Flexible fund

This fund supports organisations that have identified a gap in industry skills and have come up with a project idea to solve this problem. 

We invest in projects aimed at innovation or training and development. Your project should provide a new and transferrable solution to challenges facing the industry that can’t be funded through other means.

Unless otherwise stated, your project should aim to benefit other industry employers, that means:

• CITB-registered employers
• Employers who have the potential to become levy-registered employers. 

We won't fund projects which are similar to previous funded projects. To make sure that your idea has not already been covered in previous projects, check our funded projects directory and see How to apply.

1. You are eligible to apply for funding if you fall into one of the following three categories:
   • CITB-registered employers
   • Construction industry federations and trade associations
   • CITB-approved training groups.
2. You should form collaborations of 3 or more eligible organisations
3. You should ensure that the organisations in your collaboration don't work exclusively in the same supply chain.

You can apply for sums from £10,000 to £500,000.

We will fund up to 70% of the total cost of a project, and you will need to find match funding for the other 30%.

You should apply for CITB Grant where it is available to help your project, but do not include any grant applications as match funding.

We recommend that your proposed project lasts 18 months.

Before you put a lot of work into applying to our Flexible fund

1. Talk to your CITB Advisor about your idea or problem.
2. Review our funded projects directory.
   You can search through to make sure your project does not overlap with a project we have already funded. We don’t support projects which repeat work that we have already agreed to.
3. Review the funding restrictions to make sure that your idea will be eligible for this fund.
4. If you are sure that your idea is different from other funded projects, fill in our expression of interest form.

We will assess your idea and tell you if you could be eligible for funding.

Submit an expression of interest

We will review your expression of interest form and contact you within 4 weeks. 

If the proposal is suitable, we will send you an application form to complete.

If we agree you have identified a valid problem, but do not agree that your project is the best solution, we will work with you to help resolve the problem you have identified.

The form has lots of useful tips on how to complete it.

If you have any questions about completing the form, please contact the funding team. 

You can submit your application at any time from 3 April 2019 to 11 February 2020, but we review submitted applications at fixed dates or score points in the year.

The score points for 2019-2020 are:

• 9 April 2019
• 11 June 2019
• 30 July 2019
• 17 September 2019
• 19 November 2019
• 11 February 2020

Decisions

You will hear from us with a decision around 4 weeks after the score point.

CITB will decide to either approve or decline an application. Definitions of decisions are:

• Approved: The application meets the scoring criteria and has been provisionally approved subject to available funds.
• Declined: Based on the information supplied, the proposed solution is not one in which CITB is able to make an investment at this time.

The funding team reviews each application with subject experts who can offer insight into the area covered by your application. The team then makes recommendations to the Investment Panel made up of representatives from the CITB Executive Committee. 

Appeals

If we decline your application you can submit an appeal on scoring or procedural grounds.

You will need to email the funding team if you wish to appeal. 

You cannot appeal the decision on an expression of interest.

Please ensure that CITB receives any appeal request within 14 days of the email notifying you of our decision. 

We will share your scores with you and provide feedback.

We will contact you and offer support to finalise your funding agreement.

Once the funding agreement is signed, the Contracts team will monitor your project at CITB. You should submit change requests or questions to this team. 

When compiling your project evaluation you may wish to get back in touch with the funding team.

CITB will publish a summary of your project on its website. Once complete, we will make available any products or services developed as part of your project.

We may work with you to develop press releases, case studies or promotional videos relating to your project either during delivery, or upon completion.

We will assess your project before it starts to see how much evaluation it requires. We can advise you whether you should carry out this evaluation internally or you will need an independent evaluator. 

You must complete an end of project report, along with any project report as stipulated in the funding agreement. There may also be additional follow-up to develop a CITB case study.

See more information about our approach to evaluation in our funding priorities.