I’m writing to you under the 2000 Freedom of Information Act to request information about your grant-making to the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector. Please provide the following information:
1. Listing separately for each year, in the years 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24 what was the
a) Total annual financial value of grants given to the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector by your authority?
b) Total number of grants given to the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector by your authority?
This information can be found at the following link Grants paid – Facts and Figures.
Please note Strategic Commissioning are not included in the figures above, please find the information below:
| 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | |
|
Total annual cost of grants
|
£821,284.39 | £903,136.39 | £353,340.85 |
|
Total number of grants awarded
|
15 | 16 | 13 |
2. Listing separately for each year, in the years 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24 of the above grants (question 1), what total number were awarded through
a) Competitive/open application processes?
b) Grants in aid?
c) Unknown?
Compliance with this request would exceed the appropriate cost limit under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which is £450 or 18 hours of officer time. In the link above for the last 3 years there have been a total of 2565 grants. We estimate it would take a minute to check each one to see how the grant was awarded, which is 2565 minutes and 42.75 hours, therefore over the 18 hours of officer time.
Under the Act, there is a duty to provide advice and assistance as to how a request can be refined to fit within the appropriate limit. Unfortunately, due to the way the data is held, this is not possible for this request.
3. Listing separately for each year, in the years 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24 what was/were the:
a) Total number of formal challenges you received around your grant processes and decisions on the basis of alleged non-compliance with: State Aid, Subsidy Control, or Public Procurement regulations?
0.
b) And of these what number of these challenged resulted in legal proceedings?
N/A.