The Safer Communities Fund (the Fund) was established in 2016 to:

• boost the efforts of local councils and community organisations to address crime and anti-social behaviour by funding crime prevention initiatives (such as fixed and mobile CCTV and lighting); and
• protect schools, pre-schools and community organisations that are facing security risks associated with racial and/or religious intolerance.
• The scope of the Fund was expanded in 2019 in response to the Christchurch terrorist attacks to include protecting schools, pre-schools and community organisations that are facing security risks associated with racial or religious intolerance.

Key findings:

• The award of funding under the Safer Communities Fund was partly effective and partly consistent with the Commonwealth Grant Rules and Guidelines.
• Grant applications received across the eight selection processes were not assessed fully in accordance with the relevant grant opportunity guidelines. After the second round, the examination of whether items of proposed expenditure were eligible under the grant opportunity guidelines was not undertaken as part of the assessment of grant applications, instead being left to be undertaken during the negotiation of grant agreements for those applications approved for funding. This approach meant it was not only eligible applications that proceeded to be assessed against the merit criteria. In addition, while in each of the eight selection processes the published merit assessment criteria were applied, the standard of assessment was not to a consistently appropriate standard and there were some shortcomings in the way in which the merit scores were used to identify which applications should be recommended for funding approval.