A shake-up of the way money is handed out to voluntary health organisations is expected in Bradford following criticisms of the way the new Care Commissioning Groups in the city handled applications.

It is possible the system of grants could be abandoned altogether, with a new arrangement where voluntary groups would have to bid for contracts to provide services used by the public.

Discussions are still under way and the CCGs, which organise the provision of services used by the city’s GPs, are also looking at ways to ensure small organisations which offer highly-valued services do not miss out in any change.

Problems arose when the CCGs took over from the Primary Care Trusts in responsibility for some of the grant cash the PCTs previously distributed.

A total of 142 organisations put in bids totalling £10.5 million in value but the budget was £3.4m and 107 applications had to be rejected. The CCGs accepted in a report: “Naturally, this has led to a lot of disappointment and objections.”

Details were discussed at a meeting of Bradford Council’s Health and Social Care Scrutiny Committee and CCG spokesman Kerry Weir told the meeting: “We had a lot of feedback. We want to learn from any mistakes we made.

“It may be a grant process is not the most robust commissioning process.”

An option could be to develop specifications for what services were needed and then invite tenders for them, she said.

The committee has asked that the outcome of the CCG’s review should be shared with them when it is completed.