Towards a Fair Deal on Grants: DSC response to Cabinet Office consultation on ‘doing more with less’

In 2010 DSC responded to an Office for Civil Society consultation on voluntary sector commissioning. Although this happened some time ago we feel that the arguments we laid out defending the value of grants in public commissioning are just as valid now as ever. In fact with trends showing a movement away from grant-making into 2015, these arguments have perhaps never been more important.

In it, we argued that the government must apply the same attitude towards bureaucracy and red tape in the voluntary sector as it does in the private sector. Burdensome application processes and reporting requirements need to be simplified. The government needs to give more consideration towards the organisation being commissioned in order to enable them to be effective.

We argue that grants are an important part of government commissioning, Read the full response below.