In brief

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Cash mountain moves
The DCMS is issuing guidelines to all lottery distributors on how they can improve their grant-making and thereby start to reduce the £3.5bn cash pile sitting in the National Lottery Distribution Fund. At the heart of the new guidance is a requirement that all boards adopt a ‘balance policy’ to justify why they are holding large sums in the NLDF. Annual reports will have to account for any deviations from each distributor’s own target balances. 

Play inquiry
The DCMS and DfES are formally consulting on a strategic review of children’s play facilities, in order to decide how to frame the distribution of a forthcoming £200m NOF lottery programme (see Lottery MonitorNov 2002). The consultation paper can be downloaded from www.culture.gov.uk/role/consulta-tion_page.html; closing date for submissions is 7 March. 

UnLtd opens
The consortium running the Millennium Commission’s £100m social entrepreneurship endowment fund has finally been cleared to start work, and is now taking applications from individuals. See www.unltd.org.uk/ oa_intro.php for details.

Scots distributor
The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations has called for a single distributor to replace the mix of devolved and UK-wide lottery boards operating there. In a policy paper released last month, it urges the Scottish Executive to press for legal reform to enable change of funding body to take place. It goes on to propose a stop gap measure: to expand the proportion of funds available to Awards for All, and an extension of its powers in terms of maximum award size and project purpose. Read the paper at www.scvo.org.uk/