UK Aid Direct

Jo Cox Memorial Grants (Strengthening) – Project Completion

Report (PCR) guidance

Contents

Jo Cox Memorial (Strengthening) Project Completion Report (PCR) grant holder guidance ..... 1

Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 2

Project Completion Report process ....................................................................................... 2

Templates and guidance ........................................................................................................ 2

Submission ............................................................................................................................. 2

Review and feedback.............................................................................................................. 3

Completing the Project Completion Report (PCR) – a step-by-step guide ................................. 3

1. Grant information ........................................................................................................... 3

2. Beneficiary Data Summary .............................................................................................. 4

3. a) Achievement against outcome targets........................................................................ 4

3.1 Scoring outcomes .................................................................................................... 4

3.2 Means of verification ............................................................................................... 5

3.3 Over/under achievement ......................................................................................... 5

3. b) Overall outcome assessment ...................................................................................... 6

4. Achievement against output target................................................................................. 6

5. Understanding project impact ........................................................................................ 6

6. Learning ........................................................................................................................... 6

7. Social Inclusion ................................................................................................................ 7

8. Risk .................................................................................................................................. 8

9. Safeguarding.................................................................................................................... 9

10. Sustainability ................................................................................................................ 9

11. Value for money ........................................................................................................ 10

12. Capacity Building ....................................................................................................... 11

13. Fiduciary Management .............................................................................................. 11

13.1 Asset Disposal ........................................................................................................ 12

14. Feedback to fund manager ........................................................................................ 12

15. Project Completion Report checklist ......................................................................... 12

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Introduction Jo Cox Memorial Grant holders (Strengthening) are required to complete a ‘Project Completion

Report’ (PCR) within three months of the end of the project. The process enables grant holders to:

evaluate project performance against objectives, draw conclusions on how interventions have

worked, reflect on lessons learned, and consider recommendations for future programming.

The project completion process is intended to support grant holders to:

• Communicate what their UK Aid Direct grant has achieved

• Establish a record of project achievement against original outcome and outputs

• Draw conclusions and lessons learnt to inform future work

• Contribute to learning on emerging results

• Check compliance with the terms and conditions of the grant.

Project Completion Report process This document outlines what the project completion process involves, key requirements and

guidance, alongside a simple checklist for completing the project completion report. The diagram

below illustrates the project completion process:

Templates and guidance All information and guidance related to project completion reporting (PCR) is available on the UK Aid

Direct website in the grant holder guidance section. Beyond this guidance, links to useful guides and

resources can be found embedded in this document.

Submission

Step One

• Templates and guidance These will be shared with grant holders three months prior to project end date.

Step Two

• Report submissionAll documentation is required within three months of the project end date.

Step Three

• Review and feedback

The performance management team will review all documentation and share feedback within 6-8 weeks following submission.

Step Four

• Project completion

A letter will be issued once all aspects of the Project Completion Report (PCR) are signed off.

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All documentation for the PCR (including supporting documents) needs to be submitted to your

Performance and Risk Manager, copying ukaiddirect@manniondaniels.com. Please do not upload

these documents to SMILE.

All files should be named and shared, following the convention below:

Grant holder name (or abbreviated name) _name of document_reference number_MMYYY

Example: EducateAction_Logframe_6J7S-E3YS-DJ_042020

Do not PDF any submitted documents. It is also important that files are submitted in the same

format that they originally are shared.

Following submission, the performance management team will conduct an initial review of

submitted documentation to ensure completeness. If there are any missing documents, a member

of the fund management team will be in touch to rectify this.

Review and feedback The performance management team will conduct a review and assessment of all documentation

submitted. If during this review, there is need for any clarification, your Performance and Risk

Manager will be in touch.

Following the review, a feedback letter will be shared providing a comprehensive, technical and

financial assessment of project achievements.

Completing the Project Completion Report (PCR) – a step-by-step

guide This provides a step-by-step guide for completing the PCR narrative report covering each section of

the report.

1. Grant information This section covers the grant overview and must be completed accurately and in full. Note that

section 1.10 ‘Project summary’ should be written after completing the rest of the report to allow for

thorough and holistic reflection of the project achievements. See below for an example ‘Project

summary’.

Project summary example:

The goal of the project was to reduce alcohol abuse among the youth in Uweco village. Illegal alcohol

abuse by young people was identified as a major problem and was attributed to high dropout rates

from secondary schools among students in the area. To achieve this, the project worked to reduce

access to alcohol and increase parents’ engagement in school activities. We conducted community

outreach activities that emphasised the dangers of alcohol abuse and worked with the relevant

authorities to hold to account any businesses selling alcohol to the youth. We also trained teachers

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and parents on parent/family involvement approaches to strengthen the parents’ connection to their

children’s school activities.

