£1.2m fund for Adult Autism projects

The NAS has applied for a chunk of a £1.2m grant too, for a couple of their own projects. As the NAS is not a local authority, it seems odd that the same amount appears to be in that pot too. They call it the Autism Innovation Fund and according to the NAS News webpage, it was also announced on November 7th and that particular £1.2m seems to have been allocated already, to 42 projects. This seems strange, as if it is the same grant, this means it would have been spent ahead of the announcement. It's either a mystery, or the usual smoke and mirrors...

There is a danger it gets spent on something meaningless.

There was a project not so long ago where various organisations were funded to produce on-line training materials for health professionals. Some of the funded projects produced something they already had, and the money presumably go spent elsewhere. Some argued that the funding didn't pay for website costs making the packages publicly accessible, so they never went on line. Some were only available to members of professional bodies, or only at a high cost to the public.

The upshot was, despite being funded, individuals had to pay quite a lot of money to see the packages, let alone use them. Nothing was done to investigate whether the money was properly spent.

I'd have to say, regrettably, you probably wont see much useful outcome from this fund either.