Autism charity funding was 'sloppy' says Darren Millar

The way the Welsh government awarded grant funding for an autism project was "peculiar" and "sloppy", an AM claims.

Chair of the assembly's Public Accounts Committee Darren Millar said he would refer the case to the auditor general.

It comes after BBC Wales discovered funding was granted to a different charity to the one which applied.

The Welsh government said because the two charities were from the same group, it did not matter which name was on the contract.

The matter arose after small Welsh charity Autism Spectrum Connections Cymru (ASCC) applied for £70,000 to run a work experience project.

But the funding was awarded to Autism Initiatives UK, a large pan-UK charity, and ASCC was not mentioned in the contract.

Although ASCC was set up by Autism Initiatives UK and they are part of the same group of charities, they are separate legal entities.

Mr Millar said: "It seems unorthodox, it seems sloppy, and I want to know on behalf of the Welsh people, that this money has not gone to waste and that services have actually been delivered that have been commissioned.

"It concerns me because of the high-profile of the poor management of grants by the Welsh government over the past few years and because of the reassurances that the Public Accounts Committee has received.

"It's quite clear from the documentation that you've presented me that it doesn't appear to have learned the lessons that it's told us it has."

Gisele Davies, a charity law specialist, said failure to name the correct charity in the contract could mean the government may not be able to recover its money if something went wrong.

"There's an argument that the contract is not necessarily enforceable," she said.

"Now it's bad for Autism Initiatives and it's potentially bad for the Welsh government as well - or us the Welsh public - if that is the case, so we do need to look at it and get it right in order so that things don't go wrong, and if they do go wrong we get the money back."

The Welsh government insisted that because the two charities were part of the same group it should not matter that the charity delivering the project is not named in the contract.

It said it regularly monitored the delivery of the project and so far all objectives had been met.