Grant application guidance

The Holiday Activities and Food programme is intended to address key priorities identified by the Department for Education and provide monitoring and reporting information to demonstrate how the City Council and its partners have achieved these objectives. The essential aspect of this programme is to ensure sufficient reach and coverage to provide accessible opportunities to all young people of school age.

Provider Register

Applicant organisations must be included on the Holiday Activities and Food Provider Register to confirm compliance with the Department for Education's minimum operating standards. This register can be requested by the Department for Education at any time. Inclusion on this register is open to all voluntary and community sector organisations. Any organisation wishing to be added to this register should contact the Holiday Activities and Food Team.

Submission

All applications must be submitted via the Holiday Activities and Food Team - no separate bids will be considered outside this process.

The Holiday Activities and Food Team would like to receive applications that -

• engage children and young people who receive free school meals
• provide a high volume of participation opportunities
• ideally, aim to provide 4 hours of activity per day, including a food offer
• provide a blended offer of physical activity, sport, and enrichment activities to engage children and young people across the 4 to 16 age range, which may also improve their health and well-being
• focus on improving the emotional health and well-being of young people
• help young people engage with food, healthy eating and learning activities. More information about school food standards is available on GOV.UK
• provide opportunities for whole families/communities to undertake activities together, including enhancing cooking/food skills and knowledge
• enable families to be active together, supporting children and young people to meet the NHS physical activity guidance levels. More information about the physical activity guidelines is available on GOV.UK
• offer signposting or referrals to other services and support that would benefit the children who attend the programme and their families
• provide activities that are within the core hours during the day
  • activities that wish to be run at time outside of 10am to 4pm must be discussed with the Healthy Holidays Hull Team prior to an application being submitted
• provide a broader ‘offer’, with new or different activities or ones delivered in a different way
• work inclusively with children and young people who are between 4 and 16 years old, or 4 to 18 if a SEND specific activity
• maximise the potential for organisations to work together, sharing expertise and avoiding duplication
• ensure value for money
• offer opportunities for remote activities for children, young people and families. This could be in the form of an activity pack, a cooking pack or an online activity

Funding and expenditure

All grant applications will be evaluated with consideration given to the reach, coverage and value provided towards the achievement of the Holiday Activities and Food programme objectives.

• A limit of funding has not been applied to Winter 2026. Instead we would like providers to detail what they would like to deliver over the 3 days and what the cost to do this would be. Each application will be reviewed individually against the offer, value for money and against the Holiday Activities and Food programme objectives
• Equipment purchase is an ineligible expenditure within the grant programme, other than for consumable items for art, etc., to the equivalent of no more than 2% of the total grant value applied for
• A maximum of 10% of the total grant value can be included for administration costs. This amount needs to be justified, detailed and broken down in the costings section of the application
• Any organisation would normally be asked to submit only one application for each holiday period
• Any organisation with the capacity or desire to deliver more than one project should discuss this in the first instance with the Holiday Activities and Food Team. Do not assume that more than one application will be approved

It should be noted that funding would only be available for additional projects if these meet the needs of a completely different catchment group or locality. Funding will not be provided twice for the same group of participants.

Trips outside the city

Any organisation considering a trip outside the city boundary must discuss this with the Holiday Activities and Food Coordination Team at the earliest opportunity, and certainly before submitting the grant application.

Trips would only be considered to facilities within a 30-minute drive of the city and only to facilities/opportunities which are not available within the city itself.

In circumstances where a trip is approved for funding, the applicant will be expected to provide a Travel Plan before the grant funding will be released, which details -

• the number of staff to be involved
• the transport or travel company to be used
• details of the pick-up and drop-off points, and times
• the ratio of staff to participants
• Safeguarding and First Aid provision
• risk assessments which detail how the provider would respond in any predictable situation

There is a trip information form that needs to be downloaded and completed.

The Healthy Holiday programme aims to achieve the following outcomes, ensuring that children, young people, and families -

• engage in the programme, those who receive free school meals without stigma
• improve their holistic health and well-being
• improve their cooking/food skills and knowledge
• engage in social action/volunteering activities
• have fun and engage in positive activities
• have access to a range of different activities and can try something new
• who are not currently engaged in activities take part in the programme and have an increased awareness of local and citywide provision
• have the opportunity to continue to engage in locally provided activities beyond the holiday periods
• have access to nutritious food throughout the school holidays

Operating Standards

The Department for Education requires all providers that deliver activities under the Holiday Activities and Food programme to meet a range of minimum standards and be recorded on a Provider Register, which is submitted to the Department for Education annually.

