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Clarity, consistency and transparency
30 respondents (9%) raised explicit concerns about consistency in application of policy and transparency of decision-making, or simply said they would welcome a more transparent approach. This was particularly an issue for national organisations with regional branches noting differences in advice between regions (which could well be related to a lack of understanding of different regional budget pressures), but respondents also commented on:
lack of transparency on decisions, particularly reasons for rejection, and lack of transparency of criteria, with perceptions of ‘unrevealed criteria’ and ‘moving goalposts’ (23 respondents, 7%); some respondents mentioned the amount of information requested for assessment but not included in the guidance notes.
inconsistency in advice between regions, between officers, and between advice/messages given by HQ and by the local teams (11 respondents, 3%).
‘Transparency of selection criteria would clarify what is being looked for, and would allow rejected projects to review their applications and learn from their application process.’
Corporate planning manager, national museum
‘We would welcome more transparency from HLF about decision-making processes in order to combat some of the perceptions, or perhaps misperceptions, of inconsistency in approach to assessing archive projects.’
Chair, national sectoral body
Many of these comments are made at a very general level and further investigation is needed to bottom out the specific underlying causes of concern.
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