Situation

In my role as secretariat for DCMS Finance, I was the point of contact for the Departments Arms Length Bodies (ALB).

Task

I was tasked to decide which Business cases came to the Departments Finance Committee from ALBs based on if the Business Case was robust and had a sufficiently developed commercial, management, financial, and strategic case. 

Action

There were limits for how many BCs could come to the committee based on how developed the BC was. Funding decisions were based solely on the BC so it was crucial ALBs followed DCMS and Treasury guidelines in preparation. I had a submission for a £30 million grant to promote Older Volunteering from the Office for Civil Society (OCS). On carefully reading the BC I saw that the pre-programme costs of £4 million were omitted. I queried with the OCS why this had been omitted. I was informed this was an error, OCS stressed the urgency to still be at the next FC. I spoke to DCMS Finance experts who agreed that the pre-programme costs should be included. I informed OCS that the BC would have to be re-submitted with an updated financial case, the OCS team was disappointed.

Result

The result of my actions was that the BC came to Committee at a later date with robust financial forecasts and corrected grant ask. It was the right decision and important as programme costs would be accessible via FOI requests. I was pleased with the result and learned that difficult decisions must be taken.