Submission of Evidence to the International Development Committee Inquiry into the FCDO's approach to value for money

Submission from: Professor Martin Scott. Professor in Media and Global Development, University of East Anglia.

1.0 Summary

In this submission, I argue that government-backed matching schemes have the capacity to generate additional public donations for civil society actors working in international development and may also contribute to increasing public support for the principle of UK aid spending. Such schemes should therefore be given serious consideration as part of the FCDO’s wider approach to offering value for money.

However, safeguards must be put in place to ensure that (a) matching schemes genuinely give the public a say in how the UK aid budget is spent and (b) there is no conflict of interest between the FCDO’s ability to influence CSO communications via matching schemes and its capacity to draw reputational benefits from such schemes.

2.0   Introduction

In this brief submission to the International Development Committee Inquiry into the FCDO's approach to value for money, I aim to directly address the first set of questions posed by the committee: How does the FCDO currently define the term Value for Money? Are there any other aspects of Value for Money that the FCDO should be considering in its assessment?

Specifically, I aim to give an overview of the contribution that government-backed matching schemes – such as the UK’s long running Aid Match scheme - can make to unlocking further funding through public donations.

I am a Professor of Media and Global Development at the University of East Anglia, with longstanding research interests in UK public engagement with international development, international journalism, news audiences and representations of development[1].

In September 2023, I published a report with the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Aid Match[2], entitled UK Aid Match: Real Aid or Charity-Washing?[3] That report was based on an analysis of publicly available documents relating to UK Aid Match scheme and focussed primarily on its communication requirements and their implications. This submission of evidence draws primarily on the analysis in that report and on the recently published findings from a performance evaluation of UK Aid Match by Ipsos and Ecorys, written in January 2022[4].

3.0 An overview of the UK Aid Match scheme to date

UK Aid Match (UKAM) is a match-funding scheme, funded by the UK government, designed to incentivise greater charitable giving amongst the UK public towards projects that reduce poverty in developing countries[5]. For every £1 donated to a UKAM charity appeal, the government also contributes £1 of UK aid – usually up to £2 million.

Since 2011, £331m of UK Aid money has been allocated to UKAM by DFID/FCDO to match-fund public donations for 178 different campaigns about international development (this figure does not include the corresponding money raised by NGOs)[6]. Each UKAM appeal is required to seek to raise at least £100,000 from individuals living in the UK, within a three-month appeal period. Most raise significantly more money than this.

A wide range of UK-based NGOs have benefitted from UKAM support including ActionAid, British Red Cross, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, Oxfam, Save the Children, WaterAid and WWF. UKAM has also matched public donations for numerous Comic Relief Red Nose Day and Sport Relief appeals, since 2011. Furthermore, up to 30 percent (£98 million) of UKAM funding has been allocated to 14 different UK Disasters and Emergencies Committee (DEC) appeals[7].

The main aim of UKAM is to generate additional financial support from the public for civil society actors working in international development, whilst also seeking to demonstrate to the public that UK Government spending of ODA is in line with their priorities. For this reason, it does have the capacity to support the FCDO’s approach to offering value for money.

4.0 The successes of UK Aid Match

According to Ipsos and Ecorys’s evaluation of UKAM, Government endorsement of charitable appeals is widely perceived as a positive, by grantees, because it confers legitimacy to CSOs’ campaigns and therefore increasing the public’s willingness to donate[8].

The perception that the matched offer drives additional public donations is also supported by the results of a Randomised Control Trial (RCT), which tested the effect of UKAM at the donor level for an individual CSO. This analysis concluded that, ‘matching increases not only the average amount donated but also encourages some additional donations from individuals who would not have donated otherwise’[9].

Specifically, it found that individuals allocated to the treatment group gave around double, on average, compared to individuals in the control group (£123 versus £63). Overall, its findings imply that the second round of UKAM (2016 to 2023) generated approximately £2m in additional public donations.

A FCDO run survey also found that 72% of donors strongly agreed that the government matching helped them decide to donate[10].

UKAM appeals have also generally been very successful in achieving their communications objectives[11]. Since 2011, UKAM appeals have generated over 14 billion unique Opportunities To be Viewed (OTVs) by the UK public. These communications include appeals involving Ministers, Parliamentarians or the Secretary of State receiving over 45 million OTVs in 2019 alone[12]. In just the February 2020 round of UKAM, the ‘value in kind for pro bono communications’ of the 1.7 billion OTVs was given as £2.2 million[13].

5.0 The limitations of UK Aid Match

Despite its capacity to raise additional financial support from the public, UKAM also has some limitations.

Evidence from the RCT shows that matching is more likely to increase donations from existing donors, who are already engaged in international development, ‘whereas ‘cold’ audiences appear to need more than a matched offer to become engaged’[14]. There was also little evidence to suggest that UKAM led to sustained engagement in development from the UK public – beyond donating[15].

In addition, there was evidence to suggest that large CSOs were the most likely to be successful (61%) with their applications to receive support from UKAM compared to small CSOs (21%)[16]. This contradicts the UKAM Business Case which states that ‘UK Aid Match will expand opportunities for small organisations to access funding’[17].

My own analysis reached the same conclusion, arguing, for instance, that setting a minimum requirement for generating ‘Opportunities to View’ (OTV) appears likely to restrict the participation of NGOs with smaller marketing capabilities. This is problematic because it limits the extent to which UKAM can achieve its stated objective – in line with two consecutive Conservative Party Manifesto commitments – to ‘give the public a say in how a portion of the UK aid budget is spent’[18].

Indeed, UKAM may be giving the UK public a misleading impression of the true extent to which they are directing a portion of the UK aid budget to their favoured charities, because only 0.2% of UK ODA bas been allocated to UKAM since 2011[19].

Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that – rather than giving the UK public a greater say in directing UK aid – incentivising campaigns to have greater reach may instead be providing greater reputational benefits to government Ministers – who charities are required to feature in their campaigns[20]. One stakeholder reported that another outcome of the programme is that the FCDO benefits from ‘free advertising’[21].

Finally, the various UKAM requirements to (a) involve Ministers, (b) emphasise positive messages, (c) communicate success, post-appeal, and (d) have almost all appeal content pre-approved, might inadvertently discourage NGOs from publicly criticising UK Government aid spending in case it jeopardises their current or future UKAM funding. This is an important consideration because UKAM has been one of the main mechanisms for UK civil society organisations to obtain FCDO funding over the past 13 years[22].

6.0 Recommendations

Government-backed matching schemes do appear to have the capacity to generate additional public donations for civil society actors working in international development. However, should the FCDO choose to pursue matching schemes as a means of unlocking further funding for international development, there are several important issues to consider. 

1. If the FCDO seeks to genuinely ‘give the public a say in how a portion of the UK aid budget is spent’[23], via a matching scheme, then it should meaningfully increasing the overall UKAM commitment from 0.2%, as a percentage of ODA, and significantly increase the diversity of CSOs benefitting from UKAM.
2. Wider safeguards need to be put in place to ensure that foreign policy and development spending are not misdirected by a pursuit of favourable media coverage, either for individual Ministers, or the FCDO. This should include creating a transparent and open consultation process for CSOs to voice their concerns about government-backed matching schemes.
3. The FCDO should remove any requirements for appeals to (a) provide a minimum number of opportunities for the public to view information about matched appeals and (b) specify engagement of parliamentarians and government Ministers.
4. The FCDO should ensure that financially-driven matching schemes, such as UKAM, compliment – rather than replace – wider initiatives designed to promote UK public engagement with international development.