Senior government officials are to be called by MPs to give evidence on how well Covid-19 funding has been distributed to charities.

Members of the Public Accounts Committee are to question senior officials at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) as well as the Charity Commission on the distribution of the funding. Whether it is achieving its objectives will also be looked at.

Their investigation will focus on the government’s announcement last year of £750m in funding support to help frontlines charities to continue operating and supporting communities during the health crisis.

It will also look at issues around how swiftly money was handed out, in a call to evidence to the charity sector.

The deadline for submitting evidence around the government’s funding for charities is 6pm, 8 March.

“On 20 May, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and the Office for Civil Society announced that they were working across government to direct funds to voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations supporting government’s coronavirus response through activities delivering charitable purposes,” states the committee.

“DCMS stressed the urgency to distribute funds quickly and prioritise those charities most in need.

“The Committee will question senior officials at DCMS and the Charity Commission on how well the funding has been distributed and whether it is achieving its objectives.”

The call to evidence from the Public Accounts Committee coincides with an investigation into government funding to charities during the Covid-19 pandemic being carried out by the National Audit Office.

Its report will look at the DCMS’s “objectives and the extent to which it is meeting these”.

“It will also set out how the Department has distributed this funding and worked with other government departments and public bodies to do so,” added the NAO.

Delays

Part of the government’s funding package has included the £200m Coronavirus Community Support Fund for small and medium sized charities. This attracted concerns from the charity sector around delays and a lack of transparency.

Despite being announced in May last year as urgent funding, by July only £8.5m had been handed out and only a quarter had been allocated by August.

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