Projects Stream 2026/27 Guidance

About the Fund

The Gaelic Plans Fund (formerly named GLAIF) is available to help public authorities in the delivery of commitments in their statutory Gaelic Language Plans, and in support of the National Gaelic Language Plan 2023-28. Priority is given to innovative projects and those which demonstrate partnership working between authorities.

From 2024, two separate funding streams have been available through the Gaelic Plans Fund:

The Strategic Stream – for 6 local authorities deemed significant
The Projects Stream – for all other public authorities with Gaelic language plans

This guidance relates to the Projects stream only, with authorities who are receiving support through the Strategic Stream for 2024-27 ineligible to apply for this round of funding.

In your application we expect you to expand on how your project will help implement the National Gaelic Language Plan 2023-28 and the currently published edition of your authority’s statutory Gaelic language plan.

Further to this, in assessing your application, we will also be looking at:

The overall quality of the proposed project and its potential impact on increasing the use and learning of Gaelic
The value for money demonstrated by the project
The level of innovation and partnership working shown in the application
The ability of your authority to deliver the project successfully
The strength of your plans to assess the impact of your project

Detailed assessment guidance can be found on Bòrd na Gàidhlig’s website.

Project Requirements

Who can apply?

The Projects Stream of the Gaelic Plans Fund is open to Scottish public/local authorities who currently have a published statutory Gaelic language plan that has been approved by Bòrd na Gàidhlig in terms of the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005. Authorities must also be compliant with their obligations to submit new versions of their plan and monitoring reports to Bòrd na Gàidhlig, and your application may be declined without assessment if you are not compliant with your obligations under the Act.

The 6 local authorities who were eligible to apply through the Strategic Stream 2024-27 are not eligible to apply via the Projects Stream, these being:

Comhairle nan Eilean Siar
The Highland Council
Argyll and Bute Council
Glasgow City Council
City of Edinburgh Council
North Lanarkshire Council

Arms-length organisations (ALEOs) and schools of authorities with a Gaelic language plan cannot apply through the fund. ALEOs can however work with authorities to which they belong so that the authority can apply on their behalf.

Joint applications between organisations are welcomed, although such applications should identify a lead organisation for contractual purposes (which must be eligible to apply).

Examples of projects that have previously received support through this fund (including via GLAIF) can be found via the GrantNav website.

Organisations may submit up to a maximum of 3 applications to this year’s Projects Stream. However, Bòrd na Gàidhlig will aim to support as wide a range of bodies across Scotland as possible so may decide to limit the number of projects awarded per organisation depending on budget.

As such, any element that is required for the delivery of multiple projects (e.g. staff time) must be included proportionally in each application, whilst ensuring that there is no duplicate funding requested.

Project Timeframe

The fund will support projects which will start between 1 August 2026 and 31 January 2027 and will be fully completed by 30 September 2027.

In exceptional circumstances, an application may propose an alternative timeframe. This must be discussed and permitted by Bòrd na Gàidhlig officers prior to the application being submitted.

We expect to review the scheme in 2026 which will provide recommendations for the scheme in future, and as such we cannot confirm at present when the next round of the scheme will open.

What costs are supported?

The estimated budget allocated to this Projects Stream is £200,000. Typically, applications may be made for up to a maximum of £20,000 and up to 80% of project costs, however you may apply for more than £20,000 if you receive approval from Bòrd na Gàidhlig officers beforehand. In-kind costs are permitted as part of a contribution towards total project costs.

Please note that even if your application is successful, you may not be awarded the full amount that you request.

Applications looking to extend an existing project that was supported through previous Gaelic Plans Fund rounds will be expected to demonstrate improvement in value for money and normalisation of Gaelic within the organisation’s work over previous applications.

It is expected that applications towards employment posts previously funded by the Gaelic Plans Fund will, if successful, be awarded a decreased level of support compared with previous years in order that authorities normalise their support to Gaelic within existing services/budgets.

You must ensure that no other part of the project’s budget is funded by money from other Bòrd na Gàidhlig funding schemes or the Scottish Government’s Gaelic Specific Grant and that there is no double-funding of projects involving Bòrd na Gàidhlig’s Delivery Partners.

We will not support project costs relating to:

Capital costs
Competition prizes
Staff or resource costs used for delivering the Gaelic-medium or Gaelic-learner education curriculum in schools, colleges or universities
Continuation of employment positions that were not previously funded by the Gaelic Plans Fund (unless involved in a new project)
Costs involved in developing, consulting on or publishing a Gaelic Language Plan

Other requirements

All projects requesting support towards funding for employment posts must include a draft job description(s) along with the application, and the position must be Gaelic-essential.

Project monitoring and evaluation

If your application is successful you will need to monitor and evaluate your project delivery and show the impact of the project in reports requested from you. At a minimum we will ask all projects to note how many people take part in the project and to ask participants (or a sample of participants for large events/projects) for feedback on the impact of the project on their usage, learning or opinion of Gaelic.

In the application form we’ll ask you how you intend to monitor the project, what targets you will use to assess whether the project is successful, and how you will gather feedback from participants.

All funded projects will be required to submit a final report, and if you are awarded over £10,000 you will be asked to submit a progress report around halfway through the project’s duration. We may ask for more regular reporting if we feel this is necessary.

In your reports, you will be asked to provide a summary of activities, explain any changes to your project from what you set out in the application, provide information as to how you are achieving targets/conditions set out in your letter of offer, provide an account of project income/expenditure and related evidence and also to confirm how you are implementing Fair Work requirements.

Reports will be available to submit via the Fluxx grants portal at https://bng.fluxx.io, and will be viewable if your application is approved.

How will we be paid?

