Can a parish council give a grant to an informal group that has no structure?

Question

My local pc has given a grant to a small informal group of volunteers in the village where I live.  This group does not appear to have any structure but one of its members is also a parish councillor.  Other than an initial email to the pc, requesting funding for their project, there does not appear to be any sort of paper trail detailing, for example, leadership and accountability; how the grant has been spent; who the group members are (they seem to change from week to week);  what the members' duties are; how the project is progressing; long-term aims and objectives, etc., etc. In other words, the group has no formal management plan that is subject to scrutiny by parishioners.  The pc has the GPoC but does not seem to have a grants policy.   Can anyone tell me whether or not the pc be showing more control over how our precept is being spent by this group?  Is the pc meeting its legal obligations with regard to financial regulations?

Answer 1

Of course the PC has a legal obligation (as does each councillor) to ensure that the precept is spent correctly and accountable for. To meet this obligation they should show due diligence in ensuring that the needs of the community and electorate are met. In the case of making grants the PC must ensure that they have a fair and equal policy for making grants to the community which sets out clearly the qualifying parameters, range of amounts available and a defined decision making, and appeal system. This could be by council vote or by a committee set up to oversee the grants.

 Theses grants need to be included in the annual budget and tracked to ensure compliance by the receivers that they are used as stated by them.

It is called a duty of care in spending tax payers money however small

Comments

This I believe comes under the complex issue of S137 qualification. Most PCs have a grants policy and this often includes the status of the group and requires the existence of a bank account and a constitution . These are usually encapsulated in the application form . There are plenty of examples around . LTN 31 gives some advice

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Openspaces is correct that most policies require bank accounts etc, but in addition they often state that grants cannot be issued directly to an individual person. This is indeed a good protection for the council, but it does occur to me that councils may be missing out on the good works that individuals can contribute.  Our council has in the past allowed an individual to complete some work for the council, and paid any invoices for materials direct to the suppliers. Whilst this created some extra work for our long suffering clerk, the result was well received in the parish.
I should add that this was discussed at length in the council, so it was all above board from that point of view.