Phase 3 Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund

Monday 3 October 2022

Successful Applicants to the most recent Phase 3 Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund have received their Grant Offer Letters paving the way to more innovative decarbonisation projects being delivered across the public sector. 

More than £14m worth of applications were received within the first 20 minutes of the Application Portal being open. The last application which was successful before the grant funding was exhausted was submitted on 15/06/2022 at 14:19:25. The Application Portal was closed on 16 June because the scheme was likely to be oversubscribed with fully completed good quality applications.

The funding was awarded on a first come first basis with all successful applications quality checked to ensure they reached a minimum quality standard. This process took several weeks with successful Applicants receiving their grant offers in early August.

The quality checks Salix performed included reviewing the proposals to ensure they met the scheme criteria, and that the costs and timescales were reasonable and could be delivered by 31 March 2023.

As the Public Sector Low Carbon Skills Fund schemes are heavily oversubscribed with good quality applications, funding is allocated on a first come first serve basis to ensure organisations have fair and equal access to the funding available. 

Some Applicants experienced issues accessing the Application Portal following the launch of the scheme. This was due to website traffic being higher than usual and at levels not previously experienced by Salix. Salix has fully investigated and has put measures in place to prevent this from happening in future phases of the scheme.

The funding is aimed at helping public sector organisations to engage the specialist and expert advice and skills required to put in place or improve an existing heat decarbonisation plan. 

A decision has not been made on any future phases of the scheme, but should any further news be released it will be announced through the Salix website. 

A full list of successful Applicants is published, visit Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (formerly the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy).