Important application information for families living in England

During September we will be making some technical enhancements to our application and grant-making systems for programmes in England.

The changes will make it simpler for many people to apply. It will also help us to award grants more quickly in the future.

If you live in England and you have not made an application to Family Fund before, or you have applied before and are eligible to do so again, you will need to:

• Start your application as soon as possible. For paper applications, you should start immediately so that it reaches us in time. For online applications you must start before 9am on Monday 4 September.
• Ensure we have received your completed application, including all relevant documents, by 11.59pm on Monday 4 September. This is important, because online and paper applications received after the cut-off time will be deleted, and you will need to start again in October.

If you have already submitted your application and you are waiting for a grant decision, you do not need to do anything. Our grants team will continue to assess applications and make grant awards as usual throughout September.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this causes you and your family. We are doing everything we can to keep disruption to a minimum. We look forward to receiving new applications from families in England again from 10am on Monday 2 October.

Questions and answers

What is happening?

In order to make some technical enhancements to our systems, we are pausing new applications in England between midnight on Monday 4 September and 10am on Monday 2 October. If you live in England, you will not be able to submit a new application in that time.

I was eligible to apply for a grant in September, does that mean I will have to wait?

If your reapply date is before Monday 4 September, you can apply now, and you do not have to wait. If your reapply date is after Monday 4 September, we are sorry, but you will need to wait until Monday 2 October to apply. However, the good news is that you will then be applying through our improved process, which should mean you can apply more easily and – in most cases – we will be able to award grants more quickly.

Does the pause apply for paper applications?

Yes. One of the changes we are making is to develop a new paper application form.  Applications on the old paper form, including all supporting documents, must reach us by 11.59pm on Monday 4 September to be considered. Applications received after that time will not be considered or kept, so you will need to complete and submit a fresh application on the new form after Monday 2 October.

What happens to applications that are received before midnight on Monday 4 September?

If you have included all the information requested on the application, we will continue to assess and process your application as usual.

Will these changes affect my grant?

No. The changes we are making are technical system changes. There are no changes to our eligibility criteria, or the way we assess your grant, and the same wide range of grant items will still be available from Monday 2 October.

Will the application pause apply if I live in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales?

No. The changes we are making now apply to applicants who live in England only. If you live in one of the other nations, you can still apply to any of the programmes that are currently open. We will be making the same improvements to our programmes in other countries in due course, and we will update our website with information about this when the time comes.