At the end of the project, police reports revealed that there has been a reduction in incidents reported

on alcohol abuse by the youth – only two cases reported in the last 18 months compared to the

baseline where at least two youth alcohol abuse incidents were reported on a daily basis. Following

the training of the students, the schools also reported improved positive school behaviour and

academic achievement. The parents and family members trained also reported a change in attitude

towards involvement in student’s school activities to enhance positive behaviour in schools.

2. Beneficiary Data Summary This section relates to the Beneficiary Data Summary, which is a separate excel document containing total beneficiaries reached, and data disaggregated by gender, age, disability and other key population characteristics. This template is the same used for six-monthly progress reporting.

Download the Beneficiary Data Summary from SMILE and update the Project Completion Report tab. Ensure data is provided for the entire duration of the project. Refer to the ‘data summary’ tab to reflect on data management and collection.

3. a) Achievement against outcome targets This section encourages reflection on achievement of outcome indicators by reviewing performance against the target for each outcome indicator. When completing, add or delete as necessary to ensure all outcome indicators in the approved results framework are reported against.

For each outcome indicator, copy the indicator information from the approved Results Framework.

This includes the indicator title, final milestone target, and achieved figures. For each indicator, grant

holders must provide a self-assessed score, provide evidence of data verification, and explain any

over or under achievement of the target.

3.1 Scoring outcomes

For each indicator, provide a self-assessed score using the below guidance. This will be reviewed and

validated by the performance management team, and it is therefore important to provide robust

Data management and collection – key considerations

• Were you able to collect relevant data to evidence the project achievements?

• Reflect on whether the approaches to sampling provided representative information and evidence

• Did the approaches to data disaggregation work effectively? What challenges were experienced and how were these overcome?

• Reflect on the methods used to analyse the data and the extent to which this information has been used to inform programming. Has this information been shared beyond the project?

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evidence of this achievement.

Score Outcome description

A++ Outcome substantially exceeded expectation, where the milestone has been exceeded by 20% or more

A+ Outcome moderately exceeded expectation, where the milestone has been exceeded by more than 10% but less than 20%

A Outcome met expectations, where the milestone has been achieved by +/- 10%

B Outcome moderately did not meet expectation, where the milestone has been

underachieved by more than 10% but less than 20%

C Outcome substantially did not meet expectation, where the milestone has been

underachieved by more than 20% or there is insufficient data available

Scoring example: The target was to enrol 50 children into vocational courses to attend training for a

minimum of six months. Data indicates that 48 enrolled however, three dropped out and only 45

attended training for the full six-month period. This outcome would therefore score an ‘A’ - this is

because the 45/50 target achieved is 90%, hence milestone has been achieved by +/- 10%.

3.2 Means of verification

It is essential that achievements are supported by robust and credible data. For each outcome indicator, outline the data sources used to verify the results presented.

Means of verification example: to evidence that 45 children were enrolled into vocational courses

and attended training for a minimum of six months, enrolment data has been provided alongside

attendance sheets. To evidence the quality of the vocational courses, a feedback survey was

conducted with all students indicating that 80% of students who completed a course felt confident to

access employment opportunities. Furthermore, trainers grade students at the end of the course and

all students completing the course were graded ‘B’ or above.

3.3 Over/under achievement

It is important to reflect on why indicators may be over or under achieved to support future

programming and learning. In this section, provide a brief analysis as illustrated in the example below.

Analysis of over/under achievement example: The project enrolled 50 children but three dropped

out due to family commitments. This represents a 10% underachievement. These three children

attended on average 50% of the course. One fell pregnant and was unable to continue, and a further

two experienced changes in family circumstances and were required to stay home. These were all

female students and future programme should consider engaging parents and family members at an

early stage in the project, on the importance of supporting students to complete the course. This could

involve communicating the longer-term benefits of the courses and using role models to share

experience within the community.

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3. b) Overall outcome assessment An overall outcome assessment is required based on the outcome indicator assessments. Reflect on the progress made for each outcome indicator and assess overall achievement. This should be a balanced judgement based on findings reported.

4. Achievement against output target This section requires your Results Framework to be updated to include the ‘achieved’ column. For each output, outline the achieved data. This should be supported by the information and data provided in the Beneficiary Data Summary.

