How grant decisions are made
NSW Government agencies follow a set of processes when deciding how grants are approved for funding.
How grant applications are approved for funding
NSW Government grants that you apply for have a set of criteria that must be met. These criteria are set out on the grant page. Grant applications may then go through a number of decision-making steps before successful applicants are announced and published.
Steps to assessing and deciding on grant applications
Checking for eligibility
Grant applications are checked for eligibility. Only applications that match all the criteria will go on to the next step of the process. In some cases, meeting all the eligibility criteria is enough for a grant application to be successful.
Assessing applications against criteria
For grants with assessment criteria, an assessment team will assess eligible applications against these criteria. They keep a record of what their decisions were and the reasons for the decisions.
Making recommendations
The assessment team makes recommendations in writing to the final decision maker. These recommendations include how each application meets the eligibility and assessment criteria. The decision maker will approve or reject applications after considering the recommendations. The decision maker is published as part of the grant guidelines.
Making the decision
The decision maker considers all the recommendations of the assessment team (and, where relevant, the outcomes of the eligibility check). Decisions are written down. Any departure from the assessment team’s recommendations must be also documented. These will be published, along with the reasons for the departure.
Informing successful and unsuccessful applicants
Before any public announcement is made, all applicants are told if their application has been successful or not.
Announcing the decision
A public announcement of the decision is made and information about successful applications is published on the grant page. Any departures from recommendations are also published.
What happens when grant decisions vary from recommendations
When grants are awarded after recommendations are made to and decided upon by a NSW Government Minister, the decision-making process is known as 'ministerial discretion'.
This means that the Minister might decide to accept or reject the recommendations made by the assessment panel.
The Minister must record the decision in writing.
They must include:
- the reasons for the decision
- and any departure from the recommendations of the assessment team.
This information is then published on this website.
This ensures that decisions relating to grants are appropriately documented and published, so that they meet the key grant principles of transparency, accountability and probity, as well as achieving value for money.
More information about NSW Government grants
You can find out more about how NSW Government grants are designed, offered and managed by reading the Grants Administration Guide (the Guide).
The Guide has been mandated by legislation to inform NSW Government agencies of the correct practices for developing grants and funding programs.
Grants listed on the Grants and funding finder page are formatted to meet these guidelines, including what decisions have been made.
