Cabinet Office turns to Glasgow arm of AND Digital for design of transformational grants applications portal

The UK Government has awarded a £4.2m contract to design and build a pilot grants applications portal to the Glasgow arm of tech firm AND Digital.

The portal will be used by the UK Cabinet Office to streamline the process of making grants to charities and, if the pilot is successful, it will be rolled out across government.

When it put the work out to tender, the government said a portal is required because “at present, there is no single go-to place to find or apply for government grants”.

“It is complicated, time consuming and costly for applicants - they employ people to look for grant opportunities - and exposes government to significant risk of fraud, error and duplication of funding. It also leads to some organisations not being aware of grant opportunities,” it said.

“The pilot will drive awareness of the range of funding opportunities available for charities, increasing competition and enabling wider distribution of funding, in line with the levelling-up agenda.

“The pilot will reduce the burden, cost and speed of applying for government grants and enable government to automate pre-award due diligence.

“If successful the pilot [will] pave the way for a grants single-applicant portal for the whole of government. This innovative model would enable a step-change in UK government grant making and completely re-set the way in which government, public sector bodies, charities, SMEs and citizens interact.”

Peter Dale, head of AND Digital’s Glasgow base, said: “In engaging with the Cabinet Office throughout the initial process and understanding their vision, it's very clear that this project has the potential to fundamentally transform the user experience of citizens, businesses and charitable organisations alike.”