3 Sharing services and information
21. We were concerned that the Department was not
taking a lead role on achieving value for money through the sharing
of offices and other back office services. The Department acknowledged
there was little sharing across grant-makers in practice. Although
the grant-makers in the sector had different objectives and awarded
grants to different types of individuals and organisations, all
or part of their grant-making processes were similar. The processes
were, however, carried out at the grant-makers individual offices
across the country, using different IT systems. The Arts Council
and Sport England, for example, were independently implementing
central service centres in different locations and had not appraised
the costs and benefits of sharing facilities, or of combining
any elements of their respective systems. Similarly, grant-makers
had all separately developed and implemented different IT systems.[22]
22. The Arts Council explained that its IT system
supported procurement and financial management, as well as grant-making.
The system would also support on-line applications in the future.
Arts Council had looked at a number of different IT systems, but
had chosen ARENA to allow it to consolidate ten IT systems into
one and to make a series of other changes to its structure over
the past five years, including merging ten organisations into
one and over 100 grant schemes into five. Implementing all these
initiatives had saved the Arts Council £10.3 million.[23]
23. In the past we had expressed disappointment about
the lack of arrangements to share offices and back office facilities
among organisations in order to help drive down costs. We asked
about progress in this area. The Department assured us that both
in response to our previous Report on office accommodation in
the culture, media and sport sector and in response to the Office
of Government Commerce's high performing property initiative,
bodies in the sector were trying to economise on their property
holdings. The Big Lottery Fund, for example, had made £3.5
million savings by centralising its operations.[24]
24. We found no evidence, however, that the issue
of whether the grant-makers' offices could be better organised,
or indeed in some cases rationalised, was being taken forward.
A first step towards this according to the Department would be
for the different grant-makers to compare their costs, on a like-for-like
basis, before looking at opportunities to develop common systems
or to share services.[25]
25. We asked about grant-makers sharing of knowledge
and good practice. In particular we asked what they had learnt
from other grant makers in the UK, such as BBC Children in Need
and Lloyds TSB Foundation for England and Wales, as well as from
international grant-makers. The Big Lottery Fund told us it looked
to develop and share its work to measure the performance and cost
of its processes with other grant-makers, liaising with them,
for example, through the Association of Charitable Foundations
and the Intelligent Funders' Forum. English Heritage meanwhile
shared good practice with comparator organisations internationally,
such as in Germany where each Land had its own heritage
conservation organisation. English Heritage had also worked with
DEFRA to understand the costs of its Repair Grants for Places
of Worship scheme.[26]
26. Within the sector respected experts already work
together to share good practice on capital projects and making
capital investments through the capital centre of excellence.
The Department agreed that grant-makers could do more to learn
about grant-making processes from one another. The Lottery Forum,
comprising the Chief Executives and Finance Directors of the lottery
distributors, provided opportunities for sharing good practice.
The grant-makers agreed that the Forum could play a more significant
role in sharing good practice and that Chief Executives and Finance
Directors could exchange information on a more regular basis.
The Department also saw the Forum as having a relatively light
touch process at present, but had the potential to have a "more
heavy duty" role in the future.[27]
22 Qq 3-4 Back
23
Q 11 Back
24
Q 54; C&AG's Report, The office accommodation of the Department
for Culture, Media and Sport and its sponsored bodies, HC
(2005-06) 942; Office of Government Commerce, High Performing Property-Routemap to asset management excellence,
2006 Back
25
Qq 55-56 Back
26
Qq 5, 9, 88-89 Back
27
Qq 90-91 Back
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