Health Grants Review 2024 

During 2024, Cloudesley undertook a review of the Health Grants programme to determine a new funding framework and priorities for the period 2025-2029. 

What we did 

Cloudesley convened a Health Grants Review Group to oversee the process. To inform the review, we carried out a consultation with funded organisations and undertook research, to gain a better understanding of local needs and gather views on the charity’s existing Health Grants programme and grantmaking practice. This involved the following: 

  • A survey of funded organisations – respondents were asked about their experience of Cloudesley and the existing processes, the emerging needs in the community and the challenges facing organisations.
  • Two focus group meetings were held with representatives from ten key local organisations. The groups were asked about what they were hearing from residents with health conditions and in financial need, what they thought about current local provision, and what they saw as the key issues and challenges facing the local voluntary and community sector and community at large. Participants were paid for their time.
  • Consultation with local stakeholders including Cripplegate Foundation and the NHS North Central London Integrated Care Board
  • Review of information from Public Health and other external sources on Islington demographics and health
  • Collation of information from grant monitoring reports, with a particular focus on the current reach in the Islington community and trends in challenges reported by groups 

What we found 

All aspects of the consultation indicated that demand for services was rising, whilst needs were becoming more complex. Organisations were continuing to try to meet this need in an environment of rising costs, staff burnout and recruitment pressures. At the same time as the need for voluntary sector provision was on the increase, statutory services were being reduced or were overloaded. The consultation also highlighted the need for more mental health services to meet demand and for more culturally appropriate services. 

As part of the consultation, we received a great deal of positive feedback about Cloudesley. However, the process highlighted a need to give further consideration to our approach to monitoring, especially in relation to multi-year organisational funding. 

What we decided 

As a result of the review, we reached the following conclusions: 

Health Grants programme – general 

  • The new Health Grants programme should continue to focus on health inequalities.
  • The current balance of organisations and areas of funding should be maintained. Cloudesley currently supports a wide range of different organisations, with beneficiaries broadly reflecting the local community and those most affected by health inequality.
  • As a place-based funder, Cloudesley should avoid arbitrary limits on funding periods. However, periodically grants should be rigorously reviewed against a whole borough context.
  • Subject to the budget being available, during the 2025-29 funding period, a further cost of living uplift will be considered for multi-year grant recipients to maintain the value of Cloudesley’s funding over time.
  • The number of funding streams should be reduced from six to four to simplify the Health Grants programme – Large Grants, Small Grants, Individual Grants and the Flexible Fund. The Large Grants Fund combines the previous Principal Grants Fund and Strategic Grants Fund. The Flexible Fund combines the previous Development Fund, Grants Support Fund and emergency support.
  • Targeting Cloudesley funding at Islington organisations contributes to the growth of Islington’s Voluntary and Community Sector. The charity will maintain some flexibility in cases where the preferred provider is not Islington-based.  

Individual grants 

  • The condition around first accessing the London Borough of Islington’s Resident Support Scheme will be changed to an encouragement to consider applying to the Scheme and other statutory sources of help where appropriate.
  • On an ongoing basis, Cloudesley Partners will be able to provide grant funding towards utility bills if they choose to do so, providing all the standard eligibility criteria are met. 

Climate change 

  • If revisions are made to the Health Object, the possibility of funding preventative projects could be revisited, perhaps including climate-related projects. In the meantime, Cloudesley will explore alternative ways to address climate change in its work. 

Grants decision-making 

  • Cloudesley should continue to diversify membership of its Grants Committee to ensure it includes a broad base of relevant experience and backgrounds. Committee members should be enabled to give meaningful and practical input.
  • Further work to gather information from different sources was encouraged, such as the consultation survey and focus groups, to help shape Cloudesley’s policies and practices.
  • The charity should explore opting into the Foundation Practice Rating accountability mechanism in 2025/26. Cloudesley would be externally assessed on diversity, accountability and transparency, with the results made publicly available. 

Monitoring 

The following changes have been implemented: 

  • Six-month monitoring visit – previously, Cloudesley required Principal Grant holders to complete both a six-month and annual report. Feedback from funded groups indicated that some find this frequency onerous. To address this, we replaced the six-month monitoring report with a monitoring visit to be undertaken by the Grants Manager.
  • Annual monitoring report – we slightly shortened the annual monitoring report to further ease the burden on the groups, and adjusted the wording to make it clearer. Feedback from groups indicated that some struggled to know what Cloudesley wanted from the reporting so more detailed guidance has been provided. The monitoring has also been brought online.
  • Beneficiary spreadsheet – the religion category was removed as this is rarely completed. Further explanation was added to the disability category.
  • Final report – previously, Cloudesley required a final report at the end of the grant period which covered all of the points in the annual report, plus an assessment of the project across the whole grant period in relation to the agreed outcomes. This has now been scrapped in favour of a standard annual report at the end of the grant period.