Applying for Sellafield Ltd grants/reusable equipment
Source: gov.uk (2025-04-03)

If your organisation supports people in Copeland, Allerdale or Warrington you may be eligible to apply for a grant/reusable equipment.

Applying for Sellafield Ltd grants

All of the funding for the delivery of the Sellafield Ltd mission, including our Social Impact funding, is provided by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).

The NDA is a non-departmental public body which reports to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

Alongside the other nuclear site licence companies in the NDA group, we follow a common, rigorous and evidence-based approach to managing, measuring and reporting on our social impact activity and outcomes.

This guidance sets out a standardised set of processes as well as common definitions and standards.

It follows Cabinet Office guidelines as set out in ‘Managing Public Money’ (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/managing-public-money) and ‘Government Functional Standard for General Grants’ (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/grants-standards/grant-standards) which are intended to provide transparency, better achievement against objectives and value for money, but adapts these to reflect the circumstances, in particular the legal basis, for the NDA group work.

The funding provided by the NDA is intended to ensure that our communities avoid adverse outcomes. We want to take a strategic, longer-term perspective and ensure decisions are focused on transformative outcomes, issues of evidenced need and opportunity.

We distribute funds on behalf of the NDA for the communities around the Sellafield sites.

Before you apply

Before applying, you may wish to view Together for Good (https://www.togetherforgood.co.uk/) to attract volunteers to support your organisation.

Together For Good is a platform designed to connect non-profit organisations with businesses and volunteers in our local communities in West Cumberland and Warrington.

The organisations must be delivering benefit directly in West Cumberland or Warrington to be able to access the services on the platform.

The platform is free for everyone to use but you must register to create an account.

Together for Good (https://www.togetherforgood.co.uk/) has been commissioned by Sellafield Ltd and BEC for the benefit of those operating in our communities closest to the Sellafield Ltd sites.

What we support

We will only support projects that are near one of our sites. This is defined as the district council area where the site is located and, where sites are close to authority boundaries, the neighbouring district council:
- Sellafield (local authority districts: Copeland and Allerdale)
- Warrington (maximum grant consideration - £5,000)
Within these areas, we can award grants to local organisations, provided they are:

community/voluntary/charity groups that already exist - local branches of national charities are only eligible if money raised is spent locally

state funded education provider or pre-school group (but not all types of costs can be supported and nothing which is a statutory obligation of another authority or department will be supported)

public sector bodies

a company (but support must be state aid compliant and cannot be used to subsidise a business)

Funding exclusions

We cannot give community funding to private individuals.

The following items will be regarded as ineligible spend in any project application:
- spend that does not meet project objectives
- cost that cannot be measured
- projected benefits are outside our geographical boundaries
- sports team sponsorship
- religious or political benefit
- animal welfare
- aims are contrary to UK Government policy
- aims are part of core government policy/activity
- paid for lobbying
we do not usually support capital expenditure for building renovations and general improvements of sporting facilities are not usually eligible for funding

which means using grant funds to fund lobbying (via an external firm or in-house staff) in order to undertake activities intended to influence or attempt to influence Parliament, government or political activity; or attempting to influence legislative or regulatory action

using grant funds to directly enable one part of government to challenge another on topics unrelated to the agreed purpose of the grant

using grant funding to petition for additional funding
- expenses such as for entertaining, specifically aimed at exerting undue influence to change government policy
- input VAT reclaimable by the grant recipient from HMRC
- activities that other organisations (e.g. local council/local education authority/national charities) have a statutory obligation to provide
- applications from organisations that previously received NDA funding that did not comply with our conditions (e.g. end of project reports)
- individual, group sponsorships and other activities raising money for 3rd parties
- loan payments
- national charities where funding is collected and administered centrally, exceptions may be made where local branches raise and spend their own funding
- repeat funding requests in the same financial year
- hospitality, awards sponsorships or the purchase of tables at events
- prizes or prize draw print costs for fundraising events
- retrospective projects
- interest payments or service charge payments for finance leases
- gifts
- statutory fines, criminal fines or penalties
- payments for works or activities which the grant recipient, or any member of their partnership has a statutory duty to undertake, or that are fully funded by other sources
- bad debts to related parties
- payments for unfair dismissal or other compensation
Assessing needs and specifying outcomes

We will consider funding projects that demonstrate the project has strategic alignment to our social impact objectives which can be found in our social impact strategy. (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sellafield-ltd-social-impact-strategy-2018)

These are measured against the following themes:

Resilient economies

NDA and businesses enable and support the conditions for local wealth building, inclusive growth in local economic output, improved productivity and significant growth in key economic subsectors.

