Million Hours Fund phase 3 terms and conditions

This page has the terms and conditons for phase 3 of the Million Hours Fund, running from 2025 to 2027.

If you got funding from phase 2, from 2023 to 2025, check the terms and conditions for Million Hours Fund phase 2.

Standard terms and conditions for Million Hours 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”. “In writing” includes email.

1. By accepting this grant, you agree to:

1.1. hold the grant on trust for us and use the grant only for your project as described in your application or otherwise agreed with us, and only for expenditure incurred after the date of your grant award;

1.2. use the grant 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 one month of signing the grant offer letter, unless otherwise agreed with us;

1.4. provide us or the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) or any supplier appointed by DCMS and instructed to carry out post-grant assurance activities or evaluation activities, 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 or DCMS 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 in writing 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 policy or 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 in writing between us and you, and carry out a fair and open recruitment process in line with the law and any guidelines issued by us;

1.11. acknowledge the grant funding using the required logo in accordance with the relevant guidelines for recognising your grant, which can be found in the post award webpage which you will be sent access to;

1.12. hold the grant in a UK-based account or building society account, which is in the legal name of the organisation that is applying for funding from us;

1.13. have effective financial controls and banking arrangements in place so that no single individual has sole responsibility for any single transaction from authorisation to completion and review and adheres to our guidance on financial controls and banking arrangements;

1.14. treat the grant as restricted funds in your management and statutory accounts using the reference “The National Lottery Community Fund” and the programme name “Million Hours Fund” 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;

1.15. 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;

1.16. comply with our safeguarding expectations for grant holders, which is available on our website;

1.17. 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;

1.18. comply with all applicable data protection legislation as amended including the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) which took effect from 1 January 2021 and the Data Protection Act 2018, as amended from time to time;

1.19. 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 paper or electronic receipts, invoices and bank statements;

1.20. confirm that you will co-operate with any research or evaluation-related activities which the appointed evaluation services supplier of DCMS or us carries out and further confirm that we may share with the appointed evaluation services supplier of DCMS or us any part of your application and/or project information to use for research or evaluation purposes;

1.21. 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 UK 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 and any other Data Subjects (as defined in the UK GDPR) and ensure you have a lawful basis to share any relevant Personal Data with us in order to comply with this clause; and

1.22. allow us to publicise and share 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 in writing 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;

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 in writing or fail to comply with any of these terms and conditions, or any additional conditions set out in our grant offer letter 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.

3.4. You receive or fail to declare any duplicate funding for the same project costs as funded by the grant.

3.5. 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.

3.6. You do or fail to do anything that brings us or the Million Hours Fund 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.

3.7. You enter into, or in our view are likely to enter into administration, liquidation, receivership or dissolution. We may seek to recover outstanding grant funds from the directors or officeholders of your organisation if they have commenced insolvency proceedings without discharging the organisation’s liabilities under the grant agreement.

3.8. 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 3.8, 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.

4. You acknowledge that:

4.1. by accepting this grant:

• 4.1.1. you confirm that the information in your application has been authorised by the governing body of your organisation;
• 4.1.2. your organisation is able to deliver the project described in your application; and
• 4.1.3. you understand that the grant is not consideration for any taxable supply for VAT purposes;

4.2. the grant is for your use only and you may not share or transfer the grant (or any part of it) to anyone else unless we have given you our prior written approval.

4.3. the grant comes from public funds and you will not use it in a way that does not comply with the Subsidy Control Act 2022 and associated regulations as amended from time to time. If the grant is deemed to be an unlawful subsidy, you will repay the entire sum with compound interest immediately.

4.4. we have no liability for any costs or consequences incurred by you or third parties that arise either directly or indirectly from the project, nor from non-payment or withdrawal of the grant, save to the extent required by law; and

4.5. these terms and conditions will continue to apply for two years after payment of the last grant instalment. Clauses 1.4, 1.5, 1.15, 1.18, 1.19, 1.20, 1.21, 1.22, 2.3, 2.4, 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5 shall survive termination of the grant agreement between us and you or expiry of these terms and conditions.