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A joint promotional unit to boost public awareness of the benefits and beneficiaries of lottery funding should be up and running by April. The Culture Secretary confirmed her enthusiasm for the idea in her ‘Salford speech’ (see story, left) when she said: ‘The Government is responding to public demand for more information by setting up a small unit to promote the lottery good causes as a whole.’ The JPU, as it has become known, will be housed at the headquarters of the New Opportunities Fund in central London. Although details have not yet been officially confirmed, insiders say that it will have a budget of £3m a year, at least to begin with, and a small staff of four or five. It will be overseen by a management board comprised of a single representative each from Camelot, the DCMS and the lottery boards. The boards are said to be unhappy about having just the one seat on the board. Camelot is putting up half of the funding for the unit. The rest will come from the money destined for good causes, top-sliced at a very early stage from the cash that Camelot hands over to the main distribution fund. In her speech, the Culture Secretary also referred to the likelihood of compelling all beneficiary projects to display ‘prominently’ the national lottery’s official crossed-fingers logo. This symbol is not the same as the Camelot logo, and is owned by the government rather than the operator, but has wide public recognition as a lottery symbol.

In the past certain distributors have refused to accept similar proposals from Camelot, on the grounds that it would be inappropriate, for example, for high art or cultural artefacts to be adorned with a lottery logo. It is likely that such objections will be overridden in future.