed programme of activity including:
- the specific business development training you will offer and why
- any processes or systems to be used to aid effective delivery
- proposed assessment criteria for selection of participants for the business development training programme
- formal partnerships to ensure delivery can effectively take place across Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales
- any stakeholders that will be engaged, why, and how
- any resources that will be developed
- any accessibility considerations
- Intended outcomes and impacts (maximum 300 words), this should include proposed KPIs in-line with the Fund KPIs outlined above and a monitoring and evaluation plan. We expect you to set targets to ensure participation by beneficiaries across Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales
- Proposed Deliverables (maximum 300 words) — you should clearly set out deliverables that relate to achieving your KPIs
- Timeline for delivery, including key milestones 2023-2026
- Environmental sustainability (maximum 300 words), detailing your approach to environmental sustainability & net zero within the programme design, including any proposed training modules that relate to these issues
- UK-wide (maximum 300 words), how you will ensure provision across Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, including any partners you intend to work with to achieve this aim. The combination of activity supported through this fund with activity already being funded by BFI across England will ensure the BFI’s Skills Fund for Business Development is supporting UK-wide activity.
- EDI (maximum 300 words), how the proposal responds to equity, diversity and inclusion and responds to BFI’s Diversity Standards BFI’s Diversity Standards
- Outreach and engagement plan (maximum 500 words), to support delivery against KPIs. We are particularly keen to understand how you will maximise reach and engagement with those who will benefit the most from business development training support.
You’ll also need to complete an equality monitoring form.
You will need to attach the following documents to your application:
- A programme risk register
- A detailed programme budget to the 31st March 2026, clearly setting out proposed use of BFI funds and detailing the status of all partnership funding
- An indicative cashflow for the duration of the programme
- Your last set of independently certified / audited accounts. If more than 12 months has passed since the year-end covered in your certified accounts, please additionally provide draft accounts for the intervening auditable period as approved by your board (including both income and expenditure reporting and a balance sheet)
- Budget for your organisation for financial years 2023 to 2026, accompanied by notes highlighting the assumptions made and any key risks (for instance around renewal of funding from other sources)
- Your corporate risk register
- An environmental impact assessment or environmental sustainability strategy (or similar document) that shows your organisation’s commitment to environmental sustainability
Submitting an application
Applications for this strand of the BFI National Lottery Skills Fund are now closed.
If you have applied, you can log in to your account to check your application.
Make sure you provide all the information requested as incomplete forms will be automatically ineligible.
You can view a PDF of the application form below.
6. What happens after you apply
- You’ll get confirmation we received your application within 1 to 2 working days
- We’ll request any additional information we may need by 8 September 2023
- You’ll get a decision by 29 September 2023
Once submitted, we will review your application and if necessary, may write to you or request to meet with you to obtain more information about your application. If we need additional information from you, it may take us longer to reach a decision on your application.
If your application is ineligible we will email to tell you we will not be able to consider it. We may allow you to fix a mistake if this is the only reason the application is ineligible.
How your application is assessed
When assessing your application, we consider the public benefit from your proposed programme of activity and need for National Lottery funding along with the following:
- Approach including the quality and feasibility of your proposal – you should provide a clear, strategic proposal that identifies:
- Where key interventions are needed and how these seek to address sectoral failures and gaps in provision
-
- An open-access participation and assessment process to ensure activity supports those that will benefit the most
- How the proposed programme responds to the National Lottery Funding Plan Outcomes and Principles of funding
- Reach and ambition of proposed KPIs, noting the specific geographical focus of this funding is for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales
- How the proposed programme complements existing provision (if applicable); and
- How the proposal addresses the principles of EDI, environmental sustainability and enabling UK-wide benefit
- Quality and ambition of your engagement plan outlining how you will reach underrepresented groups as well as beneficiaries across Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales
- Proposed budget/expenditure, including the level of partnership funding secured, and whether the programme represents value for money
- Evidence of the organisation’s ability and capacity to carry out the programme of activity, including:
- Experience in delivering similar programmes at an appropriate scale and to a high quality
- Knowledge of barriers to growth and key skills needs across the sector
- Financial viability of the organisation
- Ability to deliver across Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales
- Commitment to environmental sustainability, and equity, diversity and inclusion
- How you have managed any previous BFI awards where applicable
We may share parts of your application with other BFI teams or external consultants to help us assess it.
How we prioritise applications
Only one application will be successful. We will make our decision based on the proposal that
- Best delivers on the relevant National Lottery outcomes
- Best addresses the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion; environmental sustainability; UK wide – noting a specific focus of the proposed activity across Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales
- Uses an innovative and creative approach
- Offers value for money and has the greatest potential to unlock additional partnership funding
We may also ask you to provide more information on your organisation’s approach to counter-fraud, including any organisational policies you have in place, before making a final award.
7. Getting a decision
If you’re successful
- You will receive a written offer of funding.
- You will need to sign the offer of funding and return it to the BFI within 21 days
Your offer of funding will set out details of how you will receive the funding, how to use it and how we expect you to report to us.
Read the General Conditions of National Lottery Funding and section 8 below to find out what you will have to do if you are offered an award.
If you’re unsuccessful
We may have turned down your application because we determined that the proposal:
- Did not fit our funding outcomes
- Did not demonstrate a strong enough commitment to one or all of the following Principles: equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI); environmental sustainability; UK-wide (with a specific focus on delivery in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales).
- Was too ambitious for the budget
- Did not demonstrate enough relevant experience
- Was not yet developed enough
- Did not demonstrate sufficient need for National Lottery support and should be financed by other means
- Did not meet with the BFI Diversity Standards
You will not be able to resubmit an application to this round of funding.
Feedback on an unsuccessful application
If we had a meeting with you to discuss your application, you can ask for feedback on your application. We’re a small team and unfortunately that means we’re unable to give feedback to other applicants.
We will keep the data and supporting materials you sent to us in line with our records retention policy.
We welcome your feedback on the application process and how we might improve it.
8. Conditions of funding
If you receive an award from us in addition to the conditions outlined elsewhere in these Guidelines you will need to meet the following conditions:
You will be required to report on progress against all KPIs on a quarterly basis and attend annual performance reviews.
You will be required to work collaboratively with relevant BFI departments and partners, including the awardee for the England Business Development Training Programme, to support the sharing of key learnings and potential joint working to maximise outcomes for the BFI Skills Fund.
You will be required to provide any resources that are developed under the funded activity to the BFI and ensure any resources developed using National Lottery funding are made publicly available.
You will need to adopt safeguarding provisions for protecting children and vulnerable adults and ensure that data on all participants in, and beneficiaries of, the Skills Fund can be shared with BFI in compliance with data protection legislation.
All awardees will be required to work with our designated cultural sustainability partner to assess their environmental impact. You will be required to calculate the carbon footprint of your funded activity using our designated partner. For awards made over multiple years, an annual footprint will be required. Further guidance and support will be provided to you once the award period begins.
Awards that involve delivering skills, training, education and careers work related to sustainability in the screen industries will have the support of our designated partner BAFTA albert in developing appropriate content for beneficiaries. We expect you to make use of this available support and include it in your regular reporting to us.