Using quality assurance for funding success - Play England

Using quality assurance
for funding success
This briefing aims to
help play providers
understand how
quality assurance
systems such as
Quality in Play can
be used to meet
the requirements
of commissioners
and funders by
demonstrating
the need for and
quality of their play
offer to children.
www.playengland.org.uk

Quality in Play
Quality in Play is not just a quality assurance
scheme – it is also a framework for analysis and
development to help with sustainability in times
of increasing competition for funding.
Funders and commissioners are increasingly
looking for evidence of need and outcomes that
fit within their priorities. These may not be
specifically about play, as they could be about
support for children and families, or increasing
access to natural environments or creating
better neighbourhoods.
Quality in Play can help you demonstrate how
your provision fits wider funding priorities
and how you will use the money to make a
real difference. It will also show that you have
good management systems in place and how
you fit into the bigger picture of your local
community.
Quality in Play is divided into three sections
based on the Manchester Circles model, showing
how the physical environment, staff and
organisational framework supports children
in their play, and how you connect with the
wider community and respond to local needs.
It also helps make the case for children engaging
in play as a good outcome in itself. It
also contributes to other outcomes, like
better physical and mental health through
physical activity and being with friends, and
improved community cohesion.
Evidence of how play can contribute to a
range of other outcomes can be found in
the resources listed at the end of this briefing.
‘For us as a funding body, QiP
helps the team give evidence of
their practice.’
Healthy Borough Team officer
‘QiP provides a measure to judge
services against and aids
developing quality provision. It
helps to make the argument at
different levels for support for
play and for the services by
helping make links with other
agencies. [Our] play centre had a
good Ofsted report in response
to good practice developed
through QiP. It helps when trying
to get funding.’
Local authority play service manager *
What is Quality in Play?
Quality in Play is a quality assurance system for play providers
to help supervised school age play and childcare provision in the
voluntary, public and private sectors to improve their policy and
practice in supporting children’s play.

‘Say what you do, and do what you say’
Through a ‘cycle of commitment’ (planning >
action > review) Quality in Play helps you to:
• be clear about what it is you offer to children
and families
• show how you work within the Playwork
Principles and provide an accessible and
inclusive service
• effectively communicate this to the
community, funders and other agencies
• demonstrate that your policies and practice
are up to date and focus on delivery
• show that you are using a tried and tested
evaluation tool
• focus on outcomes (the difference you make)
as well as outputs (what you do) and inputs
(the money and resources you use).
Section 1 of the Quality in Play manual:
The play environment
The quality areas in this section link the child’s
right and need to play to how you develop the
physical and human play environments. It helps
to make the case for how a play project can
meet funding priorities, including those that are
not specifically about play. Most funders want to
support disadvantaged children and families,
and will often ask how you involve them in your
service planning and delivery.
Section 2: The organisational framework
This section places reflective practice and
workforce development within the context of
how the law and regulation is interpreted in
practice, and covers project and resource
management. This helps to show funders that
their money will be in safe hands and that there
are systems in place to deliver on and protect
their investment.
Section 3: The wider context
This section links your aims and values to twoway
communication with the community, other
agencies and the bigger picture of how you
support children and families in your area.
Funders and commissioners increasingly want
‘Our funders are more impressed
with what we do; we can explain
our achievements and make them
more aware of what we offer and
why we do it.’
Playworker
‘One of the strengths for me has
been the ability to say on funding
bids: “we have QiP”. Some of the
bigger trusts and foundations
have asked: “do you have a quality
assurance certificate?” So it is
very helpful to be able to say yes.’
Playworker
‘Now we are known in the
community for being a good
provider, we are oversubscribed.’
Local authority playscheme coordinator
‘Parents and children are happier,
we provide more of what they
want, and we link to other play
services in the area, like the
adventure playground and the
city farm. We also organised our
own fun days where we get the
whole family involved. It raised
awareness of what we do and
helped us promote our service.’
Playworker
to know how you are responding to real
community needs and how you can evidence this.
They also want to see how you network with
other agencies and funders, not least because
very few funders will cover all the costs of
your service.