If your application is successful, we will pay an instalment of your grant up-front after you return your signed acceptance of the grant and fulfil any other conditions we set, such as submitting end of project reports for previous grants or submitting your Gaelic language plan monitoring reports. You will receive further instalments after you submit progress or final reports to us.

Typically you will be paid 80% of the grant at the start of your project and up to 20% after submitting your final report.

Please note that projects are funded on a break-even basis, so that you will be required to return to us any Bòrd na Gàidhlig funding that is not utilised in completion of the project, and we may vary the payment amounts if it appears you will not require the full amount.

Acknowledgement of funding

As a public body it’s important to us that the public know where our funding is spent, and that’s why it’s important that you acknowledge where appropriate that Bòrd na Gàidhlig provided funding for your project. If your application is successful, you will be required to acknowledge our grant in various ways throughout the project and to provide information to us in your reporting as to how you have carried this out.

For further information please read our Acknowledgement Guidance and our Brand Guidance on our website.

Social and Other Responsibilities

Bòrd na Gàidhlig has a responsibility to promote good practice in:

Reducing impact on the environment
Promoting equality of opportunity for those with a protected characteristic under the Equalities Act 2010
Promoting opportunities for young people who are, or have been, in care under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014

We would like the organisations and projects that we fund to also consider how their work can contribute to these aims and will ask in the application form how your proposed project will seek to do so.

For further information, please consult the links below:

Fair Work

Organisations in receipt of public funding in Scotland are required to adhere to the Scottish Government’s Fair Work First policy, and as such must:

Pay at least the real Living Wage; and
Provide appropriate channels for effective workers’ voice, such as trade union recognition

You will be asked as part of your application and reporting to confirm that you are adhering to the policy and provide evidence of doing so.

Further guidance as to how Bòrd na Gàidhlig is implementing the Fair Work First policy is available here, and guidance from the Scottish Government on the policy is available here.

Protecting vulnerable groups

If your project will involve working with children, protected adults or both, you must ensure that anyone operating in a “regulated role” is a member of the Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme, as this is a legal requirement.

You will be asked as part of your application if you intend to work with children or protected adults, and to confirm how you will ensure that you will comply with these requirements by providing a child protection or safeguarding policy. Your application may be declined if it is not sufficiently clear that you will comply with your legal requirements.

If you have any questions about how this will apply to you, please contact us as soon as possible at tabhartas@gaidhlig.scot.

Subsidy Control

As a public body, Bòrd na Gàidhlig must comply with the subsidy control rules as a result of the Subsidy Control Act 2022 and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the UK Government and the European Union. More information can be found on the UK Government’s website.

As part of assessing your application, we will need to assess whether the grant would be classed as a subsidy and will ask questions in the application form to help us determine this.

If you are awarded a grant that is deemed as a subsidy, you will need to ensure that you comply with Subsidy Control rules, with further guidance available at that stage.

Submitting an application

Applications should be submitted via our Fluxx application portal at bng.fluxx.io. An account can be registered for free on the website and it is possible to save the progress of an application whilst working on it. All supporting documents can be submitted via the portal.

The application portal will close at 3pm on Thursday 30 April 2026 and it will not be possible to submit an application after this date unless permission to do so has been provided by Bòrd na Gàidhlig officers.

If you have any issues with the portal, wish to receive the application materials in a different format, or have any questions about the application please email us as soon as possible at tabhartas@gaidhlig.scot.

How we will handle your application

You will receive an automatic email acknowledgment from the Fluxx portal to confirm that we have received your application. If you do not receive this, please check that you have submitted the application rather than only saving the application.

Bòrd na Gàidhlig officers will then screen applications after submission to ensure they comply with the rules of the fund and have provided required information. If your application is deemed ineligible for a technical reason, you will be asked to correct this (if this is considered possible). If your application is not fully compliant with the rules of the fund by 10am on Monday 12 May 2026 your application may be declined without assessment.

All eligible applications will be assessed by a panel of Bòrd na Gàidhlig officers according to the assessment guidance, and they will make recommendations to the Bòrd na Gàidhlig Senior Management Team who will decide on the outcome of applications.

Bòrd na Gàidhlig may request additional information or clarification of project details as part of the assessment process. If this additional information is not submitted within 10 working days of being requested we reserve the right to decline your application.

We expect that you will be informed of the result of your application by email in June 2026.

If you have been awarded funding, a letter of offer will be sent via Docusign to your nominated signatory (or signatories if you are an organisation with staff and required to complete a Fair Work Declaration). You will have up to 30 days from the date of issue to accept the offer (including standard grant conditions, which are also available here) or the offer shall lapse. The letter of offer will also be accompanied by a bank details form to complete to confirm the details used to pay you.

You may also initially be awarded support “in principle”, which while not formally awarding funding to you will indicate that should certain conditions be fulfilled that a funding award will be made. Further information will be communicated to you if this is the case.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of your application, while we do not offer an appeal process you may make a complaint if you believe your application has not been dealt with in accordance with this guidance and the assessment guidance. For more information, our complaints handling procedure is detailed online here.

More information

For more information about this fund, please visit the Bòrd na Gàidhlig website or contact Bòrd na Gàidhlig at tabhartas@gaidhlig.scot.

You can also find answers to frequently asked questions about our funding on our website.

Privacy information relating to our funding schemes can be found on our website, and you will be required to confirm at the point of applying that you have read and accepted the terms included – particularly relating to publication of information about your grant if you are successful, and the requirements upon us under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

Alternative forms of this guidance and application forms can be made available on request and may be published at: https://www.gaidhlig.scot/en/funding/funding-schemes/gaelic-plans-fund/

File history

v1 – 16 February 2026 – Published