Jonathan Jenkins, chief executive of the Social Investment Business, has agreed to review his use of social media in order to minimise perceptions that he has social relationships with people from charities that receive statutory funds on his recommendation.

Jenkins’ pledge is revealed in an email from Sir Stephen Bubb, chair of Social Investment Business (SIB), concluding his investigation into a formal complaint raised with him about a £199,900 Social Action Fund grant to Society Network Foundation (SNF) or its associated private limited company Big Society Network (BSN) early last year. It is still unclear which organisation received the money, as the Cabinet Office has cited both in different responses to Freedom of Information requests about the grant.

The Social Investment Business administers the Social Action Fund on behalf of the Cabinet Office.

The complaint centred on concerns that the grant was made despite SNF or BSN not meeting a number of the published criteria; that the grant was omitted from the list of winning bidders on the SIB website; that SIB refused to name the members of the grant recommendation panel, of which Jenkins was one; and that neither the applicant, SIB or the Cabinet Office have been able to say what the money has been spent on.

Another criticism raised was that Jenkins appeared to have more than a professional relationship with the CEO of Big Society Network, Steve Moore.  Sir Stephen was presented with evidence of numerous tweets between the pair throughout 2011, many relating to football, some to meetings between them, and one to beer.

Sir Stephen limited the terms of reference of his investigation to two issues: whether there was any impropriety in the handling of BSN’s application, and whether lessons should be drawn for future handling of grant applications across  the SIB group.

He emphasised that he was not investigating the role of the Cabinet Office or the minister for civil society, nor commenting on the government’s decision to award the grant.

In the email, seen by Civil Society News, Sir Stephen concluded that “there was no impropriety over the SIB’s handling of the application from the Society Network Foundation to the Social Action Fund”.

Twitter exchanges between Jenkins and Steve Moore

However, he also made mention of “the issue of SIB’s chief executive, Jonathan Jenkins, exchanging Twitter messages with sector colleagues, in particular…exchanges between Jonathan and Steve Moore”.

“While I acknowledge that this may give the perception of a social relationship," Bubb wrote, "having investigated the matter I have seen no evidence of any impropriety in terms of influencing decisions.  However Jonathan has agreed to review his use of social media to minimise such perceptions in the future.”

By noon today Jenkins had posted 20 tweets since Sir Stephen sent his conclusions email a week ago.  A spokesman for SIB told Civil Society News today: "Jonathan and Stephen have discussed the findings of Stephen’s investigation, and yes Jonathan has agreed to review his use of social media."

Bubb: transparency is important

Bubb also examined the issue of SIB not making public the names of those on the panel making awards – Jenkins is one of those on the panel.  Bubb said: “I was personally unhappy at this approach and given that this is public money I think transparency is important. However the Cabinet Office made the decision not to make names public and as the administrator of the fund we were of course obliged to adhere to this approach.”

Jenkins was only named as a panel member following a Freedom of Information Act request to the Cabinet Office. Sir Stephen added: “For the future I would want SIB to make clear its own policy on transparency in any arrangements we come to, but we have to recognise the decisions are not always ours.”

Cabinet Office wanted a 'light-touch' approach to criteria

On the issue of the applicant not meeting the published grant criteria, Sir Stephen said the Cabinet Office wanted a “light-touch rather than an overly bureaucratic approach and did not want to rule out applications that they might otherwise wish to review”.

He also wrote: “I fully acknowledge that the investment award to SFN was not initially published on our website.  This was wrong and should not have happened. However, I am clear this was not a deliberate attempt to withhold information but an unfortunate administrative error which was rectified as soon as it was brought to our attention. I regret that this happened.”

Complainant: investigation is an insult to other applicants

The complainant, who wishes to remain anonymous, said in response: “This investigation is an insult to the hundreds of organisations that followed the procedures laid out by OCS and applied for the Social Action Fund in good faith.

"There has been no mention of any of the monitoring process to prove BSN encouraged any social action or proof that BSN met any of the application criteria.”

Cabinet Office confusion over Social Action Fund grant recipient

The Cabinet Office seems unsure whether it has given the Social Action Fund grant to BSN, the private limited company, or SNF, the registered charity.

It also appears to have lumped the grant together with one made to Sports Leaders UK. 

On 27 February, in response to a Freedom of Information request, the Cabinet Office said that the British Sports Trust (Sports Leaders UK) had so far received £754,601 in round two of the Social Action Fund, and Society Network Foundation had received £199,900.  In total this makes £954,501.

In a follow-up FoI response dated 1 May, the two grants have been conflated and now Sports Leaders UK and Big Society Network – not Society Network Foundation – have together received £1.2m.  It does not specify how much has been given to each organisation.

Yesterday the Big Lottery Fund announced that it was giving £1m to Society Network Foundation for an Olympic legacy campaign.