I mean, I can’t speak for this levelling up fund. But my experience of trying to bid for Governments ‘centralised and simpler funding’ mechanisms was anything but that.
Councils no longer have budgets for a lot of things, you have to bid for it centrally. The first phase was a ‘simple’ expression of interest. The form was **47 pages long**. Plus you had to add on appendices, get letters of support from other organisations and partners etc.
This was phase one of a 3 stage process. The turnaround time from when the fund was opened to closed was **3 weeks**. 3 weeks to pull together a scheme from scratch and develop a foolproof business case.
In the end, I spent all 3 weeks solid on it (plus some unpaid overtime). Maybe 130 hours. Plus staff time from my manager to check it, team leaders to sign it off etc. you’re talking thousands of pounds worth of public money. But we want to help people.
One month later, we were told the application was unsuccessful. No feedback, aside from ‘We want a range of projects from a range of different regions’.
I work in the East Midlands. Of the winning bids, 4 were London, 3 in the South East, 1 South West, 1 Yorkshire, 1 North West.
How the fk are we supposed to do our jobs to serve people with meaningful things with this level of bollocks from the ‘party of small government?’
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I mean, I can’t speak for this levelling up fund. But my experience of trying to bid for Governments ‘centralised and simpler funding’ mechanisms was anything but that.
Councils no longer have budgets for a lot of things, you have to bid for it centrally. The first phase was a ‘simple’ expression of interest. The form was **47 pages long**. Plus you had to add on appendices, get letters of support from other organisations and partners etc.
This was phase one of a 3 stage process. The turnaround time from when the fund was opened to closed was **3 weeks**. 3 weeks to pull together a scheme from scratch and develop a foolproof business case.
In the end, I spent all 3 weeks solid on it (plus some unpaid overtime). Maybe 130 hours. Plus staff time from my manager to check it, team leaders to sign it off etc. you’re talking thousands of pounds worth of public money. But we want to help people.
One month later, we were told the application was unsuccessful. No feedback, aside from ‘We want a range of projects from a range of different regions’.
I work in the East Midlands. Of the winning bids, 4 were London, 3 in the South East, 1 South West, 1 Yorkshire, 1 North West.
How the fk are we supposed to do our jobs to serve people with meaningful things with this level of bollocks from the ‘party of small government?’