Business First Summer 2017 Business First Magazine Summer 2017 | Page 46

FAMILY BUSINESS 2017
GRANTS –
many years of
getting it
wrong?
by Ulster University Visiting Professor Simon Bridge
or how long have our government
departments and agencies been giving
out grants to enterprises or other
groups? It would probably be hard to
establish exactly when the practice started –
but, however long it is, it does seem that it is
at least long enough to expect that by now
those concerned might have learnt how to do
it effectively. But instead there are still
problems.
The Renewable Heat Initiative (RHI) is a
recent example but there are many other
cases of dissatisfaction where the money
could be better applied to its purpose.
Does this continue because we have
become so used to grants that we see them
not only as the norm and but also as the end
product of the system ­ rather than as the
means to a wider end? That wider end ought
to be the achievement of the grant­giver’s
organisational purpose but how often do the
people administering the grants seem to
think instead that their task is just to give out
grants in accordance with stipulated
procedures? So have grants become an
annoying factor of life, like taxes, which we
have come to accept are a necessity but which
it would seems could be handled much more
efficiently?
I suggest that among the reasons for this
failure to improve the grant system (as it is
usually applied) are a failure to consider the
purposes of a grant (and a focus instead on
administrative detail), a failure by grant­
givers to understand the nature of the grant
relationship, and a consequent failure to
appreciate the potential for
miscommunication.
Essentially government departments have
grant budgets to help them to achieve their
purpose. If Invest IN’s objective is to improve
Northern Ireland’s economy, then it uses its
budget to ‘buy’ economic improvement from
its client businesses which it does by offering
them grants where it is persuaded that, with
such a grant, they will make a bigger
contribution to our economy than they would
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have had they been left to their own devices.
Therefore, the grant system is essentially a
contractual one ­ and the terminology used
does indicate this because at its core are
‘Letters of Offer’.
When an application is made for a grant the
next stage, if the grant is approved, is the
issue of a ‘Letter of Offer’ which, when
accepted, completes a legally binding
contractual deal in which payment is
promised in consideration for the delivery of
a service. The actual payment of the grant will
then be a contractual payment – not a gift.
However many Letters of Offer do not make
this exchange clear and focus on the money to
be paid with little if any reference to the
service to be delivered.
As a result the relationship between a
grant­giver and a grant aspirant is often
misinterpreted. The reality is that for those
looking for grants, grant­givers are customers
– even if neither side acknowledges this.
Grant­givers in particular may not see
themselves in that way but they have the
money and they want to buy something – and
the grant­seekers who want their money are
offering them something in exchange.
What grant­givers are, or should be, buying
is cost effective contributions to the
achievement of at least part of their
organisational aims. So, if the grant­seeker is
proposing to do something which will
contribute to those aims ­ for example
persuading Invest NI that they will export
more if they are given a grant ­ there should
be the basis for a deal. In essence therefore
grant­receivers are sub­contractors paid to
deliver services which the grant­givers can’t
themselves deliver directly, or at least not as
cost­effectively.
Therefore the relationship is not one
between essentially equal partners but one
between customer and supplier/sub­
contractor – and it is because of a failure to
understand the nature of that relationship
that many problems can arise.
For instance the reality is that the two sides
speak different languages. They are not both
clones of each other but behave and think in
different ways because they have different
cultures.
And therefore two­way interpretation is
often needed ­ not translation, because it is
not a case of misunderstanding what words
mean on their own, but of interpreting what
is said in the context of the thought process
behind it.
For instance if, in a negotiation, the
response to a question is translated as
‘maybe’, that might sound encouraging ­
whereas an interpretation of the same
response as being as negative as it is polite to
be would indicate a very different situation.
Nevertheless this need for interpretation is
frequently hidden because those anxious to
get grants want to appease the grant­givers
(‘the customer is always right’) and not upset
them – and so will not want to appear to
understand the customer.
But this means that grant­givers often don’t
perceive that others can and will interpret
things in a different way. Frequently they
think that, while other grant­givers may not
communicate well with applicants, they are
the exception.
It is especially unlikely that grant­givers
will see themselves as customers when the
overall purpose of the grant has been
forgotten, or never made clear.