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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/night-shelter-transformation-fund-prospectus-and-application-form/night-shelter-transformation-fund-2022-25-funding-prospectus
The government is committed to ending rough sleeping and has made considerable progress in recent years to reduce the numbers of people who sleep rough on our streets. The dedication and commitment of the faith and community sector is vital to ending rough sleeping, and the government’s Night Shelter Transformation Fund seeks to advance the development, growth and long-term sustainability of the sector.
The pandemic has shown that partnership working between local authorities and non-commissioned services in the faith and community sector has a significant impact on rough sleeping services, rough sleepers’ experiences of services, and individual outcomes. The annual rough sleeping snapshot for 2021 showed there were 2,440 people estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2021 – a 9% decrease from last year.
To enable this impactful and important work to continue and to increase the variety and quality of services, the government is committing up to £10 million to 31 March 2025 to a Transformation Fund.
This funding will ultimately help people sleeping rough to receive support they need and reduce the risk of the most vulnerable in our society returning to the streets.
This fund will make annual and multi-year grant funding available to Night Shelter providers to provide a diverse range of quality, dignified provision for individuals experiencing rough sleeping, offering more sustainable routes off the streets.
1. Enhancing or developing single room accommodation for people experiencing rough sleeping.
2. Developing non-residential support for rough sleepers where applicants can demonstrate a specific need and targeted solution that enhances local areas’ support and reduces the number of people experiencing rough sleeping.
The Night Shelter Transformation Fund will give equal priority to bids for single room accommodation and non-residential support. However, bidders must demonstrate that they are, or have been, providers of Night Shelter services in order to be eligible.
The fund will not support bidders who have only ever provided non-residential support, or who have not provided Night Shelter services since 2019/20.
Night Shelter refers to non-commissioned accommodation services, with a low threshold for access, focused on rough sleepers and generally providing temporary accommodation.
Sector membership bodies, Homeless Link and Housing Justice, will work in partnership with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) to support organisations to prepare bids and implement any bids awarded funding. See the Application Support section below for more information about how these organisations will be able to support you in developing your bid.
The Fund will open bi-annually in both 2022/23 and 2023/24, with the first round launching week commencing 25 July 2022 and close for applications on 26 August 2022.
The strategic objectives that DLUHC are seeking to support organisations to achieve through this fund are threefold:
These objectives will enable transformation to take place in three distinct areas, all of which come together to contribute to an overall transformation within the sector and the services provided to service users.
Funding will be made available through three funding streams.
DLUHC encourages bidders to consider the ways in which this funding will be transformative organisationally, locally and individually. All bids should have a clear transformative goal in mind. This fund will not make grants to support the maintenance of programmes already underway unless there is a clear ambition to transformation made possible by the funding.
The types of transformative provision for which we expect to receive bids fall into two broad categories:
Enhanced accommodation offers, including hotels and B&Bs, single room accommodation, the re-configuration of properties, modular housing and supported housing.
Diversifying into community-based services, including but not limited to drop-ins, day services, befriending, peer support, floating support, advice and advocacy, employment support and provision for people with restricted eligibility.
In order to have your application considered, your organisation must be a small to medium sized organisation (up to £5 million annual turnover), that currently works directly with people experiencing rough sleeping in a Night Shelter setting or provided a Night Shelter on or after 2019/20.
Organisations with a higher turnover may apply in very specific circumstances, such as evidencing being the only emergency provider over winter in a particular area. If this is the case, please contact us directly for advice before submitting an application.
Successful applicants will be required to report to DLUHC and partners throughout the funding period , including to update on progress of Revenue and Capital projects and, where appropriate, detailed sitreps on units in delivery. Interim reports will contribute to an overall end-of-grant report delivered in mid-2025
We want to know that you will work with local authorities and partners towards delivery of agreed strategic plans to meet the needs of those rough sleeping and experiencing homelessness. This should include consideration of move-on from your provision. We will be keen to understand how provision from this fund ties to the government’s Rough Sleeping Initiative (RSI) funding, delivered through the local authority.
We therefore require applicants to submit the relevant local authority’s endorsement, by letter or email, to ensure that bids complement (and do not duplicate or contradict) the council’s work and that of commissioned services. Please note that letters should come from Officers responsible for rough sleeping within the local authority. Supporting letters from an elected member/councillor will not be considered and so should not be submitted.