5. Understanding project impact This section requires reflection on the overall impact of the project, considering the intended objectives and approach to achieve these. In this section, reflect on:

5.1 Change achieved

• Based on outcome and output level assessment, has the project achieved what was intended?

• Reflect on the beneficiary data and outline who has benefitted and why

• At this final stage of the project, reflect on the change that has been achieved.

5.2 Project approach

• Reflect on why the interventions used were selected and consider if they led to the anticipated change

5.3 Adaptive management

• Reflect on what changes to the approach were made during implementation and why

• Based on the data now, what changes might be appropriate for future programming.

6. Learning Reflection and learning are important to establish how well the project has performed and should

inform future programming. In this section, analyse and reflect on the learnings the project has had

over the implementing period.

Reflect on the key achievements and challenges, and consider what factors contributed to these. It is

important to consider:

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• Whether activities had the intended outcomes and reflect on any unintended outcomes

there might have been

• Operational processes and procedures involving delivery of outputs

• Working with certain downstream partners, project teams or other stakeholders

• How challenges were mitigated.

6.3 Beneficiary Feedback (BFM)

Learning from beneficiaries through beneficiary feedback mechanisms (BFM) is a key element of

project delivery and adaptive management. Through consistent interaction beneficiary feedback

promotes project relevance and accountability. In this section, describe the ways you have collected

and used feedback providing specific examples and reflecting on how this influenced project impact

and accountability.

BFM example: Through monthly community discussion meetings we sought feedback, not only from

direct beneficiaries of the project, but also the wider community on how the project was progressing.

Originally, these were mass gatherings of all community members, however we found that women

were not very vocal, and feedback was only received from men. As such, we quickly adapted to host

two separate community discussion meetings, one for women and one for men. This led to

significantly more feedback from both groups.

The feedback received was used to adapt the project. For instance, the community suggested that we

consider distributing a new breed of goats -“galla goats” - as opposed to the local breeds. Following

consultation with technical experts, we were advised that “galla goats” perform well in hot and

drought-ridden areas and have higher milk potential over the local breed. We therefore adapted the

project based on this feedback to offer “gall goats” and as a result, reduced the kid mortality rate in

the project from four kids reported in the first three months to none. Beneficiaries also enjoyed higher

milk production from one litre per day to three litres per day per goat.

6.4 Communications

Use this section to share project-specific case studies that exemplify what the project has achieved.

Ensure that the case study is clearly structured, briefly outlining:

• What the problem was

• How it was addressed

• The results, including any problems encountered and how they were overcome.

Provide images or videos to accompany the case study. Please try to include evidence or statistics on

the impact or the change. Please try to also provide a personal story from beneficiaries which

exemplifies the bigger picture story of the project.

Additional guidance

• UK Aid Direct grant holder Communications Handbook on the UK Aid Direct website

7. Social Inclusion

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This section should analyse how the project has identified and targeted the most marginalised and

vulnerable beneficiaries during the project life, with emphasis on disability inclusion and gender

equality. It is important to consider:

• How the project consulted the most marginalised and vulnerable groups to ensure equal

access to project activities. Please note that access does not only refer to physical access for

individuals with mobility challenges. It is important to consider all forms of marginalisation.

• How the project has promoted greater gender equality during the project life

• How people with disabilities have engaged in the project and accessed project benefits

(again, please note that access does not only refer to physical access)

• How the project has adapted activities or interventions to ensure equal access and

opportunity for the most vulnerable and marginalised populations.

Provide practical examples and reflect on the impact of these strategies to consider how well they have worked and any unintended outcomes.

Disability inclusion example: We supported families to feel that their children with disabilities were

safe both within the context of the community and the school. We worked closely with the church

and community leaders to challenge attitudes and help breakdown social barriers. For instance, in

Ethiopian culture it is important to drink coffee with people, and a coffee ceremony shows you are a

part of the community. Parents of disabled children were empowered to offer coffee to other

people in their rural communities as a way of helping breakdown social barriers. Through this

approach we were able to target and work with individuals that were not identified before.

8. Risk This section looks to understand how the project has understood, reported and mitigated against risk during the project life. This should be written in conjunction with a review and update of both the project’s Risk Register and Delivery Chain Risk Map.

In the narrative report, outline any key changes to project and delivery chain risks, and how this has

impacted on risk mitigation. Top tips for reviewing the risk register:

• Ensure the ‘what’s changed’ column is fully updated, with dates

• Review the risk ratings to ensure they remain appropriate and align with FCDO’s likelihood

versus impact matrix (available in the risk register template).

