Making grants efficient in the culture, media and sport sector

Grant-makers in the culture, media and sport sector fund awards of around GBP 1.8 billion a year.

The cost of administering these grants, and of related activities, is in the region of GBP 200 million.

Variations in administration costs between grant programmes reflect their differing objectives but also suggest scope for grant-makers to learn from each other to reduce their costs.The conclusions and recommendations include: grant-makers need to identify where the costs of grant-making are incurred and to evaluate whether the costs of awarding grants are proportionate to their value and the outcomes delivered; grant programmes vary considerably in scale and objectives - of the programmes examined by the NAO the average cost of making an award ranged from GBP 380 to nearly GBP 10,000; and, costs were highest where the grant-maker undertook significant work to help potential recipients develop applications or where they employed experts, such as surveyors and architects, to support high value building projects.The conclusions and recommendations also include: grant-makers receive more applications than they can afford to fund - the report found examples of grant-makers improving the management of demand to reduce the number of inappropriate or low quality applications; and, grant applicants reported generally high levels of satisfaction with the applications process. (A particular strength of grant-makers is the knowledge of their staff.

However, the availability of feedback and information about the decision-making process are areas that grant-makers could improve upon).The report concludes that there is little co-ordinated or regular sharing of information on the costs and processes of grant making across the sector.