£200 million wasted by grant makers

Tuesday, 6 November 2001 2:01 AM

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) wasted £200 million because grant makers didn't know the cost of administering grant programmes, the government's public spending watchdog has said today.

Grant makers who spent £1.8 billion during 2006-07 on collective award grants are not required by the department to report costs properly and have not been encouraged sufficiently to do so causing inefficiency and waste.

Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons Committee of Public Accounts was critical of the system, claiming: "Grant-makers must do a lot more to share information and learn from each other, so that administrative costs can be driven down.

"So far they have been conspicuously unwilling to work together or to contemplate sharing services, systems or office accommodation."

Grant-makers are reported to be attempting to improve efficiency in different ways, such as centralising regional processes or introducing technology.

However, today's report from the Committee of Public Accounts said they are yet to work together and little progress has been made, with the department also doing little to encourage benchmarking and the sharing of good practice across the sector.

The average cost of awarding £1 of grant across a sample of open application programmes in the sector ranged from three pence to 35 pence.

Grant makers could reduce the burden of grant applications through having them on-line as this would reduce costs brought on by the amount of paper applications processed, the report stated.

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• culture media and sport
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• economy