The ordinary grant is performance related, in line with protocol developed by local institute volunteers and now overseen by the Local Institute National Forum.
A grant of up to 14% of membership income attributed to a local institute can be paid annually; this is based on an institute’s membership calculated at June month end in the prior year - (e.g. 2020 grant based on membership volumes and income at 30-06-19).
The percentage of grant awarded is either 10%, 12%, 13% and 14% based on the previous local institute assessment score.
Institutes are allocated into three groups depending on size of their membership (≤1000, 1001-2000, ≥2001) and the assessment scores are compared within these peer groups. An institute will be awarded a grant of either 10%, 12%, 13% or 14% of their membership income depending on their performance within their specific peer group.
As previously stated, the annual grant is paid in two instalments; the first instalment is 80% (for institutes who have annual funding of less that £10,000) and 50% of the annual grant (for institutes who have annual funding of £10,000 or more) and is paid at the end of January. The second instalment is either 20% or 50% of annual grant, less any reserves adjustment (see below). This is paid in July/August (dependent on how quickly institutes return their annual financial returns).
Reserves adjustment
The ordinary grant is intended to meet the day to day operational requirements of local institutes and are not intended to be carried forward to future financial periods. The CII obviously recognises the financial necessity to keep a level of reserves as a contingency – e.g. available for unintended budgetary requirements or to cover short term cash flow requirements.
To avoid the unnecessary and inefficient build-up of reserves the CII will make an adjustment to the second grant instalment should a level of reserves exceed 12 months of an institute’s operational expenditure.
These reserves and operational expenditure (operational being CII grant expenditure, i.e. excluding social event expenditure)are taken from the latest complete financial period; if operational expenditure exceeds the level of reserves the second grant instalment will be reduced by 50% of the excess.