Contents:
1. About this grant programme
The UK Government has identified Creative Industries as one of eight priority growth sectors within its Industrial Strategy. Through the Creative Industries Sector Plan, £75 million has been committed to a Screen Growth Package over three years, with £2.1 million allocated specifically to develop Production Support Services across English regions outside London. This represents £0.7 million per year over the three-year programme.
Film and television productions require significant logistical support to operate effectively. Productions frequently need assistance securing crew, suppliers, studio space and access to world-class locations. Production Support Services is a nationally coordinated initiative designed to address these operational challenges through targeted assistance and resources that ensure smooth filming experiences across England’s regions.
The successful applicant will develop and deliver a strategic approach to production support that strengthens England’s regional filming infrastructure. This work will uphold the nation’s global reputation as a versatile, production-ready filming destination while ensuring that production teams receive the practical support necessary to deliver world-class content outside the capital.
Context within the wider screen sector ecosystem
The British Film Commission (BFC) attracts international feature film and television productions to the UK by championing our world-class crew, infrastructure and locations. The successful applicant will complement the BFC’s work by strengthening the support ecosystem across English regions outside London, connecting production enquiries with viable regional hubs and facilitating filming requests received via the BFC to ensure locations are visible, accessible and well-supported when productions arrive.
The programme will also work alongside the Creative Places Growth Fund, launching in 2026, which will devolve £150 million to six Mayoral Strategic Authorities to grow their local Creative Industries, including film and television. The appointed partner will work closely with existing regional screen agencies across England, complementing their work on a regional level. They will also support Local Authorities choosing to amplify their screen sectors by connecting them with production opportunities and providing coordination expertise.
While the programme focuses on England’s regions outside London, the successful applicant will build collaborative relationships across the wider UK screen sector, including with Creative Wales, Screen Scotland, Northern Ireland Screen and Film London, to foster a joined-up, film-friendly landscape nationwide.
Objectives
The successful applicant will serve as a national coordinator across England’s production hubs (outside London) facilitating alignment and consistency, and aiding the delivery of the high-quality production experience expected from the nation’s screen sector.
During the three-year grant term, the successful applicant must place the following core objectives at the heart of their programme delivery plan:
- streamlining productions’ access to regional filming locations
- building local authority and film office capacity
- reducing geographic inequality and advancing a more equitable distribution of screen sector opportunities across England
- championing knowledge share, best practice exchange, and resource pooling amongst film offices
- standardised data collection that captures the value of regional filming locations
- ensuring England’s regions are part of national policy and investment conversations
2. Check if you’re eligible
You must meet the essential criteria specified below:
- proven experience in managing, tracking and evaluating publicly funded initiatives
- proven experience and demonstrable knowledge of the film & HETV end-to-end production process and common issues
- proven experience working across the English regions
- strong relationships across the sector including production companies, industry bodies and crew networks with a track record of delivering tailored support programmes
- experience working with Local Authorities, Mayoral Strategic Authorities (MSAs), or central government, including supporting policy implementation
- capability to collaborate with national and regional creative industry bodies (for example, BFC, BFI, regional screen agencies), ensuring programme alignment and coordination
- infrastructure and operational capacity to deliver a national co-ordination programme
The application must be submitted by an organisation that is legally constituted and centrally managed in the UK.
You may apply as a single organisation, with or without partners. Alternatively, you may submit a joint application (for example, as a consortium, joint venture, unincorporated association, partnership, or otherwise). You are responsible for determining the most appropriate approach to delivering your proposal.
Joint applications
You may choose to submit a joint application if:
- you feel that you alone do not have the capacity or capability to address the programme requirements
- you wish to bring in additional expertise to meet the required skills and experience
A lead party must be identified to submit the application on behalf of all parties to the joint application. The lead party will be responsible for all communication with the BFI during the application and appointment process.
As part of your application, you must submit a structure diagram identifying the roles and relationships between the parties including all relevant companies, their respective parent or ultimate holding companies. The structure should make clear who will be responsible for delivery of the programme. The lead party will bear the legal obligations and liabilities under the grant and will be required to satisfy the requirements set out in these guidelines including regular financial reporting in respect of the grant.