Only organisations meeting these criteria are eligible for funding:
Unincorporated organisations will be required to submit:
The purpose of the Night Shelter Transformation Fund is threefold, the objectives detailed below summarise the goals of the fund and should be taken into consideration for all applications made to the fund.
This section of the prospectus outlines the considerations that applicants should review ahead of submitting an application to the fund.
For Revenue, grants must be between £10,000 and £100,000 per annum.
Revenue bids can contain up to 10% for minor capital costs.
Revenue work must be completed and spent no later than the end of the financial year (the last day in March) in which it is eligible to be spent.
Organisations with a turnover higher than £1,000,000 should seek to provide match funding for their bids, as these bids will be reviewed favourably in value for money terms.
For Capital, grants must be between £25,000 and £100,000, unless you can provide an exceptional rationale for falling outside of these amounts.
Capital bidders can also apply for revenue (e.g. for different costs) but should also indicate in both bids whether they require the revenue funding to be approved in order to deliver the capital project - and vice versa.
The grant we offer will be a maximum and so you should ensure all relevant costs are included. Any irrecoverable input VAT should also be included.
Bids for the Night Shelter Transformation Fund will open in bi-annually in 2022/23 and 2023/24.
Round 1 of the programme is expected to begin in the week commencing 25 July 2022. Please see below more details:
Details of subsequent funding rounds will be shared in due course.
This strand of funding should be used to make available high-quality secure provision that is available year-round. This fund will only consider funding capital applications that will provide single-room accommodation.
For the purposes of this Fund, self-contained provision is defined as separate living accommodation in which an individual has access to a single room (with a lockable door, access to running water, four walls and a ceiling, secure window and appropriate ventilation) which is not shared with anyone else, and access to cooking facilities and full bathroom facilities (single-use or shared with a limited number of individuals). Please note that these criteria do not therefore allow dormitory style accommodation.
Given the limit to capital spend in this fund, we expect capital bids for this Fund to be focussed on enhancement of existing premises, rather than acquisition of new buildings, although bids for some relatively low-cost acquisition of new assets may be considered.
Any capital expenditure should be used to adapt provision permanently to facilitate effective, longer-term models of support that offer individuals sustainable routes out of rough sleeping.
Expectation that the asset will be used for more than one year
The Fund will award grants of between £25,000 and £100,000
Your application will be evaluated based on weighted criteria. The weighted criteria are as follows:
Bids will be assessed by a panel comprised of representatives from DLUHC’s Homelessness & Rough Sleeping and Commercial Grants teams against the criteria listed in the attached Annex B.
Where questions are assessed they will be given a score from 0-3. Bids receiving a score of 0 for any question will be automatically rejected.
Scores will be multiplied by weightings to give a Section Score. Section Scores will be added to provide a Total Score. The Total Score will be used to rank applications.
The maximum total score is 300.
Bids will be prioritised by Total Score.
The final decision as to which application receives what level of funding will rest with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
DLUHC reserves the right to vary these conditions and the right to either withdraw or reduce the funding, in line with the terms and conditions set out within the Grant Funding Agreement.
DLUHC has partnered with sector membership bodies, Homeless Link and Housing Justice, to support applicants throughout the funding period.
Homeless Link and Housing Justice are available for application support via email. If your organisation is already a member of one of the two membership bodies, we recommend speaking to them in the first instance. If your organisation is a member of neither body, please email transformationfund@levellingup.gov.uk to be put in touch with the most suitable contact.
Housing Justice: j.quagliozzi@housingjustice.org.uk
Homeless Link: fund@homelesslink.org.uk
Once funding has been allocated, Homeless Link and Housing Justice will convene communities of practice to support grantees. The communities of practice will offer peer to peer support, and advice and guidance for grantees.
Q. Can I apply for funding to set up a new Night Shelter?
A. No, we will only fund organisations who have provided Night Shelter services previously. However, we will fund organisations that have previously provided Night Shelter services to develop non-accommodation based offers. We will not fund communal Night Shelters where individuals are not given their own room. This is described in more detail in the definitions below.
Q. Can I apply as an organisation that has supported rough sleepers but has not provided an accommodation service?
A. No, we will only fund organisations who have provided Night Shelter services previously.
Q. Can I apply for funding in Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland?
A. No, this funding programme is only available in England.
Q. Can I apply for multi-year funding?
A. Yes, you are welcome to apply for funding for the whole 2022-25 period. Please make this clear in your application form. Funds will be sent to successful grantees on an annual basis so please ensure your cost schedule is accurate and representative of your funding need in each year. Note that this funding will expire in 2025, and you should detail plans regarding longer-term sustainability in your application.
