In February 2017, the predecessor Committee raised significant concerns about the Fund’s lack of transparency and ministerial accountability, concluding it was unable to assess the strategic impact of CSSF-funded activity without access to much more information.
The Committee’s Report said the objective, operation and achievements of the Fund were ‘opaque’.
Following the Committee’s Report, the Government has made a number of changes to how the Fund is run and how it reports on its work, most notably establishing a dedicated National Security Council sub-committee and publishing summaries and annual reviews of many CSSF programmes, as well as Annual Reports on the Fund overall for the financial year (FY) 2016–17 and FY2017–18.
However, other recent parliamentary work continues to highlight shortcomings related to how the Fund works.