You must submit written confirmation from each party that they authorise the lead party organisation to act on their behalf in relation to this application for funding.
3. What you can use the funding for
You can apply for an award of up to £2,100,000 as follows:
- 1 April 2026 – 31 March 2027: up to £700,000
- 1 April 2027 – 31 March 2028: up to £700,000
- 1 April 2028 – 31 March 2029: up to £700,000
The amount available in the first year is subject to change and may be impacted by a transition period. The successful applicant may be subject to a TUPE transfer of existing staff delivering Production Services activity across England.
All annually allocated funds awarded must be spent by 31 March each financial year. Any unspent funds may be returned to the DCMS.
The funding can only be used to support Production Support Services activity that responds to the objectives listed above, with a focus on supporting the industry outside of London.
Funded activity should use public funding strategically by adding value where it is most needed through national coordination, advocacy and developing robust data and insights.
You must avoid duplicating work already delivered effectively by other screen sector organisations.
The programme
The programme must deliver against the following critical areas of need for regional filming:
- Coordinated national delivery of consistent, impactful support to productions.
- Strengthening regional filming capacity through partnership with existing regional Screen Agencies, Local Authorities and Film Offices.
- Data collection and advocacy to inform policy and drive screen sector investment.
Coordinated national delivery of consistent, impactful support to productions
The programme activity must include initiatives that successfully facilitate the cascade and management of filming enquiries from the British Film Commission and domestic productions seeking locations outside London. You should outline how you would approach production support coordination across several critical areas. This includes:
- managing location enquiries with accurate and timely advice
- coordinating logistical requests such as licensing, permitting, and access to local services
- resolving regulatory barriers through collaboration with national bodies.
You will need to consider how you would facilitate industry access to essential filming resources, including location databases, supplier directories, and guidance materials.
Strengthening regional filming capacity through partnership with existing regional screen agencies, local authorities and film offices
Fostering collaborative relationships with existing regional screen agencies, local authorities and film offices while promoting knowledge sharing between regions is essential to building regional filming capacity.
We expect the successful applicant to establish themselves as a trusted connector that strengthens regional support networks. You should describe how you would:
- provide expert guidance and practical solutions to local authorities and film offices
- facilitate cross-regional communication for multi-location shoots
- promote consistent support through shared best practice
- enable peer learning and knowledge exchange
In areas with less developed production infrastructure, you may be called upon to provide targeted advice and support, helping those regions navigate the complexities of film and television production with confidence
Data collection and advocacy to inform policy and drive screen sector investment
The programme must include initiatives that gather evidence-based insights demonstrating the economic impact of film and television production across the English regions. These activities will help ensure that the value of regional production is visible, measurable, and central to national decision-making.
The successful applicant will contribute to these efforts by working closely with partners already collecting this information on a regional level. They will advocate for standardised reporting, support data collection and raise awareness of the importance of capturing and sharing production spend data.
You will need to outline your approach to:
- systematically capturing production activity data, including the volume, scale, and type of shoots taking place in each region
- monitoring regional capacity and readiness, for example infrastructure, crew availability, and permitting efficiency
You will need to consider how your overall activity reporting will complement and align with initiatives led by Screen Agencies, Film Offices, and national programmes (e.g. Creative Places Growth Fund, Creative Clusters).
Eligible costs
You can use this funding for programme costs such as:
- overall programme design
- information resource development (for example, rate cards, reports and guidance for local authorities on production services)
- marketing and promotions costs
- events delivery (for example, outreach & recruitment events)
- developing, maintaining and formalising partnerships with relevant organisations
- online resource development and maintenance (for example, skills & locations databases)
- relevant work on production data capture, including liaison with productions, the BFI’s Research & Statistics Unit, and partners across the English regions
- a contribution to core overheads of no more than 20% of the programme budget
- appropriate monitoring of the programme
- staff costs, where they directly relate to the programme activity, for example salaries, employer’s national insurance contributions, and employer’s contributions to any occupational pension scheme or stakeholder pension scheme
- travel and subsistence (where it relates to programme delivery)
This is not an exhaustive list but an indication of eligible spend. We may consider funding other types of activities as long as they are not listed as ineligible below.
