In brief

back to the contents page

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

NAO delay
The internal report which the Community Fund commissioned from the National Audit Office to review its handling of the awards to the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns is unlikely to surface before the end of the year. Laura Brackwell at the NAO told Lottery Monitor: ‘The NAO decides what and how to report, not the client. It is up to us. The end of November is not going to happen, it will be more like the end of the year.’ The NAO will decide also whether the final document will take the form of a publication or a ‘management report’, though Brackwell said: ‘We would take account of the topical-ity of the subject’. A management report would not go to the NAO’s political masters, the Public Accounts Committee, unless they requested sight of it. 

Sales downturn
The lottery operator Camelot has announced a further drop in sales for the six-month period from April to September. At a total of £2.2bn, sales were down 5.2% on the equivalent period last year. The fall-off in play is concentrated on the main Lotto jackpot game, with side games including HotPicks, scratchcards and Thunderball holding their sales better. Income generated for the National Lottery Distribution Fund during the period was £612m. If this level of return is repeated for the second half of 2002-03, money available to the good causes will fall short of the DCMS’s forecast by £130m.

Scots partners
NOF Scotland has confirmed the appointment of award partners for two forthcoming round three programmes. Transforming Waste will be led by Forward Scotland in partnership with the Recycling Advisory Group Scotland, Scottish Environment Protection Agency and Keep Scotland Beautiful. Transforming Your Space is an extension of the current Fresh Futures scheme and will be led by the same partnership of Scottish Natural Heritage and Forward Scotland.
Both schemes are open grant programmes, each worth £5.25m and should be accepting applications in February 2003. Watch this space.

Charity guidance
The Charity Commission has produced new guidance for charities wanting to make ‘social investments’: to lend or give money to causes that help to further the objectives of the donor charity. The investment normally takes the form of a ‘soft’ loan, in which it is rarely expected that there will be a repayment of the capital sum, let alone a return on capital.
The latest CC guidance can be downloaded from www.charitycommission.gov.uk