Covid Recovery Employment and Skills Initiative for Heritage (Northern Ireland)

Overview

Is this the right programme for you?

• Are you a not-for-profit heritage organisation that owns, works with or manages heritage in Northern Ireland?
• Can you support employability and skills within the heritage sector by creating and supporting a new role within your organisation?
• Has the type of role you would create been affected by the pandemic?
• Will your support for this role strengthen the heritage sector?

If you answered yes to these questions, then the Covid Recovery Employment and Skills Initiative for Heritage could be for you.

Objective

The objective of the wider Covid Recovery Employment and Skills Initiative is to provide support for individuals within identified sectors in Northern Ireland whose job roles have been impacted by the pandemic, to enhance their job prospects and skill sets, and in doing so strengthen the organisations and sectors.

The Executive and the Minister for Communities, Deirdre Hargey MLA, have provided this COVID recovery funding for heritage organisations and a range of other not-for-profit organisations. The funding aims to deliver interventions to address labour market barriers faced by individuals in light of the impact of the pandemic on the economy. The interventions are to have a particular focus on the arts, creative industries, heritage, sport and voluntary community sectors.

The Department for Communities has appointed the Heritage Fund to deliver the Covid Recovery Employment and Skills Initiative for Heritage to organisations specifically within the heritage sector.

Available funding

Organisations can apply for between £50,000-£100,000 of funding. This funding should be spread over three years and can be used to cover salary and training costs of approximately £30,000 per annum. The funding should be used to support one person/role only.

Key dates

• open for applications between 31 January and noon on 17 February 2022
• funding decisions will be announced by 31 March 2022
• they will fund activity between 1 April 2022 to 30 June 2025
• completion reports must be submitted by 30 September 2025

Overview

This programme is for heritage organisations operating in Northern Ireland.

Heritage can mean different things to different people. It can be anything from the past that you value and want to pass on to future generations.

As a guide, this could include:

• people’s memories and experiences (often recorded as ‘oral history’)
• cultural traditions (for example, stories, festivals, crafts, music and dance)
• community archaeology
• historic buildings, monuments and environments
• designed landscapes, such as parks and gardens
• collections of objects, books or documents in libraries or archives
• histories of people and communities or places and events
• the heritage of languages and dialects
• places and objects linked to our industrial, maritime and transport history

The Covid Recovery Employment and Skills Initiative for Heritage aims to:

• Encourage new talent to enter employment in sectors where talent has been depleted and/or there is an ageing workforce.
• Support new entry-level jobs.
• Allow individuals to acquire additional experience in new areas, along with transferable skills.
• Support work experience and placement opportunities.
• Support additional or enhanced volunteering opportunities and ensure volunteers are effectively managed.
• Allow individuals to fulfil their potential and add value to their organisation and sector, by training in sector-specific skills.

A broad range of roles across the heritage sector can be supported by this programme. These roles could include, and are not limited to posts, marketing, digital, operations, finance, sales, visitor experience or volunteering. Applicants are asked to demonstrate that the new posts would provide a good quality job opportunity for individuals which will in turn support organisational and sectoral growth.

Eligibility

they are accepting applications from heritage organisations operating in Northern Ireland. You should only apply to the Covid Recovery Employment and Skills Initiative which best fits your organisation’s primary purpose. If you organisation’s primary purpose is arts, creative industries, sport, voluntary and community work, please only apply to the relevant scheme.

Organisations must:

• be not-for-profit organisations, constituted, with two unrelated people able to sign on behalf of the organisation
• have heritage as their primary purpose
• be based in Northern Ireland, OR be based in England, Scotland, Wales or the Republic of Ireland and manage heritage in Northern Ireland

Under this scheme they welcome applications from partnerships, provided that the lead organisation submitting the application meets the above eligibility criteria. For example, applicants may choose to partner with a recruitment charity or organisation in order to attract a more diverse pool of candidates. The majority of funding must be spent by the lead organisation, and new posts must be within this organisation.

Eligible costs

Your application costs should support one job role. This may be through the creation of a new post, increasing an existing role from part-time to full-time, or backfilling an existing post to allow the post-holder to perform other development activities.

Roles could include, and are not limited to, posts in marketing, digital, operations, finance, sales, visitor experience or volunteering.

Eligible costs include (this is not an exhaustive list):

• Wages for a new staff member or paid trainee. They are committed to ensuring that the heritage sector is inclusive and sustainable. You must use the Living Wage rate (and London Living Wage if applicable) for all project staff.
• Wages for additional hours of an existing staff member or paid trainee.
• Reasonable on-costs and professional fees for hiring new staff members, such as pension contributions and HR support. Grantees must commit to a minimum employer’s pension contribution of 5% for the funded role. It is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure this is compliant with their employee pension provider rules and employment law.
• Fees for training to support the skills and development needs of existing staff and volunteers. This should add value to the individuals involved, to the organisation and to the sector.
• Fees for professional memberships or associations.
• Expenses, travel and in some circumstances accommodation (for example when the post-holder is required to live on site) for a new staff member or paid trainee.
• Equipment and materials, for example a new laptop for the new post-holder.

Organisations may submit more than one application to this programme (so long as they are all submitted to the same delivery partner). Please note that each application will be assessed separately and awards will be prioritised by geographical spread and range of activity. Therefore each application should stand alone.

Partnership funding requirements

Partnership funding is not required for this programme. They expect applicants to provide assurance or evidence that they have exhausted all other sources of funding for this post.