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From
the April 2001 Issue
Contents:
Lottery
Faces Biggest Shakeup from Review Changes to the way the National Lottery is run will be decided by a DCMS review due to start shortly - general election permitting. Barbara Bloomfield reports. last year's problems with the Lottery operator saga have convinced Chris Smith that something needs to be done in order to prevent the Lottery becoming a virtual monopoly for the licence-holder. There
are two main options for change that he will have to consider during the
review. Firstly, breaking up the licence along the lines suggested by
the recent Department of Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee
report in order to grant separate licences to individual games.
Secondly, nationalising the Lottery, an idea being championed by Gerald
Kaufman MP, Clare Ward MP and Derek Wyatt MP - all leading lights on the
DCMS select committee - but one that might be seen as politically
sensitive in the run up to an election and is being played down by the
government. The
DCMS is looking forward to a settling-down period for a Lottery that is
'entering a mature stage.' The government has left behind the
earlier-expressed wish to see a not-for-profit operator and the current
thinking can be summed up as "If it brings the best return to good
causes, then why not a profit-making operator?" The department
wants to see a steady, reliable income from the national game rather
than a great surge in income from gambling. However,
the biggest issues from their point of view are to ensure a smooth
transition from one licence to the next and to support the efforts of
the Boards to distribute money more fairly. Camelot's
view is that any fears about lack of competition for the next operator
licence will melt away because of changes to the way in which the game
is played. One insider commented that: "Within five or six years,
much of the play will be on-line. Other bidders will be happy to come
forward at that point because there won't be the same risk involved in
putting millions of pounds upfront." Pressure
is growing from different sources to agree a common strategy for
returning cash to different parts of the UK. The Royal Town Planning
Institute is recommending that lottery spending in each region should be
linked to local ticket sales. This would produce 'allocations' for each
region or town based on the amount spent on Lottery tickets and scratch
cards. The
RTPI thinks ticket sales would improve if players believed the benefits
would return to their home areas. At the moment, they say, people from
deprived areas are less likely to apply for funding and less likely to
get it. However,
pressure is growing from local authorities (see pages 6+7) to link
Lottery distribution to the Index of Local Deprivation in England, and
its counterparts in the Home Countries. Statistics this month form
Murray McDonald show that Lottery funding allocations seem to have
little connection with the deprivation indices and reinforce the view
that Lottery funding can be a hit-and-miss affair. Of
the ten most deprived local authorities in England, six manage to make
it into the top ten percent in terms of per capita spending on Lottery
projects. They are Tower Hamlets, Liverpool, Hackney, Newham, Manchester
and Hartlepool. However,
one authority, Middlesborough, falls just outside the top 10% and three
- Easington, Blackburn with Darwen and Knowsley - fall way down the
table and have the greatest disparity between need and Lottery awards. Mr.
Smith will also have to take into account the recommendations of the
House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report of February which
called on the government to let local authorities have a greater say in
determining where Lottery projects should go. The Regional Development
Agencies are among the local and regional bodies that are clamouring to
be given a slice of the Lottery pie to disburse. But so far, the
determination of the Boards to hang onto their own budgets, has
prevailed. The
former political features editor of the Independent and ex-deputy editor of the New
Statesman, Jane Taylor, takes over next month as the new editor of
Lottery Monitor. Jane,
who has been a journalist on the national political scene for many
years, takes over from Barbara Bloomfield, who is leaving to pursue an
interest in scriptwriting for television.
Greater
decentralisation of Lottery money is likely to be the consequence of the
Arts Council of England's decision to unite with the 10 Regional Arts
Boards to create a single arts funding and development organisation for
all the arts. The structure of the new Arts Council will be revealed in
July and established by December 2001. It
will mean job cuts, but also “offer significant national advantages
and, most importantly, major opportunities to serve the arts in the
regions more effectively in the future." Welsh
people are sportier than ever before, according to new research
published by the Sports Council for Wales. Since the last study in 1998,
levels of participation in sport have shot from 47% to a new high of 55%
- the highest recorded level of participation since monitoring began in
1987. The study also found worrying differences across local authority
areas. Three
hospitals are today welcoming the announcement of new cancer fighting
equipment by the New Opportunities Fund through its £150 million Living
with Cancer programme. This announcement is in addition to more than 420
pieces of cancer equipment previously announced, which are benefiting
people in over 200 hospitals, and to the 91 community based.
The
second biggest grant ever made by the Charities Board - £1,369,107 -
will go to the British Trust of Conservation Volunteers. The
project will work with groups who are under-represented in conservation
and environmental activities. The grant, over three years, will pay for
14 new development posts.
The
consultation for the Opportunities Fund's third round has broadly
supported the Government's proposals to spend the money on more
provision for children, outdoor activities for young people, chronic
heart disease and stroke prevention, an environmental fund, cancer care
and small Awards for All.
With
England's sports facilities firmly in the spotlight following Denise
Lewis's remarks about their 'shoddiness', there has never been more need
for improvement. The various sources of funding that are available to
improve existing community sports facilities is set out in Sport
England's latest publication.
In
response to the increased stress faced by rural communities due to foot
and mouth disease, the NLCB has announced its intention to target
charities that work with these communities. Organisations
will be invited to discuss potential applications to fund projects
helping rural communities affected by the current epidemic as well as
isolation, the decline in agricultural employment, the withdrawal of
services and the devastation caused by the recent floods.
The
Film Council's Premiere Fund has named the first feature film projects
to be backed by its £10m annual Lottery purse. World
Class athletes in the East Midlands Region are today celebrating £2.7m
in grants for elite training facilities from the Sport England Lottery
Fund. Timothy
Hornsby has said goodbye to the National Lottery Charities Board. But
not to the National Lottery. After leading his Board since
The
poor performance by his own local authority inspired Senior Lottery
Officer, Murray Macdonald, to compare grants awarded with the Index of
Local Deprivation for England. dentifying
parity in funding is never simple but many areas are still losing out
when it comes to needs-based Lottery awards. Those
famous footballing clichˇs 'over the moon' and 'sick as a parrot', may
be due for updating at Macclesfield Town Football Club, according to the
club's Director. We look at
some of the other projects funded by the CALL programme, and here at
third division Macclesfield Town, plans to open a new state-of-the-art
community based ICT centre are nearing fruition.
Over
500 centres have got the go-ahead to link into the UK online network
that will bring up-to-date technology to local communities, backed by £14
million from the New Opportunities Fund. So
farewell then, the National Lottery Charities Board. After five and a
half years and more than 37,000 grants, the body that has changed the
face of the voluntary sector is undergoing what its leaders call a
'radical makeover.'
Chris
Smith has announced that the lion's share of money from the New
Opportunities Fund third round will go to school sports. |
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