Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 10
10
The Department reduced the funding allocation to TNLCF from £310 million to £200 million around...
Conclusion
The Department reduced the funding allocation to TNLCF from £310 million to £200 million around one week before it was due to start distributing funding.33 When asked why this was the case, the Department told us that it was due to the fact that Ministers wanted more flexibility in how funding was distributed and were interested in whether more could be done to leverage private donations as part of the funding distribution.34 It clarified that the decision was “absolutely not” because of a lack of trust in TNLCF.35 The funding that was removed from TNLCF was instead later allocated to the new Community Match 25 Q 51 26 C&AG’s Report, para 1.8 27 C&AG’s Report, para 3.8 and figure 9 28 Q56 29 Qq 56–58 30 C&AG’s Report, paras 10, 1.16 31 Q 75 32 Q 77 33 C&AG’s Report, para 14 34 Qq 66–68, 71–72 35 Q 67 12 COVID-19: Government Support for Charities Challenge scheme, the Voluntary and Community Sector Emergencies Partnership, the Youth COVID-19 Support Fund and the Loneliness Fund.36 The Department highlighted that by redirecting money to the Community Match Challenge scheme it was able to leverage additional funding because of its match funding arrangement. TNLFC said the decision did not impact how it went about advertising the available funding or the ability of the funding to support small and medium-sized charities.37 Due diligence on funding awards
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: September 2021 1.2 The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (the department or DCMS) will be able to set out current actions being undertaken to monitor and understand the financial health and resilience of the charity sector, including use of pandemic support schemes. 1.3 At this stage, there remain limitations and gaps in the evidence and data available to maintain a complete picture of the health and resilience of the charity sector. Drawing on learning from the COVID-19 pandemic, the department is working with partners, including the Charity Commission, to undertake a project to review and improve evidence and data available to policy makers, concerning the health and resilience of the charity and social enterprise sectors. 1.4 Options under consideration include making more effective use of existing sources of data and evidence, improving existing data sources, and commissioning new data collection mechanisms to fill gaps. The department will be able to provide an update on this work at the the Committee’s three-month deadline. However, plans for implementing change may not have been finalised at this point.