CF reclaims grant

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The Community Fund may require one of its grant recipients to repay £198,823 after deciding three years after the award was made that the organisation was never in fact eligible.
The organisation involved is the Communities Empowerment Network, and the two-year grant paid for the development of an advocacy service for people dealing with ‘a range of educational problems’. CEN hit the headlines last autumn when it provided advocacy for an appeal hearing against the exclusion of two teenagers from their school after they made death threats against a teacher. The boys won the appeal, prompting a media and political furore. CEN spokesman Deuan German says that at exactly the time of this outcry, the CF was assessing its application for a continuation grant. Some weeks later the group was asked to attend a meeting with CF officials to be told that their constitution did not have philanthropic or benevolent aims and that the initial grant, made in April 2000, was therefore invalid.
The Community Fund’s head of policy, Gerald Oppenheim, says: ‘They should never have had a grant. The grants staff didn’t spot this. The judgements we have to reach on eligibility are very difficult, sometimes they can be very fine.’ Oppenheim strongly refutes any suggestion that the CF’s decision was influenced either by the media hostility to the CEN at the time or by the concurrent campaign still being waged against the Community Fund by the Daily Mail over its support for asylum-seekers. He says: ‘Gerry German, who set up CEN, is saying we are withdrawing the grant because of the Daily Mail. That’s not true. They are ineligible.’ Oppenheim says the law obliges the fund to seek recovery of the money, although they may exercise discretion in forcing recovery, if, for instance, this would jeopardise the existence of the organisation. Deuan German says: ‘We are operating hand to mouth. We had three advocates, they’ve all had to go.’ Oppenheim says the CF is investigating to find out how the grant money has been spent, after which it will decide how to pursue the case. It is also looking into a connected organisation, the Working Group against Racism in Children’s Resources, to which it awarded £145,540 in 1997 and £147,418 in October 2002.