How Lottery funding should change

How lottery funding should change

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We asked you, our subscribers, to give us your views on the Government’s review paper. We asked either for short viewpoints that reflect your organisation’s own response, or else to be able to select extracts from your official response. Here is a selection of views (we have paraphrased the questions to save space)

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Summary view: Louise Doret, Funding Development Manager, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Recently I watched a little girl grin and tentatively drive her wheelchair out over the Avalon Marshes for the first time. She was ‘test driving’ a new boardwalk before its opening this month. The Avalon Marshes are beautiful wetlands on the Somerset Levels and previously inaccessible to anyone without a good pair of boots and strong legs to match. The project is just one of many that the RSPB has been able to start with the help of the lottery. But the natural heritage has not had an easy ride. Were it not for Heritage Lottery Fund, the lottery legacy for the countryside, and nature conservation in particular, would be thin indeed. It remains the only lottery distributor with ongoing programmes and policies that can fund nature conservation priorities and has an in-depth understanding of natural heritage. But HLF’s countryside allocation is only 8% of its total funding. Even the New Opportunities Fund, with ‘environment’ a stated cause, can only fund nature projects with an estimated £25m of its £125m ‘Green Spaces…’ pro-gramme. While appreciated, these funds are a tiny proportion of the total lottery cake, given the popularity of the countryside with the public (this is ‘the people’s lottery’ after all) pressing environmental needs, and the importance of the environment as a pillar of sustainability (which all distributors must address). There is certainly a strong case for an increase in ongoing lottery funding for the natural environment as a ‘people’s priority’ – the voluntary support of five million people for environmental organ-isations in the UK is some testament to this. But we’re missing a wider opportunity to recognise the environment as a root cause of other problems in society (health, for example) and perhaps to address it through cross-distributor cooperation. Environment issues are complex and not always straightforward to deliver, so it would seem sensible to make good use of HLF’s grant-giving experience in this field and enable it to deliver a substantial programme on behalf of NOF. Food for thought.

Summary view: Bill Mitchell, Head of Fundraising, Sense Scotland
The consultation paper on the Review of Lottery Funding is to be welcomed and raises important questions on how to improve and promote the existing system.

On several occasions, however, the paper does ask the question ‘What proportion of money raised by the lottery is it right to spend…?’ Whilst accepting that promoting awareness to both players and those applying for grants is vital we would see this as a joint responsibility on the lottery distributors, the Government and Camelot plc. All have benefits to gain from a successful lottery and therefore all should contribute to any new costs in this respect. It is worth remembering that although good causes have received £11.8bn, the Government has received £4.5bn in direct lottery duty over the same period.

One of the most important areas which has to be addressed is how smaller groups access funding? Many are unaware of how the lottery can benefit their work or are put off by the red tape and bureaucracy that they see in the process. It would be of great assistance if all the distributors could provide staff, similar to assessors, who would take groups through the process, assisting them with how to make their case and the actual writing of the application. We would note some concern over the possible inclusion of local councillors on awards committees and feel that it would be more beneficial to include a greater level of individuals who are directly involved within the local voluntary sector.

Extracts from submission: South Tyneside MBC

More consultation on how to spend the money?
We would strongly support the use of representative citizens’ panels, which we use regularly and find useful. Most local authority areas in the north-east have citizens’ panels and it would reduce duplication if the lottery taps into this.

How to improve boards’ local needs assessments?
Lottery distributors need to take time and money mapping their respective sectors on a regional and sub regional level, making optimum use of the large amount of information already available from local government and the voluntary sector. It would be helpful if it was a joint distributor assessment in association with local authorities to avoid different distributors’ models drawing conflicting conclusions and the expense of separate assessments.

Are micro-grants a good idea?
There is a need for grants under £500 in the communities we serve and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find such funds. They would have a large impact relative to the small size of grant. However, unless bureaucracy is kept to a minimum, it will cost a significant amount to administer relative to the size of the fund.

How much should be set aside for targeted funding?
A large percentage – something in the region of 60% – for the 20% most deprived areas.

Should boards spend more on helping individual projects?
Yes. Currently most contact ends at the announcement of the grant. Initiatives such as the new post-grant meetings between the Community Fund and grant recipients seem like the way forward.

What form should a one-stop shop take?
A dedicated officer paid for by all distributors, working in one area who could do promotional work and advise regional offices on local issues. It would not need to be prohibitively expensive: all distributors spend money on outreach; if this money was pooled it could go a long way to meeting the cost. Organisations such as ourselves may also be keen to chip in some of the cost, such as free accommodation.

Should one-stop shops be UK-wide?
They should be targeted at deprived areas and other areas with depressed uptake of lottery funds and should be long-term initiatives, with continuous evaluation of their effectiveness.

Is there scope for more partnership working?
Yes. Distributors rarely talk to each other on a local or regional basis and don’t communicate with organisations such as LSPs and regional cultural consortia very much or very effectively. This could be alleviated if there were fewer lottery boards to establish partnerships with.

Is additionality still relevant?
Yes. It is still an essential principle in ensuring that the lottery remains distinct from public spending and remains the people’s money.

Should distributors be merged?
There is definitely merit in the merging of distributors. The situation is far too complex at the moment with too many people handing out lottery funds. There would be both economies of scale and more focus and experience-sharing across good cause areas if this were the case.