Ineligible costs
Examples of common ineligible costs are:
- debts or loans
- projects outside our funding priorities
- retrospective funding
- anything not covered by the objectives of this grant programme
- payments reimbursed or to be reimbursed by other public or private sector grants
- core costs for day to day running of your organisation not associated with the activity
- costs relating to an extension of ongoing work
- capital expenditure
- filmmaking projects and/or workshops or other ‘above the line’ training or project development
- activity that is already specifically supported by another external source of funding
- proposals that focus on other art-forms such as literature, dance on film, poetry film, opera or artists’ moving image
- cost incurred prior to an offer of funding
- promotional or other activity (stands, printed brochures) which does not support environmental sustainability
This list is not exhaustive and we may inform you that other types of activity within your application cannot be supported by this grant, or request that you amend specific lines and allocations.
If you are registered for VAT, your figures should not include VAT that you can claim back. If you are not registered for VAT, or you are registered for VAT but cannot fully recover the VAT you incur on costs, your figures should include irrecoverable VAT. Grants we make are ‘outside the scope’ of VAT and should be listed in your accounts as a grant and not, for example, as a fee for any services supplied to DCMS or the BFI. You should get financial advice from your own accountant or the relevant tax office.
Cashflow
If you are successful, funding will be cashflowed in-line with spend over your proposed project delivery timeline subject to:
- satisfactory performance — you are able to continue to deliver your activity in line with your funding agreement and these guidelines
- receipt and approval by BFI of routine reporting including progress against KPIs and costs to date
- demonstration that you can remain financially viable through to the end of the term
Partnership funding
Your application may include partnership support which can include cash or in-kind support. Partnership contributions are an important demonstration that there is genuine support for your project from your community, stakeholders and other partners.
4. How to apply
When you can apply
Applications must be submitted by midday Friday 23 January 2026.
The timeline below is indicative and subject to change.
| Milestone | Date |
|---|---|
| Open for applications | Monday 8 December 2025 |
| Deadline for applications | Midday on Friday 23 January 2026 |
| Application assessment | 26 January to 16 February 2026 |
| Decisions | By end of February 2026 |
Any applications received after the closing date will not be assessed.
It is your responsibility to ensure your application is concise, fully completed, and that you supply all the necessary supporting documentation.
Information you need to provide
The main application form will ask you for some basic information including:
- your organisation’s name and contact information
- total budget and amount requested from BFI
- a brief summary of your proposal
- how the proposal supports equity, diversity and inclusion
- how your proposal responds to the BFI’s Diversity Standards
- how you will ensure delivery across England, including any key partners you will work with
- your approach to environmental sustainability within the programme design
Documents you need to provide
You will need to complete a proposal template and attach it to your application. It will cover eligibility as well as the following:
- Organisational Capability and Delivery Approach to Production Support Services
- Strategic approach to building regional partnerships
- Data Collection, Evidence, and Advocacy
- Project Plan and Financial Management
Please view and download the proposal template; we recommend you complete this in advance of completing the main application form.
In addition, you will need to attach to your application:
- a full budget and cashflow for the activity applied for
- we may request further financial information from you while we are assessing your application
- an activity plan for 2026-2029, clearly setting out proposed deliverables, using the template provided
- a timeline for 2026-2029, covering key milestones
- your last set of independently certified/audited accounts:
- if more than 12 months has passed since the year end covered in your certified accounts, please additionally provide draft accounts for the intervening auditable period as approved by your board (including both income and expenditure reporting and a balance sheet)
- your most recent budget and management accounts for the current financial year as approved by your board (including both income and expenditure reporting and a balance sheet), as well as any subsequent budget reforecast since board approval was provided
- a programme risk register
- your organisational risk register
- your organisation’s sustainability policy or other relevant document
Equality monitoring form
You may be asked to provide equality monitoring data relating to your organisation’s leadership or project staff at the point of application or during your project. The data you submit on this form will be confidential, anonymous and not seen by the fund staff.
If you have any questions when completing the application form, please email ruth.thompson@bfi.org.uk. Due to the BFI office closure over the holiday period in December, there will be a delay in email responses between 19 December 2025 and 2 January 2026.
