Marine Fund Scotland 2023 to 2024: guidance

Monitoring and reporting

All projects that are successful in applying for grant funding from the Marine Fund Scotland 2023-24, regardless of how much funding they are applying for, must be able to demonstrate (report) to the Scottish Government that they have met the outcomes they said they would deliver with their project, within the planned timescales, and how they have done this. This is usually in the form of written reports, and if you are successful in applying for a grant, you will be provided with a template for this reporting. These arrangements will depend on the type of your project and will be proportionate to the value of your grant offer. As well as demonstrating progress in achieving objectives and outcomes, the project reporting must also include actual expenditure to date compared with profiled expenditure and any change to estimated expenditure for the financial year and/or the project as a whole, and the reasons for any such changes. Projects applying for grant funding above £100,000 must submit a full monitoring and evaluation strategy as part of their application to the Marine Fund Scotland, setting out how they will report on progress toward the stated outcomes of the project and evaluate the project.

All applicants should set out in their application the milestones, and where relevant any targets, that they will use during their project (and, where relevant, over the longer-term beyond the end of the grant) to monitor how well they are progressing towards achieving the project's overall objectives and outcomes. If you are successful in your application for grant funding, the milestones and targets you have set out to achieve will be included in your grant offer letter, alongside details of the schedule for reporting to us, as mentioned above. We will use progress against the milestones and targets to assess whether you have achieved your project's objectives and outcomes.

Some examples of targets that may be relevant for your project are included at Annex E. Evaluation Support Scotland also has some useful free resources to help projects with planning for monitoring and evaluation, Evaluation Support Scotland.

Projects that are longer than 6 months must provide at least one progress report during the project (during the financial year 2023-24), as well as the end of project (end of grant) report. We can agree the timescales for these with you and the relevant deadlines will be set out in your grant offer letter.

After you have made your final grant claim and have submitted your end of grant report, you may be required to submit annual post-project monitoring updates for up to a further five years. This is to monitor any lasting impacts beyond the period of the grant. You should set out any longer-term objectives/outcomes beyond the period of the grant in your business case.

Any requirements and timescales for post-project monitoring will be set out in the grant conditions in your grant offer letter. If you have set milestones beyond the end of your project's grant funding period, you should report against those milestones, ideally once you reach a milestone within that year.

As set out in the 'Key information' section of these Guidance notes, submitting any required progress and end of project reports and complying with any required post- project monitoring requirements will be formal contractual conditions of your grant and will be set out in your grant offer letter. It will be your responsibility as a grant recipient to ensure that the reporting and monitoring requirements for your project are met.

Applicants making an application relating to fishing will also be asked to report information on the fisheries stocks that they currently target.

Applicants making an application relating to testing novel engine technologies to support climate change mitigation will also be asked to provide insights/data that can be used to guide decisions in future years of the Marine Fund Scotland on funding for engine replacements/modifications to support climate change mitigation. The format of this insights-gathering will be set out in the grant offer letter.

If during your project you want to change any of the targets or milestones against which your progress in achieving your objectives/outcomes is monitored, please contact us at MFS@gov.scot. You will need to set out a clear reason for any changes and may need to provide supporting evidence. Any proposed changes to the targets or milestones for your project will be subject to the written agreement of the Scottish Ministers.