Thriving communities

Resources, investment programmes and interventions are targeted to activities that provide the largest social impact and improve the financial sustainability of community organisations.

Sustainable Incomes

Access and aspirations to work improve through a programme of high impact education, skills, personal development and employability support activities .

Sustainable growth

In a changing climate, reflecting the increasing importance of the climate agenda and trying to achieve economic, social and competitive advantage for our nuclear communities by integrating it early into our day-to-day activities and our socio-economic interventions.

All projects that we fund should report on outcomes. We use a methodology called TOMs to standardise these measures. TOMs stands for Themes, Outcomes and Measures.

The value of the grant will determine the number of measures that are required and monitored over the lifetime of the intervention.
- Large: A Full TOMs analysis required. All relevant TOMs assessed, project-specific report produced
- Medium: Between 1 to 4 measures, depending on spend and expected impact
- Small: No TOM analysis required, but outcomes should be reported on
Our online forms asks applicants to select the TOMs they think are relevant and to put in expected values for them (small projects are excluded and medium sized projects need only apply 1 to 4 measures).

These measures are used as part of project selection and approval.

More details on the TOMs are available here (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/896797/One_NDA_local_social_and_economic_impact_practitioners_guidance_grant_funding.pdf#page=8) in section 2.6.

When to apply for a grant

You can apply for grants at any time, but requests will only be considered during committee meetings.

How to apply for a grant

To apply for funding please follow this link (https://nda.tfaforms.net/91) to the Sellafield Ltd application form.

If you are applying for funding over £10,000, please email the our Social Impact team to check that your project meets the criteria before you apply - xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx).

Grant application and information required

All projects supported by Sellafield Ltd need to be supported by a written application for funding.

When applications are assessed, other than those that are classified as ‘small’, we will look at 5 aspects of the application:
- strategic case
- economic case
- commercial case
- financial case
- management case
These 5 aspects will form the business case for the application. We take a balanced approach when assessing all applications.

Large grant applications

Will be subject to a full business case, in line with the detailed points set out below. We’ll consider funding feasibility studies and work to develop business cases for large projects provided the applicant makes a robust case (if you are applying for funding for a feasibility study, please use the application form for small or medium applications).

Medium grant applications

Will be appraised according to a summary of the 5 aspects of your application (as detailed above), as prompted in our standard application form.

Small grant applications

Will not be subject to a business case, but a limited amount of evidence, as proof of spend and outcome, will be required. An end of project report will be required.

Assessing your grant application

We will assess each application to demonstrate the following evidence:
- the local need/opportunity a project is addressing
- whether a project features or is aligned with the Sellafield Ltd Social Impact strategy
- if a project is not aligned to the NDA local and social economic impact strategy (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/nda-local-economic-and-social-impact-strategy-2020-to-2026-draft-for-consultation), as set out in Section 5 page 17, then it needs to align with at least one of the NDA’s “themes” and show it can generate measurable outcomes
- the application form or business case needs to set out levels of local support for the project and how this local support is expressed (for example financial support, in-kind, policy)
- the project is consistent with, and ideally supports national or local government strategies
- does not duplicate core activity which is funded by any government departments or local councils
Applying for Sellafield Ltd funding

There are 3 categories of funding:
- large projects – Sellafield Ltd contribution over £200,000
- medium projects – Sellafield Ltd contribution between £10,000 and £200,000
- small, also called good neighbour projects – Sellafield Ltd contribution up to £10,000
Framework for funding decisions

We have developed a framework based on the National Audit Office criteria for value for money and adapted it to our work in the local community.

