Listening to grantees

We want to give the best possible service to those who apply to us for grants. To check how we are doing we commissioned DJS Research to investigate.   They carried out 100 telephone surveys in October/November 2018 and in January 2019 we received the anonymised results. 
 
The report from DJS Research can be viewed here (PDF). 
 
The results were overwhelmingly positive and have identified things we want to improve on.

• Only 8% found the application form quite hard or very hard to use
• Only 4% found the guidance notes not very clear or not clear at all
• 97% of organisations and 81% of individuals believed that we asked for a reasonable amount of information to support their application
• 97% of grantees received their grants promptly
• 92% of grantees felt that the amount of post-grant monitoring information required was reasonable
• Most grantees felt the level of contact they had from the Grants Team was ‘about right’ (organisations - 91%; individuals – 88%)

 
We were delighted with the findings, and we made these changes as a result:

• We simplified processes for individual applicants who were existing grantees by reducing our information requirements, and we moved to a multi-year model for grants to new university students
• We increased the level of contact we have with individual grantees
• We made our information clearer on our website and in the online application form for individual grantees