• Reflect on the mitigation strategies and how well these have worked.

Additional guidance

• Watch our webinar on YouTube, completing your risk register

What is the difference between the risk register and delivery chain risk map?

The risk register should capture all risks that the project faced across the six UK Foreign,

Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) risk categories: context, fiduciary, reputational,

safeguarding, operational, delivery. These are risks that, if materialised, would have impacted on

project implementation. The delivery chain risk map captures the structure of the delivery chain. For

example, the lead grant holder and any downstream partners delivering project activities. Any risks

associated with working with and delivering with these downstream partners need to be captured in

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the delivery chain map diagram. These risks may not have necessarily impacted on the overall delivery

of the project, like project level risks would.

9. Safeguarding In this section, detail activities conducted during the project life to support compliance with the

enhanced safeguarding standards. FCDO’s enhanced safeguarding standards involve:

• Whistleblowing

• Risk management

• Human Resource

• Code of Conduct

• Governance and accountability.

For example, policies may have been updated or capacity building support or inductions for new

staff, delivered. This should also include activities with field workers, beneficiaries and other

community members.

Reflect on whether safeguarding policies and strategies worked, or not, and why. If any updates to

the policy have been made during project life, submit this with the report and outline the key

changes that have been made.

Additional guidance

• Watch our safeguarding webinar on YouTube

• Read FCDO’s safeguarding guidance on the UK Aid Direct website.

10. Sustainability Sustainability is about how a project has achieved impacts that will continue beyond UK Foreign,

Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) funding. This section of the narrative is an

opportunity to reflect on this and to assess whether the plan for sustainability has worked during the

project life. Reflect on what has been done to promote sustainability and provide evidence of how

well these strategies have (or have not) worked.

It is important to specifically consider what has been done and the evidence for the below

approaches to sustainability:

• Economic sustainability: how will the project lead to greater economic empowerment and

reduce poverty?

• Environmental sustainability: how does the project assess its environmental impact? What

measures have been undertaken to reduce climate impact? What is the impact of the

project on the environment?

• Social sustainability: how has the project worked to optimise quality of life? How has the

project affected cultural behaviour change?

Sustainability example: To ensure sustainability, we worked closed with government health care

workers to build up their skills in maternal health and share information from the community on the

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need for different services. We trained 100 health care workers in government health facilities on

how to use the methods and tools. We also conducted a survey in the local communities to understand

the challenges with existing service provision, which we then presented to the Chairmen of the county

government who has committed to continue efforts to improve the service.

11. Value for money Value for money (VfM) is about maximising the impact of each pound spent to improve the lives and

livelihoods of the world’s poorest people. The purpose of addressing VfM at project completion is to

provide clarity on the costs invested in the project against the results achieved. In this section,

conduct a value for money assessment of the project against the ‘4 E’s’ detailed below. It is

important to consider project impact, relevance and validity, and provide examples in the response.

• Economy: Spending reasonably

• Efficiency: Spending well

• Effectiveness: Spending wisely

• Equity: Spending fairly

Value for money (VfM) example:

• Economy

Staff and training costs have been the key cost drivers on this project. Through our HR

policy, we can demonstrate that salaries for national staff were competitive for the sector

and were also benchmarked against national and regional scales. We retained our staff

throughout the entire project which has been a key driver of our success. Our local staff

maximised delivery quality, and ensured the programme adapted well to local culture in a

challenging environment with knowledge of the context. Our procurement policy not only

ensured that goods and services were of the desired quality and cost, but also, savings from

well-managed procurement were calculated and disseminated towards project activities.

We were able to share data between our projects and could therefore compare costs and

provide economies of scale across the organisation.

• Efficiency

With a well-considered strategic vision, annual plans and an established and quality HR

policy, we have been able to operate efficiently as an organisation managing the project.

Strong management information and accounting systems, and a commitment to learn from

experience helped the project to capture data, analyse, learn and share with the wider

organisation. As part of the design process, a realistic budget and work plan were developed

which were reviewed on a monthly basis to assess progress and make appropriate

adjustments in consultation with the PRM. Alongside this, the risk register was reviewed

monthly with appropriate risk management processes in place to allow the identification

and mitigation of key risks. For instance, the change in civil servants was noted three months

prior to changes and appropriate actions were taken to ensure key relationships were

maintained such as meeting with other key government personnel and disseminating

information about the project impact more widely within the Ministerial department.