All of our work needs to represent value for money for the taxpayer and so needs to demonstrate:
- economy - the minimum use of resources to achieve specified outcomes
- effectiveness - the relationship between outputs, e.g. services, and the resources used to produce them
- efficiency - the extent to which objectives are achieved and the relationship between intended and actual impacts of a service.
Our process of grant funding needs to follow this framework. To measure economy, we need to understand what outcomes we are trying to achieve and be able to measure them.

Governance for funding

Larger projects over £200,000

All large projects are assessed by a “One NDA Socio-economic panel” which is expected to meet approximately 4 to 6 times per year. It brings together relevant representatives and experts from the NDA businesses.

The panel is advisory in nature, and the final decision on funding is taken by the delegated decision budget holder.

For Sellafield Ltd projects, this is the Sellafield Ltd chief executive or a person in Sellafield Ltd with the delegated authority.

Medium projects between £10,000 and £200,000

All medium-sized projects are assessed by a panel made up of people in an individual business. These projects are not reviewed by the One NDA Panel.

The panel is advisory in nature, and the final decision on funding is taken by the budget holder in the business or an appropriately established and quorate committee.

For Sellafield projects this is the Sellafield Ltd chief executive or a person in Sellafield Ltd with the delegated authority.

Small projects up to £10,000

Sellafield Ltd has its own “good neighbour panel”. This panel makes decisions to fund small projects.

The panel will be responsible for small grants up to £5,000 for the Sellafield and Warrington site.

Please note the maximum grant application for Warrington is £5,000. Grant applications between £5,000 to £10,000 will be considered by the Social Impact team.

What happens if you are successful

A Grant Acceptance Schedule will be issued to all recipients. Grant agreements, including those managed by third parties, should clearly state the purpose for which the grant is awarded, provide details of approved activity and set out categories of eligible and ineligible costs.

The grant will be issued in the form of a charity voucher or Bacs payment.

Charity vouchers will be posted once you have confirmed a correct delivery address. Bacs payments will be made once you have supplied bank account details in writing.

What are the expectations once funding is received

Throughout the performance monitoring stage, regular reviews of agreed measures and costs will be conducted and actions taken to address any concerns identified. Data collected will be processed by a Social Value Portal.

The applicant will undertake the following:
- carries out activities in line with the Grant Acceptance Schedule.
- submits documentation as and when requested
- submits performance reports and supporting evidence as and when requested
- upon request makes themselves and documentation available for audit
- engages in PR activities as required
- submits an end of project report
- supports the development of case studies as required
Further information

Privacy notice for socio-economic grant funding

Please follow this link. (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nda-privacy-notice-for-socio-economic-grant-funding/nda-privacy-notice-for-socio-economic-grant-funding)

One NDA local social and economic impact practitioners’ grant funding guidance

Guidance (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/one-nda-local-social-and-economic-impact-practitioners-guidance-grant-funding/nda-group-socio-economic-grant-funding-programme-practitioners-guidance) document.

Applying for reusable equipment

Who we support

To be considered for Sellafield Ltd re-usable equipment, you must be applying on behalf of a social enterprise, voluntary or community group.

Boroughs eligible to apply are:
- Cumberland
- Warrington
How applications are considered

We have a local disposals committee who meet regularly to review applications. The final decision will be at the company’s discretion.

What is reusable equipment?

Examples of reusable equipment include:
- filing cabinets
- desks
- chairs
- tables
- cupboards
- flood lights
Some items are excluded including: IT and electrical equipment. For further clarification email: xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx)

How to apply

Application form for Sellafield Ltd reusable equipment.

Application for Sellafield Ltd reusable equipment (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5f3139c48fa8f57ac287c18b/Application_for_Sellafield_Ltd_reusable_equiqment.doc) (MS Word Document, 160 KB)

You can expect a decision within 8 weeks of your application.

What happens if you are successful?

Collection or delivery of surplus assets will be agreed by telephone.