Business First Summer 2017 Business First Magazine Summer 2017 | Page 47

Thus allocating the grant itself becomes the aim with the task of the grant­givers then being to allocate it ‘ fairly ’ but not necessarily to achieve anything from it . But ‘ fair ’ can be seen in different ways .
Without a clear end purpose the ‘ fair ’ allocation of grants is often viewed as judging each application against the same criteria same ­ rather like the ‘ fair ’ marking of exam papers which must be based solely on how well has the questions are answered which it turn depends on each candidate ’ s ability to sit an exam .
But that judges grant applicants on their application ability not on their need ­ because the need has been forgotten . It is like prioritising applicants for hospital treatment based , not on how ill they are , but on how well they have filled in forms requesting medical assistance .
If the overall aim of a grant is to address a need , and the applicants for the grant have that need , or are helping those with that need , is it ‘ fair ’ to award the grant solely on application ability and on how well the application forms are scored ?
There are some exceptions , like Invest NI and some non­government grant­givers such as lottery bodies , which , at least for their main grants , treat an application form more or less as a request for a discussion in which the applicant ’ s needs and potential to benefit from a grant can be assessed . But there are many other grant­givers , such as our local councils , and many grant systems are not run in that way and make their assessments only on the basis of the applications themselves .
Judging applicants solely on the basis of the application puts the blame for failure of the applicant and leads to situations such as the rejection of a grant claim because the Council department concerned said a page was missing from the application ( although it was not clear whether it was lost before , or after , the application was submitted ).
The result was that a previously funded group helping deserving people had to try to survive without a Council grant for whole year until they could apply again . In these situations , one common response to complaints from failed applicants is to offer training in how to apply for grants to help them to do better next time .
But grant­applicants such as community groups generally want to get on with their objectives , which are often what the grants should be encouraging , and do not want instead to have to spend their time becoming proficient in application writing bureaucracy .
The legal system does not insist that supplicants take legal training before they seek redress in a court of law and the medical system does not limit its help to those patients who can best fill in booking forms and use the correct medical language .
From the applicant ’ s view point the natural instinct when filling in a form is to provide the minimum necessary information as quickly as possible ­ like registering in a hotel – and it is not to address it carefully as if they were sitting a competitive exam . They believe they are entitled to a grant and don ’ t see it as a competitive market­place .
Are we so used to the grant system that we fail to see that often it leads to miscommunication , to mistrust , to missed outcomes and thus to misuse of public money ?
Do we fail to see that there might be a better way – and just accept it because it ’ s always been done that way and it ’ s what everyone else is doing ?
But it doesn ’ t have to be like that – and two simple steps which might be taken to start to improve it are to focus on the aim of the grant in question and not to accept the situation as it is but to look for other ways to allocate grants to better achieve their purpose .
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