Using Quality in Play evidence to bid for funding
The Quality in Play process is based around
creating a portfolio of evidence. You will have
most of the evidence already – going through the
process is about getting it organised and
reflecting on how policies and procedures are
actually put into practice.
Do use your portfolio to show what you do
well. Funders will be interested in what
return (including social benefits) they will
get in return for their investment.
Don’t be afraid to use your portfolio evidence to
identify gaps in service provision and
show how you could do more for the
children and families that are in their
priorities. This is what they want to fund –
particularly where this shows how you
could meet their priorities with some
additional resources and how their
investment could make a difference.
Do include the costs of undertaking Quality in
Play in your funding or commissioning bids
as part of how you will evaluate the
difference you will make with their money.
As a tried and tested framework with an
external assessment and accreditation
element, it will help to reassure funders
and commissioners that your evaluation
will really tell the story of what difference
you have made.
Don’t forget that your funders and investors
will also have to explain to their trustees
or senior management what difference
their money has made – your story is what
they need.
Funding: a changing future
In these changing times there will be increasing
pressure on play providers in the public, private
and voluntary sectors to develop more businesslike
models, to create social enterprise to fund
core activities.
Local authorities and other public bodies are
much less likely to run grants programmes in
future as they move to a commissioning model
and new legislation requires them to consider who
else is best placed to deliver services. This will
mean competitive invitations to organisations to
provide the services they have decided are
priorities, rather than simply funding them to do
what they have always done in the past.
Charitable trusts and other grant-making bodies
will continue to give grants but with a tighter
focus on their particular priorities and areas of
interest. Other trends in grant-giving that are
likely to continue are a focus on outcomes (i.e.
what difference you made) rather than outputs
(i.e. how much you provided) and a reluctance to
continue funding beyond the period of the grant.
This means that play providers need to be very
clear about how they fit into grant and commissioning
priorities. Play providers also need to think
about how they can use charitable or other
grants to develop their service and capacity to
the point where they are ready to bid for commissions.
Some funding programmes support
community organisations to build capacity and
sustainability rather than direct services and can
help with the costs of external support and
expertise.
Quality in Play provides a framework for developing
your business case because it focuses on
what you do, how you do it and how this fits in with
the wider picture, in a way that will appeal to
funders and investors. All the time ensuring the
focus stays on the playing child.

Find out more about Quality in Play.
www.playengland.org.uk/quality
Download A journey, not a destination, the Ludemos evaluation report on Quality in Play.
www.playengland.org.uk/journey
Engaging Communities in Play is a Play England programme offering a range of products and
tools to increase the involvement of voluntary and community groups in shaping local play
opportunities for children. For further information visit
www.playengland.org.uk/communityplay
Playful Communities is a dedicated website with a toolkit for anyone wishing to get involved in
creating, improving and maintaining places where young people can play and spend their free
time. The section on fundraising can be found here.
www.playfulcommunities.org.uk/keeping_it_going/funding_and_sustainability.aspx
The Children’s Play Information Service has a comprehensive selection of books, publications,
articles and a photo archive on the history and development of play provision. A fundraising fact
sheet can be found here.
www.ncb.org.uk/cpis/resources/factsheets.aspx
The Playday website has useful statistics and research data on what children and families say in
a series of national polls.
www.playday.org.uk
The Playday ‘Get organised!’ guide has information on funding sources.
www.playday.org.uk/playday_events/resources.aspx#201GetOrganisedGuide
Play for a change is a comprehensive review of the scientific literature on children’s play. A short
briefing and a link to the full report is here. www.playengland.org.uk/playforachange
Play, naturally is a review of the evidence for
the benefits of children playing in natural
environments.
www.playengland.org.uk/playnaturally
The Demos report People Make Play looks at
the impact of staffed play provision on children,
families and communities.
www.playengland.org.uk/peoplemakeplay
Useful resources
* The quotes in this briefing are taken from
an external evaluation report
A journey not a destination: evaluating the
impact of Quality in Play (Ludemos, 2010)

This briefing was produced as part of Play England's Engaging Communities in Play
programme funded by the Department for Education.
For further information about the Engaging Communities in Play programme visit
www.playengland.org.uk/our-work/engaging-communities-in-play
Play England promotes excellent free play opportunities for all children.
We believe that all children should have the freedom and space to play enjoyed by previous
generations.
This involves more than just providing well-designed play areas; it requires the commitment
of local and national decision makers to create more child-friendly communities.
By making play a priority we can create healthier and happier communities for all.
Play England is part of NCB and is supported by the Big Lottery Fund.
Published by NCB, for Play England, March 2011.
Play England
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