Phase 4 Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund

Wednesday 12 July 2023

Keeping you informed

Successful applicants to Phase 4 of the Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund have now received their Grant Offer Letters, paving the way for more heat decarbonisation projects to be delivered across the public sector.

The Phase 4 Low Carbon Skills Fund has allocated £17m worth of grants to public sector bodies keen to take a step towards a low carbon future.

Once again, the Low Carbon Skills Fund proved highly popular, with organisations across the country applying for the funds.

Between the Application Portal opening on Wednesday 26 April 2023 and closing on Friday April 28, 2023, over 750 applications with a combined total value of more than £130m were received.

The Application Portal was closed on April 28 because the scheme was oversubscribed with fully completed good quality applications.

The successful applicants were assessed against the scheme criteria to ensure applications met the required standard and that the costs and timescales were reasonable and could be delivered by 28 March 2024.

The funding, delivered by Salix on behalf of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, is aimed at helping public sector organisations to engage the specialist and expert advice and skills required to create a robust heat decarbonisation plan and/or detailed designs to prepare for heat decarbonisation and energy efficiency works.

Like previous phases of the Low Carbon Skills Fund, Phase 4 funding is only available within the financial year and successful projects need to complete by the end of financial year 2023/2024. 

A full list of successful applicants is published on the Low Carbon Skills Fund pages on gov.uk  

Welcome to the Phase 4 Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund. The Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund provides grants to boost decarbonisation skills and unlock decarbonisation in the public sector. Salix would like to invite you to familiarise yourself with the statement made here by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on the Government website. 

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has made available up to £17 million of funding for Phase 4 Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund that will provide grants for public sector organisations to engage the specialist and expert advice and skills required to create a robust heat decarbonisation plan and/or detailed designs to prepare for heat decarbonisation and energy efficiency works. The Phase 4 Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund will be delivered in 2023/24.

Salix is the delivery partner for Phase 4 Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund and this website area provides you with the information you will need to know about applying for this fund. 

Organisations interested in applying for these funds should read the Phase 4 Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund Guidance Notes. All applications that receive funding in Phase 4 Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund must complete their heat decarbonisation plans before 28 March 2024. 

Our learning: At Salix we have used our learning from delivering the previous Phases 1, 2 and 3 of the Low Carbon Skills Fund to work with Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to design the model for delivering this next phase. We have listened to feedback from our clients, stakeholders, decision-makers, and other professionals and made improvements for Phase 4. There are several new elements that the public sector applicant needs to be aware of.

Grant value caps 

For Phase 4 Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund grant value caps were introduced and funding will be divided across three grant value ranges, (including an overall grant value cap of £1,000,000):

1. 34% of funding for projects up to £100,000.  
2. 38% of funding for projects between £100,001-£500,000.
3. 28% of funding for projects between £500,001-£1,000,000.

This is to ensure that the available funding is distributed across a range of projects and reflects that the costs of heat decarbonisation plans can vary significantly. Applications were assessed on a first come, first served basis within each cap until all the funding was been fully allocated.

Funding for standalone detailed designs

Phase 4 Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund includes three funding options:

1. Funding to develop or improve a heat decarbonisation plan incorporating any output outlined in the scheme criteria section.
2. Develop standalone detailed design(s) from pre-existing heat decarbonisation plan(s).
3. A combination of options one and two above, to develop or improve a heat decarbonisation plan(s) and develop a standalone detailed design(s) from a pre-existing heat decarbonisation plan(s).

Earlier application window

The application window for Phase 4 Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund opened in April, earlier in the year than for previous phases. This reflects feedback about previous timeframes, including between Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund and Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. We hope this will accommodate organisations who are able to use Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund funding to complete detailed designs by autumn 2023, in preparation for an application to the next phase of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme or other funding options.

One of the greatest challenges today in meeting the UK’s 2050 Net Zero target is decarbonising the way buildings are heated. Most of the buildings in the public sector still rely on fossil fuel-based heating and expert skills are required to identify and plan how these heating systems can be replaced, ideally at the end of their working lives.

Having a robust heat decarbonisation plan will put organisations in a strong position to take the next steps in decarbonising, including by enabling them to develop detailed project proposals that will help them to apply for any future grant funding for capital decarbonisation measures, or alternative sources of finance. This means organisations can think more strategically and be better prepared for future decarbonisation opportunities.

• The initiative addresses the need to meet the UK’s 2050 Net Zero target by focusing on decarbonising the way buildings are heated.  
• It puts organisations in a strong position to take the next steps in their decarbonisation journey by enabling them to develop detailed project proposals that will help them to apply for any future grant funding for capital decarbonisation measures, or alternative sources of finance.   
• The application window for Phase 4 Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund opened on 26 April, earlier in the year than for previous phases.
• The addition of grant value caps is a policy change to mitigate the risk that a small number of high value projects exhaust a large proportion of the available budget, and to ensure that the available funding is distributed across a range of grant values. The way that the available funding is distributed across value ranges in Phase 4 is based on analysis of historical demand for Low Carbon Skills Fund. 
• The funding allows public sector organisations to engage specialist and expert advice to identify and develop a heat decarbonisation plan with a focus on energy efficiency and low carbon heat upgrade projects for non-domestic buildings.  
• For Phase 4 Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund, where an up-to-date heat decarbonisation plan(s) is already in place, it alternatively allows applicants to develop a standalone detailed design(s) to reach at least RIBA stage 3.
• The scheme means organisations can think more strategically about their decarbonisation and be better prepared for future decarbonisation opportunities.