Dunmore calls for bold thinking by minister

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As we await the Lottery funding green paper, the scope and shape of the debate is starting to emerge. Jane Taylor reports

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The two pre-eminent Lottery distributors – the New Opportunities Fund and the Community Fund – have both fired their opening salvos on the issues at the heart of the forthcoming government review of the Lottery funding process. The official Green Paper is expected to be released on or around July 3, the date of Lottery Monitor’s annual conference. The DCMS has sought the initial views of the distributors ahead of the green paper’s release. In an article written for Lottery Monitor this month, Stephen Dunmore, chief executive of NOF, issues a challenge to the Culture Secretary to be true to her call for a radical rethink. ‘The least we are entitled to expect,’ Dunmore writes, ‘is a bold exploration of key issues’.

NOF’s chief executive goes on to suggest that the Government might want to specify more tightly in future how all the Lottery boards should spend their money. At present NOF receives detailed

policy directions for its programmes, but the other distributors’ directions allow them far greater discretion in the design of their programmes. Addressing the core question of what Lottery funds are for, Dunmore poses a dramatically different funding structure comprising two key agencies, one for handling small community-oriented grants, the other for the large-scale delivery of ‘community services’ in partnership with a range of stakeholders. The Community Fund has set out its first thoughts in a 20-page submission to Tessa Jowell, outlining the views of its board on the main themes. The CF welcomes the minister’s proposed rule change that will allow it to distribute non-Lottery funds. CF chief executive, Richard Buxton, says such a power would ‘enable us to make steps towards a common front door’ for voluntary sector funding across a range of government agencies beyond Lottery streams.

The CF is keen to explore further possibilities for local decision-making, such as trialling local funding committees in Fair Share areas, or delegating funding powers to local organisations where, according to Buxton, ‘we want to get closer to communities’. The CF’s northwest region is considering giving delegated powers to a local organisation to fund black and minority ethnic groups in the region. And Buxton confirms the CF’s strong interest in developing micro-scale awards of £500 and less. Buxton also confirmed that the CF is ‘determined to go ahead’ with a joint scheme for community halls – a longstanding bugbear of the distributors.