To ensure public trust in the integrity of NSW Government grants administration, processes must be fair, transparent and accountable.
The Department of Customer Service partnered with agencies across the sector to develop the first central database of grants and funding opportunities in NSW. The Grants and Funding Finder is a search portal that stores information about more than 500 grants across 46 agencies in one location. It enables customers to understand, compare and apply for grants more easily.
The Finder uses comprehensive filter options to ensure information is clear, consistent, accessible, tailored to customer needs and compliant with the Grants Administration Guide. Announcements about the awarding of grants are published on the portal to a consistent timeframe, making it easier for the public to check decisions for grants they have applied for.
Embedding transparency
The Finder has clocked up more than 1.2 million unique page views as at November 2023. Through these interactions it has:
- helped support the people of NSW with natural disaster recovery and cost-of-living relief, for example through the Family Energy Rebate
- embedded transparency, accountability, integrity and probity in every part of grant delivery
- built grants capability across the sector, with more than 108 trained users across 20 agencies
- greatly enhanced customer experience through the user-friendly portal and advanced search functionality.
In March 2023, the Finder was integrated with Service NSW to allow more than 515,000 businesses with a Service NSW Business Profile to discover pre-filtered grants personalised to their industry.
By housing all NSW grants in one place, the Finder continues to increase transparency and promote public confidence in the NSW Government grants administration process.