For organisations

Fife Council's annual report for recurring grants

From 2027, organisations with more than £10,000 a year in recurring grants from Fife Council will complete a short annual report. What it is, why it is being introduced, how to fill it in section by section, and how we can help.

From 2027, voluntary organisations that receive more than £10,000 a year in recurring grant funding from Fife Council will be asked to complete a short annual report: the Annual Report Summary - Recurring Grant Funding. It gives councillors a consistent, two-page picture of each organisation they fund: its Council funding, key details, governance, finances, performance and the difference its work makes.

Nobody asks for another form, and we know how much reporting organisations already do. The good news is that this one is built almost entirely from information you already hold - your accounts, your OSCR return, your Council monitoring and your own reports. This guide explains what the report is, why it is being introduced and how to complete it, section by section.

You do not have to do it on your own. Our capacity building team is happy to talk the form through with you, help you find the figures in your accounts, or read over a draft before it goes to the Council. Please get in touch at any stage.

At a glance

  • Who it is for: organisations receiving more than £10,000 a year in recurring grants from Fife Council. If you are not sure whether it applies to you, ask your Council Link Officer.
  • When: once a year, starting in 2027. Your Link Officer will send you the template and tell you when your report is due.
  • What it involves: ten short sections over two pages - mostly figures you already have, and a few short summaries in your own words.
  • Who reads it: elected members. Completed reports will be shared with them through the Council's information hub for councillors.
  • What it replaces: nothing. It sits alongside your annual monitoring and three-year evaluation under the Council's Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, so carry on with those as usual.

You can see the template now. It is Appendix 1 of the report to Fife Council's Cabinet Committee on 8 October 2026 (Agenda Item 9, Support for Voluntary Organisations Update).

To see what a good report looks like, download our worked example for a fictional organisation (Word document).

Why is the Council introducing it?

Fife Council invests a significant amount of public money in voluntary organisations whose services and activities benefit communities across Fife. In 2025 the Council set up an Elected Members Working Group to look at how recurring grants are awarded, monitored and evaluated, with a focus on fairness, transparency, governance and the Fair Funding Principles.

Councillors want to be confident that grants are a good investment, that organisations are achieving positive outcomes, and that funding decisions can be properly scrutinised. The annual report gives them one consistent summary for each organisation, instead of information pieced together from different places.

FVA was closely involved throughout. We worked with councillors and Council officers to shape an approach that balances proper scrutiny of public money with what is reasonable to ask of organisations with limited time and resources, and the template was developed with significant input from FVA and reviewed by the Voluntary Sector Task Group. Some of the alternatives discussed would have asked a good deal more of you. We believe accountability should be about showing the difference you make to people's lives and communities, not about producing more paperwork - and the report is also a chance to tell councillors about your achievements in your own words.

What else is changing

  • Recurring grant opportunities will be advertised more widely, through FVA, so that organisations which do not currently receive recurring Council funding can see them. Sign up to our bulletin to hear about them. Wider advertising does not necessarily mean more money is available: applications are still considered against Council priorities and the resources available.
  • Applying: organisations that already receive recurring grants will be invited to apply through the usual process, and should talk to their Link Officer. Organisations seeking recurring funding for the first time should contact the Council's Community Investment Team at [email protected].
  • Three-year evaluations continue, and are now carried out by a Link Officer other than your own, so that they are independent. Evaluations for the current round take place in October and November 2026, and your Link Officer may be in touch beforehand to make sure your monitoring and Service Level Agreement are up to date.
  • Clearer information for councillors: a dashboard of recurring grant spending across Fife's seven areas is due by the end of January 2027, and the Council is working towards a grants management system.
  • Timescales: funding recommendations for the current round are expected to go to the Cabinet Committee in March 2027. A fuller review of Communities and Neighbourhoods recurring grants follows during 2027, with any agreed changes from 2028.

Before you start: what to have to hand

Almost everything the form asks for is already in documents you have, and gathering them first makes it a much quicker job:

  • your Service Level Agreement (or funding agreement) with Fife Council, and the award letters for this year and last year
  • your annual accounts for the last two financial years, with the independent examiner's or auditor's report
  • your latest OSCR annual return, and the date you submitted it
  • your latest annual monitoring report to the Council, and the outcome of your last three-year evaluation
  • the targets in your Service Level Agreement, and your results against them
  • your annual report, impact report, survey results or case studies
  • current names and e-mail addresses for your chair, your chief executive or lead member of staff, and your Link Officer
  • how many staff and volunteers you have

Keep a copy of the finished report. Next year, much of the "previous year" information can be copied straight across from it.

