Grants System Dubbed “Overly Complex” by Welsh Audit Office
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November 30, 2011 TheFreshOutlook  |
The way Welsh public bodies administer grants is “overly complex”. Organisations failing to learn from past schemes, says WAO report.
More than £2b is available annually for grants in Wales, with over 500 schemes identified. The auditor general in Wales, Huw Vaughan Thomas, has said there is room for procedures to be tightened up in order to achieve greater efficiency. He described grant management as “poor” in a statement on Tuesday.
The Wales Audit Office (WAO) has said that by proportion, Wales uses grants more extensively than the rest of the UK. The voluntary sector is a major beneficiary of these grants, which are also used to fund projects in schools, transport, social services, housing, regeneration and development.
It is often the case that funders and recipients alike are neglecting to adequately trace and analyse the progress of projects, once the grants have been secured for their funding.
Following a report published on Tuesday by the WAO, Mr Thomas has criticised funding bodies for failing to adequately scrutinise the “viability, capacity and capability of grant recipients, together with a lack of clarity on “expected project outcomes”.
Uniformity needs to be attained regarding the quality of management schemes on a local level and organisations need to show more signs of considering alternative approaches to those taken in the past,” he said.
The WAO report has also recommended that firmer action be taken when grants are found to be overpaid or misused. If funding is maintained, more progress-monitoring and more stringent requirements should be placed on beneficiaries.
However, the findings have not been wholly negative. There is evidence of improved management within some local authorities and this is leading to better value service, though other areas are not following this trend.
The Welsh Government’s Grants Management Project has the potential to help the situation by cutting costs and making the grants process more efficient.
In future, standards expected for a project’s financial management need to be clearly defined and agreed in writing with recipients before money is released, claimed the report. Other means of funding, such as the obtaining of loans, competitive procurement or outside funding, should be considered before grants are sought.
Darren Millar, chairman of the assembly Public Accounts Committee, reiterated the WAO’s concerns on the BBC’s news website: “A significant amount of public money is spent annually on grants funding in Wales, and it is clear that both funders and recipients need to do more to improve the way grants are managed.
“Grants are not always the best vehicle to deliver support from the public sector and the costs associated with administrating grants can often be significant in proportion to the grant awarded; this applies particularly to smaller grants,” he added.
A spokesperson for the Welsh government has described the auditor general’s report into grants management in Wales as “welcome”, and has said that a full and considered response to its findings will appear “in due course”.
The spokesperson stressed that the Welsh government was committed to managing public spending “as effectively as possible” and that efficiency savings would be made “while continuing to deliver high quality services”.
“We have recently developed an effective framework to strengthen our management of grants and this has been welcomed by the AGW in the report published today,” the spokesperson added.
By Stephen White
[Image courtesy of Images_of_ Money]
