Tessa Jowell

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This is the edited text of the keynote speech given by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to Lottery Monitor’s 7th Annual Conference on 3 July 2003

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It is hard to imagine what Britain would be like without the lottery. Cornwall without the Eden Project. Newcastle/ Gateshead without Baltic Mill and no Angel of the North. Manchester without the Commonwealth Games. And for thousands of voluntary and community groups, their ambitions for their communities unrealised. But we don’t get better just by celebrating what we have achieved. We need to move on. One year ago, seven years from when the lottery started, was a good time to take stock. The review I announced in July last year was set up to do just that. I want to make it clear that there were some things I didn’t want to change about the lottery. There are two great lottery principles that should never change. The first is that the lottery should have the flexibility to lead, not to follow trends: it should act as the venture capital for communities up and down the country. Giving people and communities who cannot access the more orthodox financial routes a chance. Reflecting their ambitions in doing so. We are a pluralistic society and the lottery should reflect that. The second principle is, remember who we work for. People’s confidence in the lottery will only be sustained if they know that their money is spent in a way that they understand, with real consultation with them. I also want to make sure that any changes that are introduced don’t diminish the role and focus on the regions of England and on Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

So what needs to change? Broadly, we need to make sure that it is as simple as possible for people, communities and organisations to get access to grants and advice. We need to widen public support for the lottery. So we must explain to the public what the priorities for spending are. Ask them whether they agree. What they might do differently. Asking the people what they want can be, for politicians and bureaucrats, a painful business. But we mustn’t be afraid of it. It’s their money, not ours. 

The merging of the Community Fund and NOF will continue:

• It will lead to half of all lottery monies being distributed by one body.
• It will create an organisation capable of handling non-lottery funds.
• It will present applicants with a single body that they can approach for advice and for grant-making.
• It will become one of the great forces in the land for community renewal.
• It will be able to take the lead in projects which cut across boundaries.

But I promise you it will retain its capacity to work independently of government, be politician proof.

Its capacity to champion the vulnerable and the unpopular will no doubt at times infuriate government ministers. But we must live with that.

Overall, there will be seven new forms of grant coming into existence. Awards for All, which has been such a success, will be expanded with a new upper limit of £10,000. There will be many more micro-grants of £500 or so available to small community groups. The new Olympic Lottery Fund will for the first time produce a hypothecated funding stream. A Young People’s Fund will be fully established within a year as part of the new distributor.

With all the distributors, we will press them to do everything they reasonably can to get the public’s money into public hands, not sitting around in balances. The white paper sets out a number of measures we want to take. But the most important part, for me, of this paper, are the proposals it has to give the lottery back to the people and thus to widen the people’s support.

There will be new common branding for all lottery beneficiaries. The lottery logo, based on the crossed fingers, will for the first time mark exactly how much has changed in this country thanks to the lottery.

For the distributors there will be more citizens’ panels and juries in regions to advise on where money should go. This is equally and especially important for the community and charitable funding stream. Who better to decide on how money should be spent in a community than the very people who live there and know what local priorities should be? And a new focus of this work is a new National Lottery Day. This will be an annual event where not only will major prizes be available to players, but also lottery-funded projects throughout the UK will, wherever possible, fling open their doors for free.

I hope that those who have benefited from the lottery – and a number have already made this offer, athletes and artists – will use that day to offer the precious gift of their time, in order to inspire the next generation. This day, starting next year, will become an annual UK Festival. The issue of distribution and promotion is just one side of the coin. We have also been considering how best to protect the goose that lays these golden eggs – the game itself. We will inject significantly greater competition into the licensing process by moving away from a requirement for a single major licence competition every seven years.

We will give the regulator the ability to offer for competition a range of licences to run different parts of the lottery.

These changes will also allow for licences of different lengths. It will be up to the regulator to decide the scope of the competitions and to determine the length of the licences. These changes and the Olympic Game and the NOF/CF merger will require legislation and we will bring forward proposals as soon as Parliamentary time allows.

All in all, and just in time for its 10th birthday, this is the biggest overhaul of the lottery since its inception. I passionately believe that permanent revolution is essential to the lottery’s continued health and vitality.