GovWire

Top tips for making a claim

1. You should make sure you sign and date your claim form. It should not be signed by agents or anyone who has helped you fill out the form. If you dont sign the form it will be returned and payments will be delayed.

2. You should make sure the items you are claiming match the items listed on the offer letter. If they do not then you must contact the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) to discuss any changes.

3. You should make sure that any increases in costs being claimed or any other changes to your project have been approved by MMO in writing before you make your claim this includes changes to suppliers. If the changes are not approved there is a risk that you will not receive your entire claim. Changes are things like additional unforeseen works, changes in costs due to increases in the cost of materials such as wood and steel.

4. You must supply original invoices or an email that you have received direct from the supplier with the invoice attached.

5. Provide a suitable audit trail to show how the invoice was paid either by cheque, bacs or faster payment, preferably in the form of a bank statement or online banking screen print. Cash payments are not acceptable as you cannot provide adequate evidence to support a cash payment.

6. Your payment will be delayed if you dont send in all of the necessary information MMO needs to process your claim.

7. You must tell MMO as soon as possible if you will miss your claim date this is in the claims schedule in your offer letter. If you need to change the claim schedule please submit a Notification of Change request via the e-system. The MMO will try and contact you if you go past your claim date but if we cant get in touch with you, you could risk having your funding withdrawn.

8. If you have any queries about your claim contact MMO for advice.

Submit a claim for MFF funds

You will need to submit a claim online using the MFF system in order to get your MFF funds. Items purchased and claimed must be from the supplier stated in your offer letter and work must have started after you were sent confirmation that the MMO acknowledged your application. This date is in the offer letter. Any invoices dated prior to that date will be deemed ineligible and you will not be paid any grant money against those invoices.

You will only be able to claim once you have paid for all or some of the items outlined in your MFF offer letter. You will need to provide evidence that you have done this when you submit your claim form. This evidence must be an invoice accompanied by proof that you have paid after the invoice was received, for example a bank statement.

Please make sure you fill in a SOP 7 form with your bank details so we can pay your funds to you. This form will be emailed to you with your offer letter. Once you have completed the form it needs to be emailed to mff.queries@marinemanagement.org.uk to enable your bank details to be set up on our payments system. If you have more than 1 project approved you only need to complete 1 SOP 7 form.

Claiming your grant money

The MMO will only pay you your grant money in arrears - you need to prove youve spent your money on the item or service by completing the online claim form in the e-system.

You will need to submit:

• dated invoices which show the amount of money you paid for each product or service youre claiming
• proof of payment e.g. a bank statement
• a progress update on your project if it is required. See your offer letter for the progress report schedule

The MMO can decline to pay you part of the grant, or the whole grant, if we dont think the information on your invoices is accurate, or the products or services you bought arent what was approved.

The conditions in your offer letter will explain about what you must do and the information you must send to get your grant paid.

Costs you cant claim for

You must not claim MFF grant money for the following:

• to pay interest on a debt
• to buy land or housing thats worth more than 10% of your projects total expenditure
• to pay your businesss operating costs, unless the MMO has told you otherwise
• if you have a loan on an item you have purchased you cannot claim for it until the loan is repaid
• any costs that you could recover in part or in total by making a claim on an insurance policy or by seeking compensation or damages

Reporting and inspections

Reporting your progress

You must give the MMO updates on your project as outlined in your offer letter which may be every 6 months, plus one performance report each year for the first 3 years. A reminder will be issued when these are due.

If you dont carry out your project in accordance with the timetable in your offer letter, the MMO will ask you to explain the delay and any impact on your targets and benefits.

The MMO could then cancel your grant offer or change it depending on the reasons you give. Should this be the case a full explanation will be provided.

The MMO may also decide to reclaim any funds you have already been paid.

The MMO can take criminal or civil action to reclaim any money we paid you if we find you gave false information in your application, or if you do any of the following:

• break the conditions in the grant offer letter
• use the money for a different purpose to what you said youd use it for when you applied
• commit fraud

Inspections

You must let the MMO officials visit your vessel or other sites related to your project to check your progress.

The following bodies can also inspect your project after youve been sent a grant offer letter:

• the National Audit Office
• internal audit
• any other agents deemed appropriate by the MMO

Theyll usually give you at least 48 hours notice, but they dont have to.

Reporting changes to your project

You usually need to apply to the MMO to change your project after youve signed and returned the offer letter, e.g. if you want to:

• change the make-up of your project matched funds
• increase or decrease the total cost of your entire project
• changes to the targets and benefits agreed in your offer letter
• use different contractors or suppliers to the ones agreed in your offer letter
• change the timetable of your project
• sell or dispose of any item of infrastructure purchased as part of your project
• stop any activity thats part of your project
• change the location of the activity

You need to justify any changes by telling the MMO in your e-system account using a Notification of Change request.

If you change your project without telling the MMO, the MMO could cancel your grant award, change it or refuse to pay grant money for costs associated with the changes.

Any conditions in your offer letter apply for 5 years from the date your final claim is paid to you.

Retrospective amendments

Retrospective amendments cannot be considered. You must apply to the MMO to change your project before making changes including additional costs. If you modify your project without approval from the MMO the project or part of the project could be ineligible for payment.

Changing the cost of your project

If you increase the total cost of your project, the MMO will only pay you more grant money if we decide you couldnt have predicted this increase when you were applying. You must contact us to discuss this as soon as you are aware of any changes in project costs.

If the total eligible costs of your project decrease, then so will the grant award.

Amendments where costs decrease

If you are making changes to your project that decreases your project costs and the targets and benefits will be delivered as planned you do not have to tell the MMO.

If you are making any changes to your project that decreases your project costs but the targets and benefits will not be delivered as planned you must inform the MMO as soon as possible so that options can be discussed.

Change of supplier

We understand that sometimes suppliers to your project have to change:

• if you need to change to a different supplier, if they supplied a quote on your original project application and the costs do not increase then you do not need to supply a new quote. If the costs have changed then you need to obtain a new quote from them and submit a change request form to MMO and get it approved before undertaking any changes
• if you need to change to a different supplier and they have not previously quoted even if the costs will remain the same you will need to obtain a new quote and submit a change request form to MMO and get it approved before undertaking any work.
• a rationale for all requested changes should be included in your Notification of change request.