Q. Can I apply for capital funding and revenue funding at the same time?
A. Yes, we will accept more than one bid from the same provider. We are seeking to support organisations who are planning to make significant transformative developments to their service. To that end, we will accept applications for both Capital and Revenue funding in the same funding round, or in separate funding rounds. Please ensure you make clear in your bid any instances of interdependencies between capital and revenue funding.
Q. Can I apply for funding as a commissioned service?
A. Yes, although your main source of income should not be through commissioned services.
Q. Can I apply for funding for a communal Night Shelter?
A. The Night Shelter Transformation Fund will not fund the setting up or maintenance of any communal Night Shelters. The fund will, however, support the transformation of these services to provide single room accommodation for rough sleepers, including modular structures. Providers of communal Night Shelters may also apply for non-accommodation based transformations, detailed in the Revenue section of this document.
Q. Can I apply for funding to purchase a property?
A. Yes, funding to support the purchase of a property to provide services for rough sleepers including accommodation is eligible under the Capital tranche of this fund. Please be aware that grantees will still be expected to complete their spend on time and so it may be beneficial to look to purchase properties without an onward chain or properties which your organisation currently rents.
Q. Can I apply for funding to rent short term accommodation (i.e book hotel rooms) for rough sleepers?
A. The vision for the fund is not to fund hotel rooms in years 2 and 3, however where a project can make a case for hotel accommodation for the winter of 2022 (year 1 of the fund) as an interim solution as part of their journey of transformation for their service, this will be considered.
Q. Can I apply as an individual?
A. No. We do not fund individuals, we can only fund organisations with one of the structures listed in the Criteria for Applicants section of this document.
Q. What if my organisation is part of a larger organisation?
A. If your organisation has a separate constitution and accounts then you are eligible to apply as an organisation. However, if you share accounts and a governance structure then the larger organisation must be the applicant and must meet the eligibility criteria and turnover limit.
Q. What if we want to apply for a specific project that is one component of a larger organisation that may not always work with rough sleepers?
A. We do expect that the organisation’s primary beneficiaries to be people experiencing homelessness. We understand organisations may work with other people too, but to be eligible for this grant, people experiencing homelessness must represent more than 50% of your organisation’s beneficiaries.
Q. Does it matter what level of reserves we have?
A. Organisations with any level of reserves are able to apply to this Fund. In the event that we receive a very high number of applications, we will look to forecasted cash reserves in order to prioritise funding, so please provide this information in your application. Provision of match funding through reserves will be viewed favourably in value for money terms.
Q. Do I need a letter of support from my local authority?
A. Yes, or a clear explanation of why not. Local authorities are expected to play a key role in planning provision for rough sleepers so we want to know that you are working with local authorities and partners towards delivery of agreed strategic plans. We strongly encourage applicants to submit the relevant local authority’s endorsement, by letter or email, to ensure that bids complement (and do not duplicate) the council’s work. Ideally supporting letters should come from Officers responsible for planning winter provision. Supporting letters from elected members/councillors will not be considered and so should not be submitted. If it has not been possible for you to obtain support you will need to explain why.
Q. Will successful applicants receive any support as part of the award?
A. Yes, Homeless Link and Housing Justice will support applicants through establishing Communities of Practice. These groups will be peer support driven and will provide grantees with a forum to discuss ideas, concerns and ask questions.
To ensure a common understanding of terminology used in this prospectus, we have provided below an agreed set of definitions for sector-specific use. We understand that other organisations may use these terms in different ways, for the purposes of this grant programme this is how these terms will be used and understood.
Capital expenditure is used to buy or improve an asset that will be used for more than one year, and whose value is above a set threshold.
Where an asset already exists, further work (enhancement) may be carried out over its lifetime to lengthen the life of an asset or to substantially increase the operational capacity of the asset. This must be beyond that which can be achieved through repairs or maintenance – repairs and maintenance come under revenue costs.
For the purposes of the Transformation Fund, self-contained provision is defined as separate living accommodation in which an individual has access to a single room (with a lockable door, access to running water, four walls and a ceiling, secure window and appropriate ventilation) which is not shared with anyone else, and access to cooking facilities and full bathroom facilities (single-use, or shared with a limited number of individuals to comply with social distancing requirements). Please note that these criteria do not therefore allow dormitory style or communal provision.
