Third Party Grant Research Executive Summary Research report for HLF produced by Icarus, November 2016
Research purpose This paper summarises research commissioned by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to assess how third party and community grants are being used within the Landscape Partnership (LP) programme and within the Heritage Grants (HG) programme. The overall purpose was to establish what works and what doesn t, to understand why third party grants and community grants might be beneficial, and how HLF and grantees processes might be better guided and / or managed in the future. The research findings will be used to help HLF review the scale and nature of third party and community grants, and to understand why third party and community grants might be beneficial. As HLF is at the midpoint of the current strategic framework cycle there is an opportunity to review and revise existing guidance as appropriate. Research methods Guided by a research framework, this research has been exploratory in nature. The research team has sought to understand what is happening around grant-making across a sample of 12 LPs and 3 HGs, and have described the work to research participants as a fact finding mission. Schemes in the sample responded to an initial online survey which was followed up by an extensive interview. Online surveys were sent to the recipients of community grants from four schemes. In addition, secondary research was undertaken. Working definitions The research team used the following definitions to guide their work: third party grants - payments made by the scheme to third parties (either organisations or individuals such as landowners) to enable them to deliver works, usually on their own land, in line with the scheme s aims (such as improving the condition of an area of land for biodiversity). Such grants are often governed by a future management and maintenance agreement, 2
community grants - a ring-fenced sum of money used to fund projects, led by community groups, and that contribute to the aims of the scheme. Such schemes are often publicised externally and include an application process and decision-making body / Panel that considers and awards grants. The extent of grant-making across the research sample Community grants are more prevalent than third party grants: there are ten community grants across the sample of schemes, and four third party grants. Only two schemes run both third party grants and community grants. Three schemes have neither third party grants nor community grants. The research findings Lack of clarity regarding terminology As the research progressed it became clear that the terminology was not being applied in a consistent way and there was particular confusion about what HLF means by the term third party grants, further complicated by the use of the term third party agreements. For example, there were instances where a scheme understood partnership working to be third party grants and another that used the term to describe what in in effect a commissioning process. Exploring the ways in which grants have been used i. Third party grants are targeted at landowners and farmers; community grants are typically aimed at small community groups, while a minority have a wider offer that includes larger voluntary organisations and / or businesses and individuals (subject to public benefit outcomes). ii. Third party grants are usually aligned with the delivery of an output related to a specific heritage or landscape feature e.g. hedging or walling. As a result their successful implementation is easy to assess. iii. A wide variety of projects have been funded through community grants offering a degree of flexibility to the scheme s overall delivery offer by 3
providing the scope for new ideas and new project deliverers to be identified as schemes progress. iv. It can be more difficult to assess the impact of community initiatives since they are typically contributing towards outcomes rather than outputs and are generally of a small scale. The measurement of outcomes is not as straightforward as, for example, measuring an output such as number of trees planted or length of hedge laid. v. There are a number of reasons why schemes have elected to offer grants, either third party or community grants. Their rationale is usually well considered in both instances, although there is some concern that community grants are becoming commonplace and seen as something of a quick win to deliver community outcomes for LPs. Identifying positive and negative issues associated with the use of grants i. Schemes in the sample state that the quality of delivery through third party and community grants is generally higher than expected as they had little confidence that delivery of projects by community groups would be of a high standard. They have identified numerous positives resulting from their grant-making. - For third party grants these include: extending reach to multiple landowners to contribute to landscape scale change; improvements to specific landscape or heritage features; contributing to growing the reputation of the scheme; attracting cash and in kind match contributions. - For community grants these include: reaching new communities and groups and promoting landscape and heritage to them; funding a wide variety of projects that could not have been anticipated nor delivered by the scheme partners; being seen to be responsive to local needs; providing good promotion / PR for the scheme. ii. The research has identified a small number of negative issues associated with the use of third party or community grants. 4
- The key challenge that schemes have faced relates to the level of resources required to design and deliver a grant offering, particularly community grants. In most instances that resource requirement was under estimated during the development phase and schemes have had to find ways of finding the appropriate level of time to deliver their grants. - There is not a substantive evidence base around the impact of third party and community grants, either in scheme evaluations or via the evaluation of individual grantees. Assessing how effectively grants are being managed i. Schemes are risk literate and have been diligent and conscientious in designing grant processes that take account of the potential risks associated with grant-making. ii. Schemes are anxious to ensure that the HLF audit trail can extend to their grantees as necessary. iii. Support to third party and community grantees is commonplace and a key ingredient in generating high quality applications and delivery that are well aligned with the grant criteria. iv. Grantees indicate that, on the whole, the application and monitoring processes have felt proportionate for the scale of grant received. v. All of the schemes enter into grant award contracts with their grantees and these incorporate their requirements with regard to monitoring, payment triggers, funder acknowledgement etc. vi. Given the relatively small sums being granted, schemes make judgements about the amount of effort to exert in chasing paperwork from those grantees not on top of their reporting. Where grants have not been used Of the three schemes without a grant offering, two are wholly comfortable with their decision and do not believe that their scheme would have been more effective if grants had been in place. The third does feel that the absence of 5
