The Parish Council Domains Helper Service has now allocated over 70% of the funding available for councils moving to a .gov.uk domain in this financial year.

The Parish Council Domains Helper Service has contacted us to say that over 70% of the funding available for local councils moving to a gov.uk domain has now been allocated. If your council is thinking about moving to a gov.uk domain this year, they urge you to act soon to avoid missing out.

At the time of writing, projections show that they will reach 100% allocation of funds by mid February next year. However, over the last few months they have seen an increased demand from councils which could mean reaching our full allocation sooner. As a reminder, it is highly unlikely that funding will be available in future financial years.

Who can claim funding and how

The £100+VAT Government funding is available to councils that are:

• Moving to a .gov.uk domain
• Already have a .gov.uk domain but are purchasing additional services such as .gov.uk emails for the first time

Funding is allocated on a first-come, first-served, once per council basis and it can only be accessed via the Parish Council Domains Helper Service’s shortlist of Approved Registrars.

What to do next

• Talk to your council colleagues about the need to take action
• Register for one of our free, no obligation, online sessions and find out more about domains, how to progress an application and access available funding.

You can contact the Parish Council Domains Helper Service on parish.helper@domains.gov.uk

The Parish Council Domains Helper Service has also sent through a welcome pack for all our member councils, which have move information about the help that’s available for you to switch domains.

We have some blogs from the service, and videos of sessions we ran with them, to help our councils learn more about making the switch.