The House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts report says there has been “a notable opaqueness over some aspects” of Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) decision making, and it is “unclear what influence special advisers had over some funding decisions, with some charities awarded government funding despite the Department’s officials initially scoring their bids in the lowest scoring category, including four out of the five lowest scoring applications.”
While the DCMS acted quickly to pay out most of its £513 million COVID-19 financial support package for frontline charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises, the Committee says it is also unclear why some charitable organisations succeeded in securing funding: three in instances where officials were unsure if organisations were actually “eligible for government funding in the first place”.