Submitting your application
You need to create an account or have an existing account on our grant website to make your application online. You can save your application and return to it later.
Make sure you complete all of the sections, as incomplete applications are ineligible and will be declined.
Please consult this PDF preview of the application form to see the questions you will be asked in full:
New application portal guide
For guidance about how to use our new BFI applicant portal:
5. What happens after you apply
You’ll get confirmation we received your application within 1-2 working days
You’ll be sent a unique ID number for your application.
We aim to make decisions and contact all applicants by the end of February 2026.
Once submitted, we will review your application and if necessary, may write to you or request to meet with you to obtain more information about your application. If we need additional information from you, it may take us longer to reach a decision on your application.
How your application is assessed
A panel of representatives from DCMS and BFI will assess the applications. You should assume that assessors have no or limited background knowledge of your organisation, its aims, and what it does. It is therefore important that your application is as clear, concise and unambiguous as possible.
There will be two main stages to the assessment process:
- Eligibility assessment: each application will be assessed against the essential criteria outlined above. You must address all sections, providing evidence where appropriate. If your application is ineligible, we will email to let you know that we cannot consider it for funding. We may allow you to fix a mistake if this is the only reason the application is ineligible.
- Assessment of eligible applications: we will score eligible applications in line with the following key criteria:
Assessment criteria
Strategic approach to building regional partnerships – weighting 20%
- Examines the applicant’s understanding of regional dynamics and their approach to strengthening local capability to support production activity successfully over time.
- Questions 2.1 and 2.2
Data collection, insight development and advocacy – weighting 20%
- Assesses the applicant’s capability to develop comprehensive data collection frameworks, generate meaningful insights, and use evidence to inform policy development and support strategic investment decisions that benefit the sector and deliver public value.
- Questions 3.1 and 3.2
Organisational Capability and Delivery Approach to Production Support Services – weighting 30%
- Assesses whether the organisation possesses the necessary scale, specialist knowledge, established relationships, and operational capability to achieve the strategic objectives within the funding period
- Questions: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4
Project Plan and Financial Management – weighting 15%
- Assesses whether the applicant has developed robust plans for delivering activities within the funding period and has appropriate financial controls in place to ensure accountability and transparency.
- Questions: 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3
Equality, diversity and inclusion – weighting 10%
- All activity supported by our funding should support equity, diversity and inclusion and address the BFI Diversity Standards. If successful, you’ll need to report following the conclusion of your activity, evaluating how you’ve delivered against the aims of the Diversity Standards in practice.
- Questions: Response to EDI and Diversity Standards
Moderation of scores
Scores will be moderated, and an overall score will be given to each application. Each question response will be evaluated and marked on a scale of 0 to 4, where:
- Score 0 — Serious concerns, for example, does not meet requirements, or raises serious concerns
- Score 1 — Minor concerns, for example, meets some requirements but with gaps or some minor concerns
- Score 2 — Adequate confidence, for example, meets most or all requirements, but it lacks sufficient details or evidence in some areas
- Score 3 — Good confidence, for example, meets all requirements and provides a detailed response, but it lacks evidence in minor areas
- Score 4 — Excellent confidence, for example, meets all requirements, provides a detailed response and evidence which demonstrates a particularly strong understanding of the requirements.
Identity checks
We undertake due diligence assessments of the applications we are recommending to our decision-making committee for funding. As part of this, before applying to the committee, we may request the bank details of the lead applicant.
We will request the personal address and date of birth of the CEO or Managing Director of the organisation applying. We will use this data to run an identity check. Please note that our request for this information is not an indication or confirmation of funding and you will be informed separately of the funding decision on your application. Please note that this is not a credit check. We will be unable to submit your application to our committee until we have received your completed form.
Grant and Lottery Finance Committee consideration
Following assessment of each application, funding decisions will be noted to the BFI Grant and Lottery Finance Committee. This is the final stage of the funding decision process. All applicants will be informed in writing of the decision on their application.
6. Getting a decision
If you’re successful
- you will receive a written offer of funding
- you will need to confirm acceptance of the offer of funding within 14 days
We will inform you in writing if your application is successful.