Completing the form, section by section

The headings below follow the template, and our worked example (Word document) shows every section completed for a fictional organisation. Where a box does not quite fit your organisation, say so and explain briefly - a short, honest note is always better than a blank.

The top of the form

Applicant organisation: your organisation's full name, as it appears on your Service Level Agreement and, if you are a charity, on the Scottish Charity Register. Date of completion: the date the report is finished and signed off.

1. Service Level Agreement funding

  • Awarding service: the Council service that funds you, for example Communities and Neighbourhoods. Use a separate row for each recurring grant if more than one service funds you; if you have more than three, ask your Link Officer how they would like them shown.
  • Award (last year) and award (current year): the amounts in your award letters or Service Level Agreement.
  • Variation: the difference between the two - this year's award minus last year's, with a minus sign for a reduction.
  • Funding cycle: where you are in the agreement, for example "Year 2 of 3" or "1-year award".

Main reason(s) for any variation: a sentence or two is enough - an inflationary uplift, a budget saving, a change to what the agreement covers, or a one-year award, for example. If nothing changed, say "No change".

Brief summary of how the funding was spent in relation to each SLA component part: most Service Level Agreements are split into numbered parts or strands. For each one, summarise in a few lines what the money paid for and what it delivered, using the same names and numbers as your agreement so that a councillor can match them up. For example: "Part 1, weekly lunch club: paid for a part-time coordinator and hall hire; 46 sessions for 38 regular members."

2. Key details

  • Main office and other offices: the addresses you work from. If you have no premises of your own, give the address you use for correspondence.
  • Chairperson, chief executive and Link Officer: names and e-mail addresses. If you have no chief executive, give your most senior member of staff or lead volunteer, with their role. If you are not sure who your Link Officer is, the Community Investment Team can tell you.
  • Website: or your main social media page if you do not have one.
  • Number of employees and volunteers: a head count on the date you complete the form. If full-time equivalents tell the story better, add them in brackets, and say whether your volunteer figure includes your trustees.

Let the people you name know that their contact details are going into a report for councillors. A role-based e-mail address, such as a chair@ mailbox, stays right when people change.

3. Governance and risk management

  • Full, independent audit or independent examination of accounts: tick the kind of external scrutiny your most recent accounts had. Which you need depends on your income and legal form; FVA's finance team carries out independent examinations for small charities and community groups.
  • Most recent accounts submitted to OSCR on time: charities must send OSCR their annual return, accounts and trustees' report within nine months of the end of their financial year. You can check your own entry on the Scottish Charity Register, where a late submission is shown in red. If you were late, tick No and say why in section 10. If you are not a charity, say so and how your accounts are reported instead, for example to Companies House.
  • Year of the last three-year evaluation by Fife Council: your Link Officer can confirm it if you are not sure.
  • Any outstanding issues from the three-year review: if there are any, describe each one, what you have done or are doing about it, and by when. Showing that you are dealing with an issue reads far better than leaving it unexplained.

4. Financial performance

Take these figures straight from your annual accounts, so that they match exactly. Unless your Link Officer tells you otherwise, "previous year" and "current year" mean your last two completed financial years - and it helps to say which year ends you have used, for example "years ending 31 March 2025 and 31 March 2026".

  • Total income and total expenditure: the totals in your Statement of Financial Activities, or total receipts and total payments if you prepare receipts and payments accounts.
  • Unrestricted reserves (free funds): money you can spend on any of your organisation's purposes. If some of your unrestricted funds are tied up in buildings or equipment, or set aside by your board for a particular purpose, say which figure you have used.
  • Restricted reserves: money that can only be spent on a purpose set by a funder or donor.
  • Variation: the difference between the two years.
  • Annual accounts checked by Fife Council Finance Team: the Council checks accounts as part of its funding process. If you do not know whether yours have been checked, ask your Link Officer.
  • Any issues arising from scrutiny of annual accounts: for example a point raised by your examiner or auditor, or by the Council. Explain it, and what you are doing about it.

Any relevant notes on finances: this is your chance to put the figures in context, and it is worth using. A planned deficit, a one-off grant that inflated your income, or reserves held for a building, redundancy costs or an uncertain funding year all look very different once explained. A sentence on your reserves policy - how many months of running costs you aim to hold, and why - helps a reader who is not familiar with how charities manage their money.