All works should comply with building regulations health and safety standards and guidance – please refer to the Manual to the Building Regulations when developing your bid, and we recommend that you seek advice from your local authority for further clarification. As the guidance sets out, you must ensure that any work is carried out by companies who have the necessary qualifications and accreditations to comply with the requirements of the building regulations. It is therefore critical that you employ companies who are accredited appropriately - this will be a condition of the grant agreement.
We expect capital expenditure through this Fund to enable faith and community groups to deliver better quality, self-contained provision in the longer term to support people who would otherwise sleep rough, thereby meeting a local need.
Fundamentally, any capital expenditure through this Fund should be used to adapt provision to facilitate effective, longer-term models of support that offer individuals sustainable routes out of rough sleeping.
Your capital bid meets the core definition of capital funding (outlined above).
Your turnover is a minimum of £250,000 p.a. or your organisation is able to provide suitable assurance (such as previous history) of being able to manage a grant of this size and style.
Your capital bid is between £25,000 and £100,000.
You have a letter of support from your local authority – this written support should be from the officers with responsibility for rough sleeping within the local authority.
You are enhancing a property that you either own or have a lease that is for 3 years or longer from the point of bidding and is on the balance books (i.e. a finance lease, in which your lease is a defined asset / is over £5k etc), as with industry guidelines on the use of capital funds.
Have written approval of the intended works. If you are enhancing a leased property (leasehold improvement), you have a lease that is for 3 years or longer from the point of bidding, you have written approval of the intended works, including planning decisions in principle where appropriate, and you can demonstrate that this has been planned and budgeted for (e.g. considers local authority planning processes and timescales).
You can demonstrate that you have planned and budgeted for works to be carried out in the required timeframe by qualified contractors (and therefore adheres to fire and safety regulations for works, as noted above). You may be asked for proof (e.g. quotations) over the course of the bid.
Your application will be evaluated based on weighted criteria as follows:
Section 1: Organisational information about the applicant
In this section, we ask for basic details of your organisation and the services you currently provide.
To be eligible for grant from this Fund, applicants must be non-profit distributing organisations, as described in the Prospectus. This section will be used to confirm the eligibility of the applicant.
This section is un-scored. However, you will be disqualified should you not meet the eligibility criteria as detailed in the Bid Prospectus. You may also be asked to provide further assurances if you are an unincorporated organisation.
Section 2 – Your skills and experience (This section is worth 15% of the total marks available).
In this section, we ask questions about the way your organisation is managed and its experience, and its understanding of the challenges faced by night shelter providers.
This helps us to understand your ability to deliver the proposed activities.
Section 3: Your Proposal (This section is worth 40% of the total marks available). In this section, we ask what you propose to do, why this work is important and how it will help achieve the objectives of the Fund. (If you are bidding for the Capital Incubator Programme, please see Section 4b.)
Section 4a: Outputs and outcomes, the impact of your proposal (For capital & Revenue bids only.)
(This section is worth 15% of the total marks available).
During your grant period you will be expected to share quarterly monitoring data with DLUHC and others.
To note, this information will be shared for informational purposes only, and you will not be performance managed against these metrics.
Capital fund applicants only are to submit supporting documentation with the application.
Section 4b: Capital Incubator Programme Bid Proposal (For Capital Incubator bids only) (This section is worth 15% of the total marks available).
In this section, we ask for details about your proposal for funding from the Capital Incubator Programme. This section is optional and only to be completed if you are applying for Capital Incubator funding.
How will you use a Capital Incubator Programme to prepare a viable capital bid in later rounds of this grant programme? How will your service work alongside other services, including local authorities, in supporting the reduction of rough sleeping in your local area?
Section 5: Night Shelter Transformation Fund Risk Register (Deliverability) (This section is worth 15% of the total marks available).
An outline risk register of your proposal, detailing the risks and mitigations associated with your proposal.
Section 6: Costs and VFM (This section is worth 15% of the total marks available).
In this section we ask how much you are applying for, what your proposal is going to cost and how this has been calculated. We will use these figures to assess Value for Money. We also ask about any other sources of funding that you may use to support this proposal. The grant we offer will be a maximum and so you should ensure all relevant costs are included. Any irrecoverable input VAT should also be included. Relevant pricing schedule(s) should be completed.
Don’t include personal or financial information like your National Insurance number or credit card details.
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