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Who, What and Why
Q.
Who runs the Invest to Save Budget (ISB)?
A.
The ISB was a joint HM Treasury and the Cabinet Office initiative
although in later years has evolved to become a Treasury maintained
initiative
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Q.
What does ISB do?
A.
You could consider it to be 'venture capital' for the public sector.
It provides funds for two or more public bodies to work together
in partnership to achieve, through innovative projects, better service,
savings, or both.
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Finance
Q. How
much money is available?
A. Altogether,
over 9 years, ISB will have put around £460m into innovative
partnership projects. To date we Have funded around 480 projects
ranging in size from eighteen thousand to eighty million pounds.
To date all ISB funds have been spent and it is not known at this
stage, but is unlikely, that there will be funding for further rounds
of ISB funding
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Q. How
can we use the money? Are there any restrictions?
A. Yes
there are. Firstly the partnership must come up with at least 25%
of the total cost of the project. This should usually be 'cash',
not 'in kind' resources. Secondly we expect the overall capital/resource
split to be in the order of 20/80%. This means that up to 20% of
the overall funds can be used for capital purchases while the remaining
80% should be used for the resource costs of the project. For projects
that run for more than one year we expect to see a further in-year
breakdown of spend.
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Q. Can
we 'vire' funds from one area to the other?
A.
In some circumstances - which must be discussed with the ISB secretariat
at HM Treasury - there may be room to move funds from resource to
capital budgets. Funds cannot be moved in the opposite direction.
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Q.
What happens if project implementation is slipping?
A. Again
this needs to be discussed with ISB secretariat, however ISB funds
are ring-fenced to ensure that they are maintained for the realisation
of the projects' objectives and this includes end of year flexibility
(EYF). This allows for the re-profiling of project spend to take
account of some slippage.
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Q. Can
we bring forward profiled funds?
A.
No. If spend has been profiled for, say, year 2 it can not be brought
forward for use in year 1.
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Q. Can
we use funds from other sources to reach our 25% 'stake'?
A.
No. By providing the funds from within the partnership you demonstrate
commitment to the project.
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Q. Does
the 25% partnership 'stake' have to reflect the 80/20 current/capital
rule that you apply top the overall make-up of the project cost?
A. No.
ISB are only interested that the overall project cost has this 80/20
current/capital mix.
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Q. Can
we use the ISB component to leverage established funding streams
such as EU 'match funding'?
A. No.
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Q. Who
is accountable for expenditure on ISB projects?
A. The
lead partner has to provide the accounting Officer or DCO for the
project and make arrangements for auditing expenditure on it.
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Q. What
if the project fails to make the case? Is the money reclaimed?
A. Projects
are only funded after a full economic and risk analysis. The risk
is therefore acknowledged, and if the project does not meet its objectives
we still consider this to have provided valuable data, for example,
in terms of how not to approach a given situation. There is no question
of recovering the funding in these circumstances. If a project ceases
'mid-term' without having spent all of their funds HM Treasury would
recover the balance.
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Evaluation
Q.
What about evaluation. Can we evaluate our own project? What evaluation
criteria do you expect us to consider?
A. Given the nature of ISB, and
its intent to 'learn lessons' from the investment, it is a requirement
that all funded projects provide a full evaluation on completion.
For longer projects we would expect a mid-term impact assessment.
To ensure objectivity we strongly recommend that someone who is
not otherwise involved in the project should complete the evaluation.
A full description
of our evaluation criteria can be found in the Treasury 'Green Book'.
Briefly, we will want to know;
Please Note: ISB is not responsible
for the content or availability of external web sites.
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Q. What
do we have to do during the life of the project?
A.
If you win funding you will be expected to submit a project implementation
plan - which would normally be founded on a project management methodology
such as PRINCE. This will ask you about your partnership's joint
management arrangements, your projected spend and key milestones,
and the monitoring and evaluation arrangements that will ensure
that these are all running to target. Naturally we would then expect
these to be adhered to. Progress reports covering these issues have
to be submitted to Treasury every six months, at the end of April
and October.
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Other
Q.
Can we use the Invest to Save Budget Logo?
A. If you are an ISB project, certainly.
In fact we would positively advocate its use in support of our maxim
'working to create an environment in which more people know about
ISB, and are better able to access the lessons that are being learnt
through the programme'. You can look at our style guide to decide
how you can use it.
If you are an ISB project principal partner
(i.e. you sit on the partnership board) you can say that you support
the programme and use the logo, but only in the context of partnership
or innovation. You should never imply that a non-ISB project or
programme is connected with the ISB. If you are a third party supplier
to an ISB project you may not use the logo.
ISB
Guidelines (PDF 655kb)
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Q.
Where can we get the Invest to Save Budget Logo?
A.
Right here. But you may only use it according to the rules and guidelines
given above.
Please Note: To download and save any
of these documents, right click on the hyperlink and choose the
option to 'Save Target As...' from the menu.
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