Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults - Year 4 - Monitoring and reporting summary

Introduction

Purpose

This report summarises the monitoring and reporting data for Year 4 of the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults (the Fund).

This summary outlines a national-level analysis of local monitoring and reporting data for Year 4 provided by the Third Sector Interfaces (TSIs) in their capacity as the lead partner for the delivery of the Fund.

Fund Delivery

• The Fund is being delivered through a locally focused and co-ordinated approach via Local Partnership Groups working together and building upon existing partnerships to ensure that support for community based organisations is directed appropriately and in a coherent way.
• Each TSI: has overall accountability for the spend at local level and for working in collaboration with Integration Authorities and other existing local partnerships; leads in the coordination of the local plan; and undertakes fund administration, capacity building support and local monitoring and evaluation.
• Local application processes were developed by local partnership groups. They were accessible through local TSIs and were shared nationally at the Communities Mental Health & Wellbeing Fund – TSI Scotland Network and through a wide range of stakeholders (internally and externally). All local application processes for Year 4 of the Fund had commenced no later than 30 September 2024.
• National Fund guidance was shared with TSIs which, in keeping with local needs and strategies and the national aims of the Fund, provided local flexibility about the approach to distributing the Fund to grassroots community groups and organisations locally.
• Funding was distributed through grants to 31 TSIs across Scotland (Stirling administer the Clackmannanshire TSI Funds).
• £15 million was distributed across all regions and in line with the current NHS Scotland Resource Allocation Committee Formula (NRAC). Further detail can be found at Annex A.
• An administration grant was provided to each TSI to support administration of the Fund, including a capacity building role to support and ensure accessibility of the Fund to less experienced groups. In Year 4 this was 5% of the value of the main fund allocation for the TSI, with a minimum baseline payment of £7,000 for the Island TSIs. TSIs had the flexibility to use up to 1% of their local allocation of the main funding (their share of the £15 million) to support further capacity building activities among community organisations applying to the Fund. A total of 56% of TSIs used the 1%.

Method

The Fund and its delivery model are now well established and the external evaluation of the Fund has highlighted the success of the delivery approach adopted by TSIs. The main focus of Year 4 reporting is understanding who has been funded and for what purpose. TSIs were asked to complete:

• a Local Partnership Plan summary feedback questionnaire in October 2024 (drawing on the Plan produced by TSIs in coordination with local partners);

• end year project level data in April 2025.

Analysis of the data was undertaken by the Communities Team within the Supporting Communities Unit, Mental Health Directorate, and the Health and Social Care Analytical Unit. This involved statistical analysis of the project level data.

Limitations

This summary is focused on reporting returns from TSIs on: the process (in terms of the approach to delivery), the reach of projects (in terms of the number and nature of projects and their reach to target groups), and on the learning gained from Year 4 of the Fund.

It should be noted that not all questions have been answered for all projects (a fairly low missing response rate overall) therefore this will explain any discrepancies in numbers.

More information on outcomes will be collected at a later date to allow projects to be embedded, rather than collecting this in end year reporting. Given this, questions posed to TSIs were largely limited to those areas where progress could be measured and reported. More detailed impact data on Year 4 will be collected in April 2026.

Structure of the Report

This report outlines key findings as follows:

• Section A: Reach Of Funded Projects
• Section B: Process - Approach To Delivery
• Section C: Learning and Reflections