07 November 2008
By Vivienne Russell
The nine bodies charged with awarding artistic, cultural and sporting grants should carry out their work more efficiently, MPs have said.
The Public Accounts Committee criticised Department for Culture, Media and Sport-sponsored organisations such as Arts Council England, the Big Lottery Fund and Sport England for having no idea how much it cost them to administer grant applications.
The committee said failure to keep and compare costs made it difficult to identify inefficient and wasteful practices.
In 2006/07, the nine bodies awarded grants totalling £1.8bn and spent £200m on the process. The grants funded a range of activities, from supporting the work of individual artists to helping communities restore churches or build new sports facilities.
But the PAC found that the cost of awarding £1 of grant ranged from 3p to 35p despite the use of similar administrative processes.
PAC chair Edward Leigh said: 'This shows that grant-makers must do a lot more to share information, so that administrative costs can be driven down. So far they have been conspicuously unwilling to work together. Taxpayers will share this committee's impatience that progress in this area has been so slow.'
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