All providers must have the following policies, procedures, qualifications and information in place and provide up-to-date copies to the Holiday Activities and Food Coordination Team -

• All session leaders (staff and volunteers) must have a valid enhanced DBS check for your organisation
• Appropriate public liability / professional indemnity or commercial combined insurance (minimum £1m), a copy of the insurance certificate is required
• An up-to-date Safeguarding Policy or statement, including the date of next review
• A Health and Safety policy, and/or valid risk assessments for the activities to be delivered
• An updated Equality policy or statement (accessible), including the date of next review
• Valid qualifications for activity leaders where a National Governing Body or governing association validates such qualifications.
• Valid Emergency First Aid qualifications for leaders (copies required)
• Data Protection/GDPR Policy
• Complaints/Compliments Procedure
• Evidence of L2 Food Hygiene training (Training is provided free of charge to organisations through the Healthy Holidays Workforce Development programme)
• Completion of the Food Allergy and Intolerance Training - Food Standards Agency for all staff involved with food preparation or distribution
• Risk assessments

Leader to participant ratios

The number of children and young people each leader is responsible for must be appropriate to ensure the activity delivered is safe and manageable.

• The activity must comply with any national governing body or awarding body published standards
• In the absence of any specific standards, the City Council requires a maximum number of 15 young people to each leader (15:1), except in circumstances where risk assessments confirm higher numbers can be managed appropriately
• Any funding applications which demonstrate a ratio higher than 15:1 will not be supported

Marketing and promotion

The Department for Education sets specific criteria for the marketing and promotion of the Holiday Activities and Food programme, which in turn must be applied to the localised promotion of activities by all providers.

All providers who receive grant funding will be required to -

• publicise their activities within their locality. As a condition of funding, all promotional material, both hard copy and digital, including social media, must display all logos provided within the Healthy Holidays Brand Guidelines
• specifically promote their activities to children and families in receipt of free school meals (including two weeks' preferential access to booking places)
• support the marketing and communications efforts of the Hull City Council to promote a broad awareness of Holiday Activities and Food opportunities across the entire city, providing information to the Council as requested
• make use of social media channels at every opportunity to promote the programme and recognise funding from the Department for Education. The following must be included with all promotional and social media material -
  • www.healthyholidayshull.org
  • #HealthyHolidaysHull
  • #Holiday Activities and Food2026
  • Facebook and Instagram - @healthyholidaysshull
  • X - @healthyholshull

Monitoring

As a condition of the overall Holiday Activities and Food funding, the City Council is required to submit participation and performance data to the Department for Education, which demonstrates the reach and coverage of the Holiday Activities and Food programme. To support this, all providers are required as a condition of grant funding to -

• provide monitoring returns in the required format to the Holiday Activities and Food Team by the specified date
• to comply with the requirements of GDPR, and the requirements of the programme, providers are required to use the new booking system Eequ for all Healthy Holidays Hull Programmes.

Council Parks and Playing Fields

All playing fields or parks under the control of the City Council may only be used when the provider has secured the appropriate permission for use. Contact Hull Culture and Leisure using the form below or call 01482 300 300 for more advice and to make the necessary arrangements.

Contact the Parks and Open Spaces team

The deadline for all applications for Winter 2026 is Friday 18 September at 12midday. Applications after this date will not be considered.

If your application is successful, you will receive a contract to sign and return. Payments will not be released until the Holiday Activities and Food Coordination Team has received the signed contract.

If you have not received payment by 5 June 2026 (or funding is time-critical), contact the Holiday Activities and Food Coordination Team immediately.

• Kirsty Leake
  • 07725 481 264
  • kirsty.leake@hullcc.gov.uk
• Amelia Holdstock
  • 07515 333 057
  • amelia.holdstock@hullcc.gov.uk
• Carl Southcoat
  • 07894 589 550
  • carl.southcoat@hullcc.gov.uk

Activities may be visited by a representative of the Healthy Holidays Hull Team for quality assurance purposes.