Community Grants Service

No visibility of NCCs full grant provision
Different methods of applying and processing used to manage the applications
The methods are not based on user needs
Applicants have no visibility of the stage of their application
When not a manual process, different technologies are used but these are often legacy-based software and require technical workarounds/integration
No validation for fraud, and the ability to audit is difficult

This project plans to:

conduct user research with grant applicants and Newcastle City Council staff who work on community grants to identify their user needs and challenges with the current process
design prototypes for the low code solution and test with users
test the low code solution with users
create a high-level roadmap for the future of community grants in Newcastle

Project outputs

The project’s final output, a report, covers their approach, user research, prototyping, user testing and more. Read the project report in Google Slides.

Downloads

Community Grants alpha project report (ODP) (7MB)

We’re currently working on making all of our content accessible. If you cannot access this document, please email support@localdigital.gov.uk to receive them in an alternative format.

Project details

Phase: Alpha

Funding granted: £123,320

Duration: November 2021 - April 2022

Partners: Newcastle City Council

Project links

Project timeline

November 2021

The project is awarded £123,320 of funding through Round 5 of the Local Digital Fund to conduct an alpha phase.

December 2021

The delivery partners (TPX and Netcall) joined a call with Paul Doney and Jenny Nelson from Newcastle City Council. During the call they talked about what type of grant they want to use for testing the hypothesis, likely user journeys, and monitoring and closure. The team also agreed a process to ensure that both teams work together in harmony.

February 2022

During their first Show and Tell on 9 February, the team from Newcastle City Council talked through their initial user research and shared some prototypes built using the wireframing tool Figma. You can watch a recording of the event on YouTube.

The insights from the user research (run by their supplier, TXP Impact) have highlighted the laborious process council officers have to go through to prepare for an assessment.

The team has also outlined an approach for how they will test a low code solution using Netcall software, turning wireframes into a Minimum Viable Product for testing with a range of users.

Work is still being done to find a range of grant applicants for testing.

April 2022

The project has come to the end of a 12-week alpha focused on meeting user needs relating to the community grant process while piloting the use of a low code platform.

Their final output, a project report, covers their approach, user research, prototyping, user testing and more. Read the project report.

Go to Local Digital homepageALPHA