The Missing Second Name: When Signatory Rules Decide Who Gets Funded

In September 2026, a grants panel approved £2,400 for a weekly lunch club in the city. The decision was sound. The need was clear. Yet the money did not reach the group's bank account for six weeks. The delay had nothing to do with the merits of the application. It came down to a missing second name.

The club's bank account required two authorised signatories. One had stepped back from the trustee board some years earlier; the other was the current treasurer. The bank mandate had never been updated. The group had the will, the volunteers and the approved grant. What it did not have was the administrative capacity to unpick a mandate that had quietly fallen out of date.

The safeguard we all believe in

Two-signature rules exist for good reason. They reduce the risk of fraud, error and misuse of public money. For any funder, including The Mayor's Hope Fund, they are part of a wider system of checks that protects applicants, trustees and the communities we serve. No one is arguing that safeguarding should be abandoned.

But a safeguard designed for a medium-sized charity does not always fit a group run by four volunteers from a church hall. The question for 2026 is not whether controls matter. It is whether the controls we use are proportionate to the grant, the group and the risk.

Where the friction actually sits

The signatory problem rarely announces itself at the point of application. It surfaces later, when an offer is made and payment is prepared. By then, a group may have told its members that funding is on its way. It may have ordered supplies or booked a room.

Common barriers include:

• an out-of-date bank mandate that still lists a former trustee;
• a second signatory who has moved away, become unwell or simply stopped attending;
• trustee identity checks that require documents a volunteer cannot easily produce;
• dual authorisation tokens held by only one active volunteer;
• a bank that requires a branch visit or a certified resolution;
• a treasurer who is willing but has no finance background and no paid support.

Each item is small. Together they can consume weeks. For a £500 grant, the administrative cost of releasing the money can approach the value of the grant itself. That is not a reason to remove checks. It is a reason to design them with the smallest groups in mind.

The smallest groups carry the largest load

The groups most likely to be affected are often the most trusted locally. They are lunch clubs, parent-and-toddler groups, gardening projects and befriending services. They may have one treasurer, three trustees and no paid staff. Their governance is real, but their capacity is thin.

When a funder asks for a second signature, the group must find a second authorised person who is available, verified and able to act. If that person is also a volunteer with a job and caring responsibilities, the delay is not a sign of poor governance. It is a sign of volunteer capacity.

Funders should be honest about this. A process that requires two signatures is not neutral. It favours groups with enough people, enough time and enough confidence to navigate bank systems. The Mayor's Hope Fund is reviewing how that plays out in its own grant-making.

What The Mayor's Hope Fund is changing

For the 2026 winter grants round, we are piloting a signatory readiness conversation at the offer stage, not after the first payment request. Applicants will be asked to confirm who can sign, whether the bank mandate is current and whether any trustee changes are under way. Where there is a problem, a named grants officer will explain the options rather than simply returning the form.

We are also testing a proportionate fallback for small grants. Where a second signatory is genuinely unavailable, we will consider evidence of trustee approval, a current bank mandate and a plan to restore dual authorisation within an agreed period. This is not a loophole. It is a risk-based approach that keeps scrutiny in place while recognising the reality of volunteer governance.

We will publish a plain-English signatory checklist for applicants. We will accept digital copies where the bank permits them. And we will keep the two-signature rule as our default, because it remains the right default for most grants.

Safeguarding is not the same as rigidity

There is a temptation for funders to treat every administrative requirement as a sacred principle. It is not. Safeguarding is a principle. A particular form, bank token or branch visit is a method. Methods can be adapted when they exclude the groups they were meant to protect.

That does not mean lowering standards. It means being clear about which risks we are managing and which barriers we are accidentally creating. A funder that pays slowly, or not at all, because a volunteer cannot get a second signature is not safeguarding money. It is withholding it from the community that needs it.

What groups can do now

Groups applying to The Mayor's Hope Fund in 2026 should check their bank mandate before they apply. Confirm who is authorised to sign, tell the bank when trustees change and keep a short record of the decision. If a signatory is stepping back, start the update early. If the group is unsure, contact us before the payment stage rather than after.

The Mayor's Hope Fund exists to support civic life in our city. That support is only real when the money arrives. The signatory problem is not a footnote to grant-making. It is part of the decision about who gets funded. We intend to make that decision more fairly.