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February/March 2025: Survey of users of the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme

Harlow Consulting have been commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to evaluate the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme.

We strongly support this piece of work, and are encouraging listed places of worship to complete with the online survey.

The deadline is 25 March 2025.

The survey, and pdf of survey questions

The online survey is at https://harlowconsulting.welcomesyourfeedback.net/s/listedplacesofworshipgrantscheme. The deadline is Tuesday 25 March 2025.

To help respondents plan their answers, we have extracted the questions  into this pdf of Survey Questions.

Filling in the survey

The front page of the survey suggests that it will take about 15-20 minutes to complete. We think this is probably broadly correct, if you have gathered certain pieces of information in advance (see below).

Note that you can leave the survey when part-completed, and go back to it (though you need to follow instructions after you press ‘save’).  Questions can be skipped if you cannot answer them.

You cannot print out your answers, and we suspect you cannot save a copy after you press submit.

There are a small number of open-text questions. As far as we can tell, there is no word-count limit to these (but we’d suggest keeping answers fairly brisk and to the point).

We know that those carrying out the evaluation are keen to talk to people on the ground, so in the final question (question 33) do think whether you would be prepared to be contacted (if you answer ‘yes’, it asks for your contact details).

Preparation in advance

We have extracted the questions from the online questionnaire into this pdf of Survey Questions, in case you want to think about them in advance.

1. The only numerical information you will need to gather is for questions 10 and 11, namely:
– your best estimate of what it would cost to address all of the place of worship’s repair needs
– in a typical year how much your place of worship can afford to spend (without special fundraising efforts) on repair, maintenance and restoration works

2. You’ll be asked about the condition of your place of worship and what parts of it you would like to repair (questions 8 and 9, 13, 14 and 30).

3. There are questions about how you’ve used the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme, and how easy you found it (questions 15-19, 21, 22, 23).

4. There is an open-text question about maintenance and repairs and the Scheme (question 31). You could use this reply to give an overview of your own maintenance and repair issues, and how the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme fits in, and whether other support would be helpful – worth considering this carefully. Make sure to answer from your own experience, rather than generalising. As always, bear in mind that government is facing constraints on its expenditure.

5. There is a very rich and important multiple-choice question about the benefits of repairing your place of worship (question 20), and a closely related open-text question about what is most important or valuable about your place of worship and the activities it supports (question 32). We suggest you give both of these some careful thought.