Is the "Grant Gravy Train" out of control?

Bristol City Council have just published data on grants given to Voluntary Community and Social Enterprises (VCSE Grants) for the last 2 financial years.

2023/2024

2024/2025

2025/2026

Bristol City Council will "invest £316,608 per year in this grant programme"

From: Voluntary and Community Sector (VCSE)

But the grants awarded are much higher than the money invested by BCC. I cannot explain this discrepancy, but I have analysed the data to shed some light on the VCSE grants programme.

What are VCSE grants for?

Applications for 2025/2026 closed in September 2025.

What happens next

We'll assess all applications between September and November 2025. We'll tell all applicants our decisions in December 2025.

The grant funding period will begin on 1 April 2026.

Application resources

BCC had some technical problems with their online information sessions:

While a recording was made of one of the online information sessions, we were unable to save it due to a technical error. This meant nobody in attendance has received the recording. We are sorry for this.

All the information given in the presentation was taken directly from the Approach to Funding 2026 to 2030, and the Guidance Notes and Question Guide documents that are available above in the application resources.

Baseline standards

We have a set of baseline standards to:

protect our investment in the voluntary and community sector
make sure that all council funded organisations are well managed and provide good quality services

All funded organisations must meet these standards.

Here are some of the requirements for organisations submitting grant requests.

Each financial year a properly organised and quorate Annual General Meeting is held and the Link Officer/Contract Manager is invited to attend this meeting.

Over the past two years 412 organisations have received grants. Do BCC employees actually attend all of these AGMs? But as only an invite is required, there is no requirement to actually attend.

The organisation will not seek to promote or oppose a political party.

Many organisations would find it very difficult not to promote or oppose certain political parties. For example I would think it is very difficult for the "Bristol Climate & Nature Partnership" (received a grant of £80,000 last year) not to oppose political parties who do not support net zero.

Examples of governance evidence:

• Copy of constitution or memorandum and articles of association

• Proof of registration as a charity or company

• Copy of the most recent annual report including a report on the AGM

• Full list of Trustees/ management committee members and their roles

Organisations applying for grants must fall into one of the following categories:

A "Beneficiary Registration Number" is included in the data set, but much of this data is missing or invalid. Do all organisations applying for grants really meet these requirements?

Data Analysis

Data Quality

The data files provided by BCC are very poor from a data quality perspective,, here are some of the issues I found:

Inconsistent Organisation Names
Inconsistent Programme Namaes
Inconsistent Department Names
Incorrect Organisation IDs
Missing Organisations IDs

I have corrected as many of these data issues as possible, and have also traced Organisations without Organisations ID's to charities and companies where I can.

These data quality issues mean it is not possible to verify that organisations receiving grants meet the required baseline standards.

Departments

These are the Council Departments linked to the grants:

Grant Programmes

Programmes with £100,000 or more grants:

You can explore the full report yourself on BU Reports.

Organisations

Organisations that have revied more than £100,000 in grants:

Here is a small selection of some of the organisations who have received grants:

Feeding Bristol

Citizens Advice Bristol

Addiction Recovery Agency (Ara)

Lockleaze Neighbourhood Trust

Centre for Sustainable Energy

InHope

Stand Against Racism & Inequality (SARI)

Hartcliffe City Farm

Bristol Somali Resource Centre

Youth Moves

169th Bristol Brentry Scout Group

Observations and Questions

Funding

In 2025/2026 BCC will invest £316,608 in VCSE Grants, but the actual amounts going through the scheme is much higher than this.

Is spending being pushed through the VCSE scheme inappropriately?

Inclusion

From: VCSE Funding Approach

If you are "in the know" then it is very easy to apply for a VCSE grant. But if you aren't well versed in the grant process then many organisations are effectively excluded from this important source of funding.

Scout Groups

There are two Scout Groups in Bristol that have benefited from VCSE grants in the last two years.

There are over 40 Scout Groups in Bristol. Why aren't they benefitting from VCSE grants? Is it because they have plenty of funds and don't need any support, or is it because they don't know how to access the "Grant Gravy Train"?

Governance

Of the 412 organisations that have received grants, 314 provided an Organisation Reference which I mapped to entries in the Charity Register and Company Register. For the 109 organisations that did not provide an ID I have traced them to the registers using the organisation names where possible.

There are 7 Organisations where the Charity Number provided could not be matched to an active charity.

6 of them had transferred their funds to another charity/company :

1 could not be traced to another charity/company.

Bristol Somali Youth Voice (BSYV) grants

The Grants for BSYV are linked to one Company and one Charity.

See: Compulsory Strike Off

This organisation does not appear to comply with the VCSE baseline standards:

The organisation will have appropriately examined or audited annual accounts depending on the level of income of the organisation. This requirement is in line with Charity Commission Reporting and Accounting Guidance (March 2015) which offers a proportionate and good practice approach

Do BCC check that these organisations are meeting the baseline standards? If an organisation submits information related to Companies and Charities that were closed down years ago, shouldn't this be identified during the grant application process?

Please note this is not an accusation of wrongdoing by "Bristol Somali Youth Voice", but is evidence that BCC is not properly vetting recipient organisations.

Transparency

BCC has only recently published details of VCSE grants for the 2023/2024 and 2024/2025.

The grant funding for 2025/2026 will commence next week on 01/04/2026. Will BCC publish the details of these grants next week, or will they wait a year or two before disclosing them?

Is it in Bristol?

Most of these museums are outside of Bristol. Whilst I am sure they are doing sterling work, should Bristol really be accepting grant requests for organisations outside of Bristol?

Is it applicable funding?

Why are BCC providing grants to projects that fall into the "won't fund" category?

capital costs (for example, the costs of equipment, vehicles, land, buildings, building refurbishment, repairs or maintenance or landscaping)

Area Committees

Which Area Committees are funding grants via this scheme? Is the spending shared fairly across different Areas?

Clean Air Zone (CAZ)

Should CAZ income can be used to fund organisations in the VCSE Scheme? If it is an appropriate source of funding, then why can't more of it be used in this way?

There is no description of what three of the grants are actually for.

And "minibus replacement" is in the "Won't Fund" list.

capital costs (for example, the costs of equipment, vehicles, land, buildings, building refurbishment, repairs or maintenance or landscaping)

Conclusion

These are some of the issues I have found with the VCSE Scheme:

Poor/Ineffective Governance
Poor Data Quality
Mixed Funding Sources
Inaccessible to many organisations

It is important that BCC fund many of these initiatives, but it should be carried out in a transparent, fair and auditable manner.

You can explore the reports in more detail on BU Reports.