How would a single distributor retain specialist expertise?
In our own organisation there is a much wider range of expertise than at the distributors and the fact that this is managed within one organisation is not seen as surprising. Lack of specialist expertise would not be a problem in a well-managed organisation.

Summary view: Peter Longman, Director, the Theatres Trust
Our interest is very specific, because the Theatres Trust was created by Parliament to protect our theatres and to make them better. In 1993, just before the lottery came along, we published a report, which the Government had commissioned, on the condition of theatre buildings. It showed that, although theatre is the art form for which Britain is best known throughout the world, theatre buildings were generally old, badly run down through lack of maintenance, and the newer ones had often been put up on the cheap and were frequently in a worse state than the old ones.

What was needed then, and is still needed, is a 10-15-year programme of major investment. The Heritage Lottery Fund seems to be managing it for museums, which were in a similar state 10 years ago, but other lottery distributors are now being asked to do so many other things to meet social and other agendas, with reviews and changes in legislation and a general moving of the goalposts every couple of years, that arts buildings seem to have been left behind. Every other week I read about some new project (usually funded by the Millennium Commission) which has failed to meet its overambitious income and audience targets and is now in trouble. In the meantime, much of the infrastructure remains neglected. In major cities such as Glasgow, Sunderland, Bristol, Leeds and Portsmouth, the biggest theatres have yet to see the benefits of lottery investment. The fact that some of them are commercially owned or managed should not be a bar to support. Why should audiences at the Bristol Hippodrome be discriminated against on that basis compared with those who visit the Grand at Wolverhampton? In London, the West End didn’t even rate a mention in the London Arts Board’s Capital Strategy, yet its theatres are a crucial magnet for tourism and the UK economy. Let’s spend the money wisely so that there is a lasting benefit in terms of regeneration and tourism and making our artistic and cultural heritage attractive and accessible.

Extracts from submission: Bedfordshire County Council

What forums for wider consultation?

Regional and countywide strategic lottery fora
Citizens’ panels/li>
Randomly selected panels of previous grant recipients./li>

Should we avoid targeting different sources of funds at the same areas?
It is to be avoided if there is no need in these areas. However, where there is a need for a holistic approach to solving community problems, different money should be targeted at the same areas.

What proportion of lottery funds should be targeted?
10-20%

What is the added value of lottery funding?
It is important to address needs which mainstream funding does not.

How should different funding sources be made complementary?
Consult at the design stages of funding streams and produce a ‘route map’, or ‘family tree’, of funding sources so that they can be related to each other, by fun-der and beneficiary alike.

Should we have endowments?
Yes, there is some scope. For example, by investing in Community Foundation endowment funds. But there should be a mechanism to ensure that the need served by these endowments will be long-term and that endowments can be ‘re-routed’ if the original need no longer exists.

There should be no anguish about ‘funding the few’ if they are proven to be in greater need than ‘the many’.

How to support social enterprise?
Any initiatives to support social enterprise would need to be conducted in conjunction with the DTI Social Enterprise unit and other expert bodies, such as the New Economics Foundation. Distrib-utors would also need to work in conjunction with Community Development Finance Initiatives and Community Involvement Tax Credits, etc.

In addition, investment in local dissemination events, such as the Mid Beds Funding Fayre, has demonstrated the effectiveness of such events, in getting money to those people and organisations who have good project ideas, but limited fundraising expertise.

Should funding be outcomes-based?
If there is a real need for taking a strategic approach to solving particular problems, there is a good case for prescribing outcomes. However, if outcomes are prescribed in an arbitrary, or reactionary way, there is a danger that the outcomes will not meet the needs of the community. Consequently, applicants with worthy projects, but with different outcomes to those prescribed by distributors, will be barred from receiving much needed funds.

Greater emphasis on programmes evaluation?
Yes. The East of England regional Lottery Forum, is currently working on performance indicators which link lottery grants to impacts on quality of life. The distributors could adopt similar PIs.

How to speed the delivery of project cash?
Allow projects to draw down funds before securing matched funding. If a project management team has demonstrated its competence and commitment to success, trust these managers to secure the matched funding for a good project and in the meantime give them the funds to begin the project, if the project is needed.

Summary view: Robert Wilkinson, National Lottery Officer, Camden LBC

This is a comprehensive consultation document with a wide-ranging series of questions – 61 in total with not a tick box in sight. It does beg the question as to how DCMS staff are going to analyse so much free text. There does, however, seem to be a genuine attempt to consult (no deadline in August!) and to get as many ideas as possible as to how National Lottery funding can be delivered more effectively.

There appears to be concern to keep lottery funds as distinctive as possible, but what I feel does need more strategic work is how this money links in with wider regeneration or developmental initiatives. In other words, there is a slight contradiction in keeping it so distinctive that it bears no relation to other funding streams. There are a lot of questions about how the distributors can do more to help generate good-quality bids and encourage risk and innovation, a clear ministerial priority. Whilst I am in general agreement with most ideas flagged up in the document, as I worked my way through, the thought crossed my mind that the majority of these have a cost implication. I wonder whether taking more money for what can only be called ‘administration’ is really a good idea. So out goes the regional one-stop shop, the new promotional team, the ‘Lottery Day’ (sadly). What does need including is the support and outreach developments to get funding to the parts most other funders miss.

Maybe as I get older the mud gets stickier but I found myself trying to justify retaining the best of what the lottery has achieved and to consolidate rather than a ‘starting all over again’ approach. A pity, as I did so much want to do for the Arts Council…