Barbara Edwards

back to the contents page

An edited version of the speech given by the Deputy Director of the Coalfields Communities Campaign to a DCMS Coalfields Conference in November

Make sure you receive your fair share of lottery cash - take out a no-obligation trial subscription today.

In terms of the take-up of Lottery awards, the coalfields are starting from so far back in the race that any improvement still leaves them running well behind. It’s difficult to be effusive about improvements in our performance when we remain well and truly at the bottom of the pile.

There are three measures already available that could and should be significantly increasing the coalfields’ share of Lottery cash.

The first and probably the most important watershed was the 1998 Lottery Act, which set up the framework for the Lottery to help deprived areas. We now have the New Opportunities Fund, and the distributors can solicit applications, delegate decision-making and enter into joint schemes.

The second and third measures stem from the first coalfields Lottery conference in 1998. There was the Brass for Barnsley initiative, where intensive input from the NLCB (now the Community Fund) more than doubled the value of Barnsley’s Lottery awards within a year. I understand that Brass for Barnsley is the blueprint for the new joint CF/NOF initiative to target £150m on 50 deprived communities. I only hope that the scheme will follow to a tee the hands-on approach that made Brass for Barnsley so successful.

There was also the 1999 Sheffield Hallam University research commissioned by DCMS, which quantified for the first time the amount of Lottery money going into coalfield communities. We at CCC expected a low figure. But never in our wildest dreams did we anticipate that the per capita share would be less than half the national average. The research came up with 15 recommendations and the DCMS was quick to set up an action group comprising civil servants, the distributors, the CCC and latterly the Coalfield Regeneration Trust to help drive them forward.

So there is a framework to help the coalfields to get their fair share of Lottery money. But have the necessary measures been put in place and are they working? Does more need to be done?

In the last three years the coalfields per capita share, at £35, has only gone up to 60% of the national average. Londoners, at £258, still get seven times as much. Most disturbing of all, however, is how much these disparities have cost and are still costing coalfield communities. In the last three years the coalfields got £180m of Lottery awards when the population, at 8.8%, dictates that our rightful share should have been nearer £296m: a loss of £116m. Add this to the £266m lost prior to 1998 and you get the mind-boggling figure of £382m of Lottery money that belonged to the coal-fields, but which has gone elsewhere. And this debt continues to get bigger.

In England 19 of the 50 most deprived areas are coalfield local authorities. In Wales 57 of the 100 most deprived wards are in the coalfields. How much difference an injection of £400m would have made.

I do acknowledge that changing the balance of the Lottery is a big job. And I do acknowledge the efforts of the Sports Councils and, particularly, the Heritage Lottery Fund. The per capita value of awards from these two funders is up from 46% of the 1998 national average to 65% in the case of sport and from 42% to 79% for heritage. Unfortunately the contribution from the Arts Council sinks even lower — coalfields getting only 23% of the national average. Surprisingly the per capita take-up from the CF, at 67% of the national average, remains virtually unchanged since 1998, and from NOF the coalfield share is only 56% of the average. 

Does more need to be done? From CCC’s perspective, yes, a lot more. I want to focus on three suggestions which I believe would make a difference.

1. Distributors joining forces
One-stop Lottery shops jointly funded by all the distributors should offer hands-on advice from project conception to completion. They should provide free technical support, like architects, accountants, surveyors, etc. They should provide the expertise to facilitate capacity-building and encourage bids (such as in Brass for Barnsley) and they should help develop linkages by building up (and where possible employing) a network of successful local applicants who can provide mentoring. And all of this would be under one roof with a sign above the door which says nothing more than ‘The Lottery’. 

2. Funding in the long term
The research recommended that the distributors, where appropriate, should give serious consideration to endowments as a way of providing long-term revenue funding. We need to know whether or not endowments will become an option. And if not, the distributors need to come up with an alternative.

3. Targeted funding
I know there are examples where some targeting is happening. Sport Action Zones include three coalfield areas. I am confident that the new CF/NOF initiative will also include quite a number of coal areas.

But will targeting through selective initiatives be sufficient to redress the balance? I think not. So I propose a more radical approach: that serious consideration be given to putting the brakes on awards to the more successful areas, to allow deprived areas to catch up. For the coalfields this would involve diverting appropriate levels of funding from each of the distributors into a dedicated coal-field Lottery fund. This would run for a time-limited period and focus entirely on bringing the coalfields up to speed: in effect a Brass for Barnsley operated by all the distributors for all of the coalfields.

I can think of no other way to bring to a halt the continuing haemorrhage of Lottery money that rightfully belongs to the coalfields. I ask that the Secretary of State, civil servants and the distributors seriously examine this proposal as a rapid and certain solution to the problem.