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The DCMS has approved a new direction to Camelot giving it a formal duty in future to improve public awareness of the lottery, promote where the money is going and what its benefits are. The new duty, drawn up by the lottery regulator, forms the legal basis for setting up the Joint Promotional Unit.
An ad has gone out for the director of the JPU, who will answer to a board made up of Stephen Dunmore (NOF chief executive, for the distributors), Phil Smith (head of marketing at Camelot) and Siobhan Kenny (Communications director at DCMS).

Until the director is appointed, Graham Newsom, DCMS head of communications, will be working informally to put the JPU’s structures in place. The unit will have a staff of five, including the director, all employed by Camelot. Its first year budget is £3m, rising to £5m in year two. Half of this will be Camelot’s contribution, the rest will in effect be top-sliced from the good causes distribution fund.

The unit’s work is likely to concentrate on local promotion to begin with, in an attempt to increase public awareness from its current low base of about one in four having any knowledge of a local lottery-funded scheme.