community grants was a lost opportunity. They did originally include grants in their scheme but this did not progress beyond the development phase; changes in personnel mean that the reason for this change isn t known. Their view now is that a grant offering would have been really helpful as it would have given them the flexibility to fund project ideas that emerged as the scheme progressed. Key findings There are a number of key findings emerging from the research that merit the attention of HLF in reviewing its position on grant-making and its guidance, both within the current strategic plan and for forward planning. There is a lack of clarity about the terminology for grant-making. The research has shown is that people have been using the same terms to mean different things, particularly the term third party grants. It is used both as a catch all term for any form of financial award to a third party, including community grants, as well as a term that relates specifically to grants made to landowners and farmers, for example. There is uncertainty about HLF s position on grant-making within LPs and HGs. Schemes have different perceptions about what HLF s position is on grant-making. A couple were actively discouraged from having grants, others were actively encouraged by case officers and / or monitors. The majority of schemes could point to a lack of guidance and information about what constitutes a successful grant offer, and how they should align with the scheme s overall purposes, which implies to them that it is not an area of interest for HLF. What this suggests is a fundamental question for HLF to consider: are third party and / or community grants a valid delivery model within LPs and HGs? HLF s advice and guidance is inconsistent and / or insufficient. This point is closely linked to the two above. The definitions around grant-making are not clearly set out nor are they consistently applied; 6
there is no real sense of what HLF s position on grant-making is, particularly for community grants within LPs and for both third party and community grants within HGs. Without this clarity there is an inevitability that case officers and monitors will interpret the situation differently and provide their advice in an inconsistent fashion. This suggests that once HLF has resolved it s thinking on the two earlier findings above, there is a need to ensure that this is adequately reflected in its guidance and documentation, as well as the advice made available to schemes. The evidence base about the impact of third party and community grants is weak. It is recognised that third party grants are relatively straightforward to monitor. While all of the schemes with community grants are convinced of their benefits and state that they evaluate them, it appears that this information is not routinely collated and made use of to inform reporting on scheme outcomes. Capturing useable evaluation data from projects that have received quite small amounts of money, and for whom reporting back to funders might be novel, is not easy. It is unlikely that the quality of this reporting would be of a sufficiently evaluative nature and it is more likely to fulfil a monitoring function in most instances. There is a sense that grants have a positive impact on delivering LP and HG aims. This point follows on from that above while there isn t currently a clear evidence base to validate this claim, there is substantial anecdotal feedback from schemes that third party and community grants have a positive impact on delivering their aims. This would suggest two things. Firstly, there is a need to capture hard evidence about these impacts (as above). Secondly, there is a case for HLF to reach a conclusion about whether it should be more proactive in supporting the inclusion of grants within new schemes. 7
Grants are one, potentially good way, to engage a wider audience in heritage projects. Schemes with third party grants have described how they have engaged farmers and landowners who might not otherwise be involved with their scheme. Schemes with community grants have a high degree of confidence that they have extended their reach beyond the traditional landscape / heritage audience, including arts and disability organisations, as well as schools, for example. This suggests that they are a means by which schemes can contribute towards the outcomes for people and for communities as required for both LP and HG funding. Grant processes are generally robust and fit for purpose. There is a sense that the flexibility of these two HLF programmes, combined with the clearly set out procedures and reporting requirements form HLF, have positively influenced grant process design in individual schemes. In a number of cases the process for community grants have followed the tried and tested procedures of schemes already up and running. This degree of peer learning and support has been valued, and, at times, has been brokered by a case officer or monitor. The research team has highlighted a potential problem with this approach while there is no evidence that this is currently the case there is scope for poor practice to be adopted because it seems that many of the scheme project staff have little previous experience of setting up a grant offer. This suggests that HLF should consider the extent to which it wants to influence or control grant design; this decision would affect if and how it chooses to share information about what constitutes good practice. It is important that grants are well planned. Where grants reflect a locally identified need, and have been planned, delivered and managed well, then it is likely that schemes will see positive benefits that align with their original motivation for the grant offering. There is a clear role for the HLF development, assessment and monitoring processes to 8
ensure that putative grant-making does have these key elements in place. The size of the grant pot, and the scale of the individual grants have a bearing on the scheme s delivery. The research findings suggest that it is likely that there are minimum and maximum thresholds it is for HLF to decide if these need to be defined, as percentages of the scheme value or as actual sums of money, or if they should be left to the discretion of individual schemes. It is the research team s view that one approach would be for the scheme assessment and approval process to require a clear rationale for the inclusion of grants, and for the level allocated to them. Moving forward The research shows that, within the research sample, third party and community grants are adding value to the work of both LPs and HGs. In the majority of cases they have been well planned and there appears to be an appropriate level or rigour to grant processes, administration and monitoring. There is a high degree of confidence across schemes that their grants have extended reach and have secured wider people and community benefits. This research suggests that grant-making practice within the LP and HG schemes studied has evolved. This evolution of practice has, in some ways, outpaced HLF s work in guiding and shaping grant-making activity by those it funds. However, the processes by which HLF develops and supports new schemes, together with the commitment from funded agencies and partnerships, have created, in the main, well conceived, designed and implemented grant schemes. This research suggests there is now an opportunity for HLF to review both the overall role of grant-making by those it funds, and the choices about how that role continues to evolve within the Fund s work. In addition there is scope for further research on this topic for example, to understand if non grant-making schemes can identify similar benefits to those outlined here and, if so, how these have been achieved. 9
We don t need to over complicate things. We need to recognise that, if a scheme is well planned, adds value and is cost effective, we should be guiding by a few fundamental principles, coupled with a health warning about proper care and responsibility, rather than a heavy handed and specific set of rules. We need to retain the ability for schemes to flexible, local and responsive. (Case Officer Interviewee) 10