The appeals system for the 2017 Sports Capital Programme (SCP) was introduced to address concerns regarding cases where Department officials may have made errors in the original decisions to deem applications to be invalid. Previously, there was no appeals system in place for the rounds of the SCP prior to the 2017 round.
The introduction of the appeals process also ensures that the SCP now accords with the Department’s Customer Action Plan which commits to maintaining "a formalised, well publicised, accessible, transparent and simple to use system of appeal/review for customers who are dissatisfied with decisions in relation to service”.
Additionally, the 2017 round of the SCP was the first round of the programme under which every valid local application received an offer of funding. Consequently, the decision to make an application invalid certainly cost the applicants a grant offer. Accordingly, in the interests of equity and fairness, an appeals system was introduced for the 2017 round and will be available for all future rounds of the SCP.
Regarding the appeal process, each appeal submitted was assessed by an official not involved in the original assessment of that application. All decisions on appeal were also reviewed by at least two more senior officials. No external appeals board was established.
A total of 149 appeals were submitted and of these, 35 were upheld. Appeals were accepted where the appellant demonstrated that the Department erred in its decision to make the application invalid, or where it was agreed that the Department's own guide to making an application was not sufficiently clear, or where it was felt the original decision involved an overly strict interpretation of the SCP terms and conditions.
All organisations that submitted an invalid or partially invalid application were contacted offering them the opportunity to submit an appeal and all of the appellants have now been informed of the results of the appeal process.
In relation to future rounds of the SCP, my Department is now undertaking a general review of the 2017 round with a view to making recommendations on how to improve the process for future calls. This work is also examining what is feasible in terms of the scale and timing of the next round. I expect this review to be complete shortly and an announcement regarding the next round of the SCP will be made at that stage. All applicants under the 2017 round of the programme that remain invalid have been informed that they will be given the opportunity of simply submitting corrected documentation when the next round of the programme opens without the requirement of submitting a full new application.