Your offer of funding will set out details of how you’ll receive the funding, how to use it and how we expect you to report to us. Read the conditions of funding below to find out what you will have to do if you are offered an award. You may be subject to a TUPE transfer of existing staff delivering Production Support Services activity across England; DCMS and the BFI will discuss this with the successful applicant.
If you’re unsuccessful
We will inform all unsuccessful applicants by the end of February 2026. Please note that the decision will be final.
We may have turned down your application because we determined that the proposal:
- did not fit our funding objectives
- was too ambitious for the budget
- did not demonstrate enough relevant experience
- was not yet developed enough
- did not meet the BFI Diversity Standards.
Feedback on an unsuccessful application
If we had a meeting with you to discuss your application, you can ask for feedback on your application. We’re a small team and unfortunately that means we’re unable to give feedback to other applicants.
We will keep the data and supporting materials you sent to us in line with our records retention policy.
We welcome your feedback on the application process and how we might improve it.
7. Conditions of funding
The following terms and conditions are non-negotiable. Submitting a proposal means acceptance of these:
You should not seek to amend the terms and conditions.
In addition, the following conditions will apply to your award:
- grant money will not be paid until we have received your written acceptance of the terms and conditions attached to your grant offer
- you must acknowledge you have received our grant in your annual report and accounts covering the period of the project
- if there is any breach of the terms and conditions, or your organisation ceases to operate before the grant has been spent, grant monies may have to be repaid
- when the grant ends, DCMS and BFI do not have a commitment to provide any further funding for the project
- we will carry out a detailed due diligence check, which may involve requests for further information and initiate the financing process
- the monitoring process will be agreed before funding is awarded; you will be required to report on progress against all KPIs on a six monthly basis (at a minimum) and attend annual performance reviews as well as other routine or specific meetings with BFI colleagues to discuss progress
- anyone found to be acting dishonestly in making an application for funding or spending the grant will be reported to the police and may be liable for prosecution
- you will be required to gain BFI approval for any marketing or related materials for your funded activity, in line with branding guidelines that the BFI will provide to you
- you will be required to provide any resources (including research, insights and data reports) that are developed under the funded activity to the BFI and ensure any resources developed using DCMS funding are made publicly available
- you will need to adopt safeguarding provisions for protecting children and vulnerable adults and ensure that data on all participants in, and beneficiaries of, the Production Support Services Programme can be shared with BFI and the DCMS in compliance with UK data protection legislation
Grant monitoring and reporting
DCMS and the BFI are committed to robust monitoring and evaluation of grant funding, proportionate to the size and length of the grant. You will be expected to:
- provide regular financial and performance monitoring data returns for the grant funding period (templates will be provided)
- attend quarterly monitoring meetings to report on the progress of programme activity (based on the monitoring returns) and update on risks and slippage on spend
- attend informal catch-up meetings with DCMS and BFI project leads
- work with DCMS and BFI to support the design of the evaluation and collection of relevant data for the overarching process and impact evaluation
Evaluation
DCMS and BFI are interested in understanding how the grant holder has achieved the objectives of the fund through an evaluation.
It will be the responsibility of the DCMS to bring in an external evaluator, in line with other programmes and funding announced in the Creative Industries Sector Plan. The evaluation will be based on monitoring data to be collected and collated by the successful applicant at regular intervals. The exact nature of this data will need to be agreed between DCMS, the BFI and the successful applicant, but is expected to include the following:
- the regional and geographic spread of initiatives and outcomes (including economic impact)
- feedback from productions, crew, industry and partner organisations
- key learnings from the programme, along with any continuous improvements made
- value for money from the programme
DCMS will review and sign off the final monitoring and evaluation plans (an M&E framework) and the reports from the evaluation.
Partnership funding
Where you have included unsecured partnership funding within your budget, you will need to provide updates on securing this finance to the BFI (normally as part of your performance reporting but, where such partnership funding is intrinsic to delivery of the activity, as a pre-condition to the funding agreement). The BFI may elect to withhold or withdraw your award if you are unable to secure the level of partnership funding required to deliver the activity as planned or require that you submit revised plans and budget showing how the activity could be delivered without the planned partnership funding.