The success of your project will be measured through monitoring by yourselves and reporting to us.
Depending on the nature and length of the project, we will ask you to provide us with progress updates on spend, milestones and outcomes. This is likely to be midway through your project and at the end of the project and may be more often for longer, larger or more complex projects.
An initial monitoring requirement at the start of your project is likely to be required, to establish a baseline position and to enable you to monitor any increase in jobs, growth, perception, use of facilities etc.
Projects must deliver specific outcomes and support the interventions and objectives of the Rural England Prosperity Fund. Please make sure you view our Interventions, Objectives, Outputs and Outcomes for North Somerset document and have understood the evidence that will be required as part of your reporting and monitoring.
Outcomes
You must specify which outcomes your project will produce.
For example, if you are a business and have selected the 'jobs safeguarded' outcome, please provide us with an estimated number of full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs that your project will safeguard.
The DEFRA definition of a safeguarded job is classified as a permanent and paid job that was at risk prior to support being provided, and which the support helped the business to retain. This includes sole traders and business owners. Note:
- safeguarded jobs exclude those created solely to deliver the intervention (e.g. construction workers putting up an extension to a building, where the extension was funded by the project)
- both part-time and full-time jobs should be recorded relative to their full-time equivalent (FTE)
- FTE should be based on the standard full-time hours of the employer
- 'at risk' is defined as being forecast to be lost within six months.
Another example might be a community organisation that has selected the 'increased users of facilities' outcome. In order to measure this increase, you will need to use an appropriate baseline, such as the month before the project started or if your user numbers change seasonally use the same month from the previous year. We are likely to ask you for the number of users before the changes and the number of users after the changes.
Or, if you believe your project will result in 'improved perception of facilities' then you will need to measure this change in perception, from those who used your facility before and after the funding took place.
We suggest that you use a short questionnaire or feedback form with a simple five-point scale perception question (very poor, poor, acceptable, good or very good). Ask the same users before the project commences and after to measure this change in perception.
The application form requires you to specify important stages of your project. These milestones give us an indication that you have carefully planned your project and are likely to be monitored too.
Further guidance
You can view our guidance notes for the REPF grant programme in North Somerset. Please refer to it for full information about the opportunities available.