Press release: Government releases £100bn of grant data in push for greater efficiency and transparency

The government publishes grants data in line with the UK’s Open Government National Action Plan. The new Government Grants Information System (GGIS) enables grant information on £100 billion (2016 to 17) worth of grants to be recorded and reported across government departments in a simple, standardised and scalable way.

The new system represents the most comprehensive picture of the grants landscape available to government. Grants range from government funding for schools, to UK Sport grants, to funding for bus service operators.

John Manzoni, Chief Executive of the Civil Service and Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary, said:

We spend more than £100 billion a year on government grants. We will continue to ensure that this money is being spent effectively. Through the GGIS, for the first time, we are able to collect more extensive data across government departments, not only on the levels of grant giving, but also how the process is being managed within each department.

The new system will reinforce our drive for efficiency, effectiveness and transparency in how we do our business in government and gives us greater assurance identifying and preventing fraud.

The system, which was launched last year, collects data showing how much each of the government departments are paying out in grants to a range of organisations.

This will allow for greater scrutiny of grant making and will help the government identify areas of inefficiency or fraud throughout the grant making process. The database is available to government departments for policy analysis purposes.

The data for the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Justice has also been released to a standard format developed by the 360Giving initiative, which means it is available to the public and can be compared with that of other grant making organisations, therefore providing a bigger picture of the UK funding landscape.

Fran Perrin, Founder of 360Giving, which supports organisations to publish their grants data in an open, standardised way, said:

The government is the UK’s largest grant funder, so we are pleased that it is on board with the greater grants data movement in a push towards more transparency, efficiency and efficacy.

By adopting the 360Giving Standard as many grant makers are now doing, their data can be more easily shared and used alongside that of other grant makers.

More open, comparable data will improve the sector’s ability to make informed, evidence-based funding decisions and ultimately bolster the impact of UK grant making.