Childrens Services Section 10 Funding

Section 10 of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 allows East Lothian Council to make contributions, by way of grants or loans, to any voluntary organisation whose sole purpose is the promotion of social welfare.

The 2026/27 East Lothian Council Section 10 Grant Fund opens for applications on 22 September 2025. The closing date is 17 October 2025.  Notifications of awards will be given by the end of February 2026 once the East Lothian Council budget has been set. Until that date we have no confirmation of what the budget will be, so we can't make offers in principle.

Grants will be for 1 year and applications must meet the criteria which is detailed in the application form.

If you are receipt of a multi-year procured contract through Children’s Services you do not need to apply.

The application form is online. To use the form you need to create a Bisaccount. Bisaccount is an online portal that provides a secure sign-in service for online public services in Scotland. We will be using Bisaccount as our security requirements are that users must be logged in to an account to access services which allow forms to be saved and return to them either to complete them or to view them after completion.

Find out more and register for Bisaccount East Lothian

Once you have registered and logged in, select ‘start a new request’ and then 'Section 10 Fund'.

Before submitting an application for funding check your proposal meets at least one of these East Lothian Children's Services Partnership priorities:

• improving children and young people's rights
• improving children and young people's mental health and wellbeing
• implementing a Whole Family Wellbeing approach 

Check your application also fits with at least one of these current East Lothian Council Children's Services priorities:

• taking a children's rights approach, ensuring our practice and our service prevents the need for children and young people to leave their family where this is safely possible
• building capacity in our internal care resources
• bringing children and young people back to East Lothian from external placements
• working with families to reduce the impact of child poverty through income maximization and access to local resources

Making an application does not guarantee that funding will be granted - as funds are limited and we are required to assess where to best allocate funds.