The results of a cross-ministry, in-depth review into government funding of Portugal’s wide reaching system of public and privately run foundations that received in excess of €1bn over the 2008-2010 triennial, were released on Thursday.

For example, the FCM – Foundation for Mobile Communications, a joint project involving the country’s three main mobile phone operators, received a total of €454.4m over this three-year period.

Already slated for closure, following its work at promoting digital communication in schools and the community and a computers-for-school-children project, the foundation received a grade of 66.5% in three-criteria evaluation process: effectiveness, sustainability and relevance.

Over this period, there were over three million citizens who directly and indirectly benefited from its services with other institutions returning far lower rankings.

The report condemns a series of entities run by the Ministry of Education with the University of Lisbon Foundation getting a 7.8% evaluation and returning zero for effectiveness despite receiving in excess of €12.5m in funding over the 2008-2010 period.

This was but one of three university foundations receiving government funding that failed to clear 30% in their respective evaluations.

However, it was not all doom for the education sector, the Catholic University of Portugal Foundation managed to turn in a classification 60.5% and does not even receive any state funding.

Indeed, the partially state-funded Higher Education Evaluation Agency managed to almost make it into the positive zone with a 49% classification.

Finally, it was also not all bad news as for many foundations there was no news.

Rui Maurício, Vice-President of the Amália Rodrigues Foundation, resulting from the last will of Portugal’s most famous fado diva, claimed he “hadn’t a clue why the foundation had not been evaluated.”

Maurício added that they had submitted all the paperwork requested and had not been contacted subsequently.

The Amália Rodrigues Foundation is one of 37 foundations on a list of “not evaluated due to a lack of information” and is joined by entities including the Salgado Zenha, Nadir Afonso, Hispano-Portuguesa Rei Afonso Henriques, Sousa Cintra, and Luís Verney foundations.