5. Decision-Making

The Board cannot delegate the decision making responsibility to any individual/group of individuals, to any Board staff, nor to a Board subcommittee. The Board may, however, delegate the reporting function to a subcommittee or to its staff.

If this function is delegated then whoever reports on the application may be present and participate in any discussion on the application but cannot vote on the decision to be taken.

Once a decision is made, this should be recorded in both the Board’s minutes and the register (4b refers).

Boards may approve applications under all schemes on a stage by stage basis with the movement to the next stage dependent upon the successful completion of the earlier stage; each such stage will be considered in its own right.

Each applicant is to be advised of the Board’s decision in writing within 5 working days of the decision having been made. The prescribed standard approval letters are to be used for all grant approvals.

6. On-going Monitoring of Approved Projects

Each Board should monitor the progress of projects and offer further assistance if necessary.

7. Payment of Claims

The only bases on which claims can be paid out are:

(a) On matching original receipts to original invoices; or on an accountant’s certification of costs paid; this must be from an independent accountant (ie not the applicant’s in-house accountant) in public practice and must match expenditure to the approved qualifying costs (the cost of obtaining such a certification is a qualifying cost of the schemes); and

(b) If the prescribed standard claim and report forms have been used by the claimant.

If claimants wish to have their original receipts and invoices returned to them copies of these must be retained by the Board along with a statement noting that the originals were sighted, copied and returned to the claimant. This statement must be dated and signed.

Where claims are made in respect of payments by credit card, the following evidence of payment should be provided by the claimant:

• charge docket
• statement showing the charge
• following statement showing the payment

Claimants should be advised, in writing, of what expenditure has been authorised for payment and what has not been accepted for payment. This letter should be copied to the Finance Section, Ministry of Commerce along with an instruction to make the payment; the Ministry will make payments within 5 working days of receipt of this instruction.

The prescribed Accounts Payable Form shall be completed for each claim.

Board managers are able to authorise payments.

8. Overexpenditure by Claimants and Reallocation of Grants

Once a grant has been approved and accepted for a particular amount, that amount may not be increased neither can new categories of expenditure be introduced. Boards may, however, consider requests for reallocation of expenditure between approved items in both the BDIG and EGDS.

In considering such requests, Boards must ensure that the overexpenditure has occurred because of unforeseen circumstances that are beyond the applicant’s control. In all such cases a report shall be prepared and a recommendation made. Boards have a choice as to the procedure they wish to follow in considering such requests - either the Chairperson makes the decision or the Board follows the same procedure as that followed for the original decision. This procedure does not have to be followed in cases where the reallocation request involves less than a 10% movement of expenditure from one approved item to another; in such cases, the person processing the claim can automatically make such a change, however, the amount reallocated cannot exceed the total grant approved.

9. Approval Times and Time Extensions

Grants may only be approved for one year under each scheme. The year is to take effect from the date of approval.

Requests for time extensions must be made in writing to the Board by the applicant. The maximum extension which can be approved to a grant recipient is three months in total. Any further extension requests can only be considered and approved by the Minister. Such further extensions shall only be approved in exceptional circumstances. Applicants should lodge a written request with the Minister before their grant expires outlining the circumstances outside their control which have led to their request.

Boards cannot consider extension requests for grants that have expired.

Boards have the same choice in terms of the decision-making procedure they wish to follow for considering such requests as for reallocation approvals.

10. Register of Final Reports

Each Board is required to keep a Register of Final Reports. Each time it receives a Final Report, which must be in the prescribed standard format, it should forward a copy of it to the Ministry. The Ministry will keep a master list of all such reports. The information in these will be used by the Ministry as a basis for reporting on the schemes to the Minister, to the Government, and to other Boards at not less than once per quarter.

11. Definition of Applicant’s Qualifying Costs for all Three Schemes

For the purposes of determining applicant’s qualifying costs “applicant” means not only the person submitting the application but shall include: