National Lottery - Terms and conditions for Dormant Accounts NI Fund

In these terms and conditions, The National Lottery Community Fund is referred to as “us” or “we”, and the organisation that is awarded a grant is referred to as “you”. We refer to the project, event or activity described in your application, or as otherwise agreed with us, as “the project”.

1. By accepting this grant, you agree to:

1.1. hold the grant on trust for us and use it only for your project;

1.2. use the grant only for costs incurred after the date of your grant offer letter and only during the term of the project as agreed with us;

1.3. start your project and draw down the first instalment of the grant within six months of signing the grant offer letter, unless otherwise agreed with us;

1.4. provide us promptly with any information and reports including relevant monitoring information we require about the project and its impact on your community, both during and after the end of the project;

1.5. work with any third party we may contract with or appoint for the benefit of the project and/or this funding programme;

1.6. obtain our written consent before making any significant changes to your project or to the status, ownership or constitution of your organisation;

1.7. let us know promptly about any significant issues or delays with your project or about any fraud, other impropriety, mismanagement or misuse in relation to the grant or any legal claim and/or investigation made or threatened against you, any member of your governing body, or any organisation, employee or volunteer working on the project;

1.8. act lawfully in carrying out your project, in accordance with best practice and guidance from your regulators, and follow any guidelines issued by us in relation to the programme or use of the grant;

1.9. advance equality of opportunities in line with the law and any guidelines issued by us;

1.10. if the grant is for a salary of a new post, advertise the vacancy externally unless otherwise agreed with us, and carry out a fair and open recruitment process in line with the law and any guidelines issued by us;

1.11. acknowledge Dormant Accounts funding using the Dormant Accounts Fund NI logo in accordance with the relevant guidelines for recognising your grant, which can be found on our website https://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk;

1.12. hold the grant in a UK based bank or building society account which satisfies our requirements as set out in guidelines and requires at least two unrelated people to approve all transactions and withdrawals;

1.13. treat the grant as restricted funds in your annual accounts using the reference “the National Lottery Community Fund” and the programme name “Dormant Accounts Fund NI” and if required by us, open a separate designated bank or building society account for each grant from us for the sole purpose of receiving and administering that grant;

1.14. immediately return any part of the grant that is not used for your project or that has not been spent by the end of the project, as agreed with us;

1.15. where your project involves working with children, or adults at risk, comply with our Guidance to Grantholders on Safeguarding the Vulnerable People We Support available on our website and carry out background checks for all employees, volunteers, trustees or contractors as required by law and good practice guidance from your regulator(s);

1.16. have an appropriate written whistleblowing policy and procedure/s in place, ensure the policy and/or procedures are publicised internally and ensure that staff are trained on its principles and operation, review and update your whistleblowing policy and procedures at least every two years;

1.17. comply with all applicable data protection legislation as amended including the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 and any UK general data protection regulations or act of parliament as implemented into law as a result of the UK’s exit from the EU (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 and, where appropriate, you will obtain the consent of your beneficiaries to enable us to receive and process their Personal Data in connection with the project and for us to contact them;

1.18. keep accurate and comprehensive records about your project both during the project and for seven years afterwards and provide us on request with copies of those records and evidence of expenditure of the grant such as original receipts and bank statements;

1.19. we may commission research into and/or evaluation of your funding. You confirm that you will co-operate with any research or evaluation-related activities which we carry out and further confirm that we may use any part of your application and/or project information for research or evaluation purposes;

1.20. allow us and/or the Comptroller and Auditor General reasonable access to relevant premises and systems to inspect the project and grant records. You agree that it may be necessary for you to share relevant Personal Data (as defined in the GDPR) with us in order to fulfil your obligations under this clause. You will be transparent about your obligations under this clause with your beneficiaries (Data Subjects (as defined in the GDPR)) and ensure you have a lawful basis to share any relevant Personal Data with us in order to comply with this clause; and

1.21. us publicising and sharing information about you and your project including your name and images of project activities. You hereby grant us a royalty free licence to reproduce and publish in any format any project information you give us. You will let us know when you provide the information if you don’t have permission for it to be used for these purposes.

2. If any part of the grant is used to buy goods or services, or to buy or develop intellectual property, costing more than £10,000 you will:

2.1. carry out a competitive tender for the goods and/or services and comply with UK procurement rules if applicable to you;

2.2. use assets purchased or enhanced using the grant only for the project and keep them safely, in good repair and condition and adequately insured for the life of the project and any subsequent asset monitoring period specified in the relevant guidelines;

2.3. protect any intellectual property rights purchased or developed using the grant and not commercially exploit these rights without our prior written consent; and

2.4. obtain our prior written consent for any disposal of assets purchased, developed or enhanced using the grant and if required, pay us a share of proceeds from such disposal.

3. You acknowledge that we are entitled to suspend or terminate the grant and/or require you to repay all or any of the grant and/or impose additional conditions in the following situations. You must let us know if any of these situations have occurred or are likely to occur.

3.1. You use the grant in any way other than as approved by us or fail to comply with any of these terms and conditions, or any additional conditions set out in our grant offer to you.

3.2. You fail to make good progress with your project or are unlikely in our view to complete the project or achieve the impacts agreed with us.

3.3. You have match funding for the project withdrawn or receive or fail to declare any duplicate funding for the same project costs as funded by the grant.

3.4. You provide us with false or misleading information, either on application or after award of the grant, act dishonestly, or if you or anyone involved in the project or your organisation is under investigation by us, a regulatory body or the police.

3.5. You do or fail to do anything that brings us into disrepute, or which we consider for any reason puts public funds at risk, or we terminate or suspend any other grant we have given you.

3.6. You enter into, or in our view are likely to enter into, administration, liquidation, receivership, dissolution or, in Scotland, have your organisation’s estate sequestrated.

3.7. You receive any grant money incorrectly either as a result of an administrative error or otherwise. This includes where you are paid in error before you have complied with your obligations under these terms and conditions and grant offer letter. Any sum, which falls due under this paragraph 3.7, shall fall due immediately. If you fail to repay the due sum immediately, or as otherwise agreed with us, the sum will be recoverable summarily as a civil debt.