• Effectiveness

The project design was strong, built on a previous learning, including an independent, high

quality evaluation and reflected our organisational strategy. We had a rolling strategic

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vision, and the trustees and management thought carefully about the resource implications

of this regularly. Because of this, the project workplan and budget were realistic, achievable

and tied to the resource plans, meaning we were able to deliver on time, within budget and

achieve expected performance. Activities were adapted, in consultation with the PRM, when

needed to respond to changes in context. A specific example of this was where there was

the lack of finance to support women's income generating activity, which required the

approach to be adapted through forming village savings and loan associations. The learning

from this informed the design of a donor-funded 5-year programme to operate in the

Plateau State of Nigeria.

• Equity

The project design ensured that all activities contributed to helping marginalised women,

either directly through training and support to improve their income, or indirectly through

working with men to change attitudes. The programme's disability inclusion approach ensured

that that women and girls with disabilities were specifically targeted. We used Washington

Group Short Set Questions and household surveys, triangulated with a participatory rural

appraisal approach specifically adapted to our context, to ensure we were not leaving the

most marginalised behind.

Additional guidance

• UK Aid Direct webinar on VfM on YouTube

• UK Aid Direct guidance to VfM on UK Aid Direct website.

12. Capacity Building This section focuses on how organisational capacity has developed or changed over the project life

and how the project has connected with any other UK Aid Direct grant holders or other civil society

organisations during the project period for cross learnings.

It is important to go beyond a description of the capacity building activities delivered and to

consider:

• How you measured the effectiveness of the capacity building?

• How you demonstrate the impact from the capacity building interventions?

• What change has happened because of the capacity building?

Please also consider how the grant has impacted the organisation.

Capacity building example: During the project implementation period we carried out various trainings

for staff on gender and disability inclusion. This was a new training topic for staff members, and it was

interesting to hear their different experiences with gender inequality and disability inclusion. The team

felt able to share their experience and this led to enhanced understanding and collaboration, both

within the team and when working with community members.

13. Fiduciary Management

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Alongside the review of technical performance, a financial review will take place. This will involve a

review of cumulative spend to ensure budget threshold tolerances have not been breached and that

there are no significant variances. This does not require any further submissions from grant holders.

In this section of the narrative report, grant holders are required to submit annual audited accounts

and an updated asset inventory.

13.1 Asset Disposal

Any project assets over £500 in value, are considered FCDO assets and at the end of the project

require a disposal plan. Grant holders can request to transfer the assets to the grant holder, delivery

partner or suitable third party. It should not be automatically assumed that project assets will

remain with the local partners after completion of the grant.

Refer to the UK Aid Direct Asset disposal guidance on the UK Aid Direct website for detailed

information. To request asset transfer, grant holders must submit:

• Signed asset register (listing all assets valued over £500)

• A depreciation policy

• Asset transfer letter

The performance management team will share additional information three months prior to project

completion and request that to support smooth project completion process, grant holders submit

the asset disposal plan and request three months before the project end date, to allow for

submission to FCDO.

13.2 Annual audited accounts

It is a requirement of the grant arrangement to submit audited or independently examined annual

accounts within six months of the organisation's financial year end. If these have not yet been

shared, submit them with this report. If they are not yet ready, note when they will be expected in

the report.

14. Feedback to fund manager It is useful for the fund manager to receive grant holder feedback to strengthen the support and guidance provided. Please be honest and provide constructive feedback, suggestions or requests to the fund management team.

15. Project Completion Report checklist

Document Key information / guidance links

1 Narrative Report (Word document)

Complete the full template and use the checklist to confirm all supporting documents are submitted.

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2 Beneficiary Data Summary (Excel document)

Using the project specific version from SMILE. Ensure all data submitted correlates and is robust.

3 Completed results Framework

Using the approved version from SMILE, submit an updated results framework with the ‘achieved’ section populated for output data.

4 Case studies and photographs

Submit a minimum of one quality case study.

5 Updated risk register Download from SMILE and update the risk register, reflecting on the Project Completion Report (PCR) assessment and findings.

6 Updated delivery chain risk map

Download from SMILE and update the delivery chain risk map, reflecting on the PCR assessment and findings.

7 Safeguarding policy (if applicable)

Submit an updated safeguarding policy if a review has been undertaken after the previous report review.

8 Updated asset inventory and disposal plan

Update and submit the asset inventory and disposal plan. This can be submitted before your PCR.

9 Most recent annual audited accounts

Submit audited/ independently examined annual accounts within six months of the organisation's financial year end.

If you have any questions about the completion of your reporting requirements, please contact your

Performance and Risk Manager.