5. Key performance indicators

Use the indicators and targets already agreed in your Service Level Agreement rather than inventing new ones. Relevant component is the part of the agreement each indicator belongs to. Give the target and the actual result for the previous year and the current year; if the current year is not over, give the figure so far and say so, for example "to 30 September".

Keep this section to figures. If you missed a target, explain why in section 8; if you beat one, say so in section 7.

6. Impact

Section 5 shows what you did; this section shows what difference it made. One or two strong pieces of evidence work better than everything you have:

  • a survey result, with how many people answered - for example "87% of the 64 people who replied said they felt less isolated"
  • a short case study about one person or group, anonymised and with their consent
  • a quotation from someone who uses your service, or from a partner

Where you can, connect the difference you make to what the Council funds you to achieve, such as stronger communities, fewer inequalities and more people taking part. Our monitoring and evaluation page has more on setting outcomes and collecting evidence.

7. Key achievements

Three to five highlights of the year: a new service, a milestone, a partnership, an award, or other funding you brought in alongside the Council's. Other funding is particularly worth mentioning, because it shows councillors how far their investment goes.

8. Challenges

Be candid. Councillors need to understand the pressures organisations face, and an honest account of a difficult year builds trust. Rising costs, paying fair wages, growing demand, recruiting volunteers or trustees, premises and uncertainty about future funding are all relevant. For each challenge, say briefly what effect it has had and what you are doing about it.

9. Priorities for next period

Three to five priorities for the year ahead, linked where possible to your Service Level Agreement and your own plans - including anything you are changing in response to the challenges above.

10. Further information

Links to documents that support your report, such as your annual accounts, annual report or impact report. Your entry on the Scottish Charity Register links to the accounts you have filed with OSCR. Check that each link works and is open to the public before you send the form. This box is also the place for anything that did not fit elsewhere.

Tips for a strong report

  • Write for someone who does not know you. Use plain English, spell out abbreviations, and assume the reader has never visited your service.
  • Keep it short. It is a summary: a few clear sentences in each box will be read, where long ones may not be.
  • Make the numbers agree. Figures should match your accounts, your OSCR return and your monitoring reports.
  • Be open about variations and challenges. Explaining them yourself is better than leaving a reader to guess.
  • Involve your board. Your trustees are responsible for what the organisation reports, so share the draft with them, or take it to a board meeting, before it goes to the Council.
  • Ask for help early. It is much easier to help with a first draft than on the day before a deadline.

How FVA can help

Helping voluntary organisations in Fife to be well run and sustainable is what we are here for. Our capacity building team can:

  • talk the form through with you and answer questions about any section
  • help you find and understand the figures in your accounts
  • read your draft and suggest how to make it clearer or stronger
  • help you set outcomes and gather evidence of your impact for future years
  • support your board with governance, through our organisation healthcheck and Board Review Tool, and with our model policies

Our finance team provides independent examinations and a payroll service, and our training and events include sessions for treasurers and boards.

We will continue to represent the sector in our conversations with the Council about recurring grants. Please tell us how you get on with the report - what worked, and what did not fit your organisation. Hearing it from you helps us make the case for reporting that stays proportionate.

Fair funding and fair work

The changes are being made within the context of the Fair Funding Principles, which the Fife Partnership Board has agreed to adopt wherever possible. They include:

  • positive working relationships based on mutual trust and respect
  • longer-term funding, of three years or more, wherever possible
  • simple, proportionate reporting that avoids unnecessary bureaucracy
  • consulting and collaborating with the voluntary sector as early as possible
  • flexible, unrestricted funding that recognises core operating costs and inflation
  • funding that allows staff to be paid at least the real Living Wage, in line with Fair Work principles
  • fair, respectful processes, with notice and a clear explanation, when funding comes to an end

FVA will keep promoting these principles, particularly while organisations face real financial pressures and growing demand for their services.

Fair work is the Scottish Government's approach to work that is secure, with fair pay and conditions, where people have a voice and a chance to progress. Through its Fair Work First policy, public sector grants awarded since 1 July 2023 come with conditions to pay at least the real Living Wage and to give workers an effective voice. If paying fair wages is putting pressure on your organisation, section 8 of the report is the place to say so.

Useful links

Fife Council

OSCR, the Scottish Charity Regulator

On this website

Get help from our capacity building team

Governance, funding, policies, legal structures and anything else about starting or running an organisation.

E-mail [email protected]

Telephone 0800 389 6046