The Heritage Lottery Fund has provided an update of its information for applicants, with good news including that Townscape Heritage initiative funding is to continue for another year with a budget increase of £3m.
HLF writes:
Grant budget for new awards 2012-2013 ?The Heritage Lottery Fund has just agreed an increased budget for new awards in 2012-13 of £375m. This budget represents an increase of £120m over our 2011-2012 budget and is made possible by the increase in the heritage share of good cause income to 20% in April 2012, and continuing record ticket sales.??A number of other changes will also be introduced, which respond to our recent consultation and pave the way towards our strategic plan for 2013-19, which will be launched next May. ??More detail and finalised budgets for 2012-2013 will be announced in the spring. We currently expect this increased budget to be allocated as follows across HLF’s programmes:
· Heritage Grants (awards over £50,000) will have a total budget of £255m, including at least £50m for Major Batch projects (grants over £5m).
· Parks for People budget will be £24m across the UK, plus an additional £5m investment from Big Lottery Fund for parks in England.
· Landscape Partnerships budget will be £22m.
· Townscape Heritage Initiative budget will be £14m, with an additional application round in 2012 for decision in March 2013.
· Repair Grants for Places of Worship budget will be £30m across the UK.
· Your Heritage budget will be £26m. Note that grants will be available up to £100,000 from April, see below.
· Young Roots budget (for heritage projects led by young people) will be £4m. Note that grants will be available up to £50,000 from April see below.
· We will announce a further strategic investment in skills in 2012-2013 – details to be confirmed.
Other changes?Further detail about our new strategic plan from 2013 onwards will be announced in May 2012. However, HLF will be introducing a number of changes to programmes which respond to customer feedback and help manage our business even more effectively, from April 2012:
· Committees will take local decisions on more Heritage Grants applications – up to the value of £2m (currently £1m).
· The upper limit for Your Heritage grants will be increased to £100,000 (from £50,000).
· The upper limit for Young Roots grants will be increased to £50,000 (from £25,000). It will also support projects engaging a wider age range of young people (from 11 – 25 years old) and the maximum length of a project will be increased to two years.
· We will introduce single stage Heritage Grants applications by exception when there is an urgent external deadline, for example on partnership funding.
HLF Info for Applicants: LINK
