Reader survey 2002

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Jane Taylor dissects your annual verdict on the lottery and the distributors 

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Thanks to all of you who again responded to our annual readership survey in goodly numbers and with plainly expressed views to pass on. We slightly modified the questionnaire this year, mainly to avoid too much overlap with our Lottery Officers’ survey (see September Lottery Monitor). We also wanted to keep tabs on shifting agendas – hence the question about joint working; and we wanted to gauge the level of take-up on the Government’s lottery review, which is, frankly, disappointing in view of the stream of criticisms you continue to provide us with.

The big messages? In summary, our new question on joint working reveals strong disaffection with all boards, while in other respects the boards’ performance is holding up well. Many of you have an eye on the big picture: there are clear background concerns about future funding levels and the direction of funding in general. And you continue to hammer home the call for clearer, simpler processes. No surprises there.

Figure 1

Detailed results
The numbers of you working on lottery matters are pretty stable: for the third year in succession just under 60% said that their numbers had stayed the same (figure 1). One third – same as last year –had a rise in personnel, but this year we can identify that it is charities / voluntary groups rather than local authorities who are more likely to be increasing their lottery staff.

Figure 2

Perhaps predictably, your rate of improvement in securing funds is slowing down (figure 2), with one-third reporting an increase in success this year, as against 43% last year. It’s worth noting that here, again, there was a differential, charities trailing the success rate of local authorities by 13 percentage points. More than a half of you this year are maintaining your funding success (39% last year); and there is a smidgeon of good news in the fact that fewer are doing less well (13% as against 18% last year). Your concern about the diminishing pot of money this year is all too evident (see below). 

Ranking the boards
Some lessons are getting through. Your scores for the boards’ efficiency this year (figure 3) show that they are all now performing to a pretty similar standard, bunching tightly around the ‘average of averages’ score of 3.4. Last year’s grand average was 3.41, but there were bigger differences between boards, with arts lagging behind and Awards for All racing ahead. Is it too obvious to suggest that the drop in your evaluation of A4A’s efficiency this year had something to do with the Golden Jubilee awards?

The scoring is not so tight when it comes to clarity (figure 3). More remarkable here is the consistency of scores between last year and this, which might suggests that none of the boards has gone out of their way to improve their information and communications. That would be harsh, though. We know that where boards have undertaken strategic reviews this year (eg Community Fund, Heritage, Sport Scotland) and overhauled their programmes, any resultant streamlining, rewritten literature and hence improvements in clarity won’t yet have fed through to most of you on the receiving end. We await next year’s scores with interest. The breakdown of your satisfaction levels with the boards reveals some shifts from last year to this (figures 5 and 6). Awards for All, while still attracting mainly highly positive feedback, has slipped back in your ratings just a bit for both efficiency and clarity. The backward slide for the Community Fund is more dramatic: above average satisfaction is down from more than 60% on both criteria last year to 40% (efficiency) and 45% (clarity) this year. Sport retains high approval levels; and if NOF’s lack of clarity irritates people, it has had a thumbs-up this year for efficiency.

And so to joint working (figures 4 and 7) in which you blow a loud collective raspberry at all the distributors. Small comfort for the sports boards that they topped the averages with a modest 3.1. All boards need to note the uniformity of your experiences: the disapproval ratings are too high across all distributors and exceptionally bad for Arts.

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Figure 4

Perhaps we were guilty of having focused your minds too much on joint working, but it featured strongly in your comments about the boards. Some said it politely: ‘More joint working and move towards joint terms would be favourable’; ‘Boards need to strategically link up. Eg: sport taking away from SureStart initiatives locally is not helpful.’ Others were blunter: ‘None, bar NOF, have a clue about partnership with each other.’ The other big category of complaint about the boards was confused information: ‘There are so many different contacts to register with you find out later that even though you thought you were on a database you’re actually not.’ ‘It is not always clear about which board is the most appropriate eg, we were recently advised at an assessment that one part of the project would be more suited to the relevant arts council, but when we spoke to them, they said this was not necessarily the case.’ ‘Confusion is still apparent about where to submit (joint) applications’ As previously, you also threw in specific brickbats and bouquets – and the Community Fund gets both: ‘Community Fund offer good advice and strategic guidance.’ ‘Good circulation of information from HLF and CF’.

Figure 5

‘Very positive about NOF / Heritage regional offices but drastically under resourced to achieve their objectives.’ ‘Your Heritage initiative is a big step forward.’ And … ‘Community Fund delivery / performance doesn’t match the rhetoric.’ ‘There seems to be a real gulf in professionalism. The Community Fund falls a long way behind the other distributors.’

What’s wrong with the lottery?
The first thing to note is that you were split 54% to 46% between those who have responded to the Government’s review and those who haven’t. Among charities the split was 45% yes, 55% no. Too busy, or just cynical about the political process? Probably a bit of both.

Here, in order are your six top concerns about how lottery funding works:

Complexity and bureaucracy
Up from fourth last year to first, this category was runaway winner. ‘Still very complicated’ sums up an air of weariness about it. The messages could not be clearer: ‘complication of which funder to approach’, ‘application process to complex’, ‘too difficult for the lay-person…’ and on and on.

Turnaround times
It was second last year, and is again. ‘Lengthy process’; ‘Too long a wait until notified of success of bid’; ‘Turnaround times (not quick enough)’; ‘Time to process forms’; ‘timescales’. Allied to this were concerns about the time and cost of bidding – which featured much less prominently this year than last, and comments about too many programmes.

Decline in lottery income
This is a new concern, but an obvious one given the well-publicised drop-off in ticket sales over the past six months: ‘Lottery fatigue leading to reduced income’; ‘Fall in money available’; ‘Reducing funds available’ and so on. 

Irrelevant funding priorities
This complaint is a version of the ‘unfair targeting’ charge which made the top six last year. There were targeting criticisms this year, but also concerns that funding

Figure 6

priorities of boards are irrelevant or too strategic or not strategic enough to fit the needs of applicants. For instance: ‘Funding priorities don’t meet local needs’; ‘take more account of rural deprivation’. ‘Targeting too strategic and missing grass roots needs’; ‘Socially directed funding means other deprived areas miss out’; ‘Too much targeting specific deprived areas’.

Clarity of information
This topped the list last year, so maybe things are improving a bit. But confusing information, communication problems and lack of feedback on applications are perennial criticisms: ‘Boards are quite elusive when link officers try to work with them’; ‘poor feedback on failed bids’; ‘Information not updated regularly eg. NOF website don’t remove programmes which have closed’; ‘decline reasons too vague’. 

Political interference
A new concern which scrapes in: comments include: ‘Too influenced by government agenda’; ‘NOF priorities determined by government’; and several non-specific ‘political interference’. Not counted in this category but worth a mention was ‘insistence on additionality’!

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