Government calls for evidence about Lottery Good Causes

The UK government has recently launched an open call for evidence - National Lottery Good Causes: Fund what matters to you. It is looking at how good cause funding is distributed and ensuring that the voice of the whole country is heard.

It is important that as many Network members as possible respond to the call to make our voice heard so our organisations and the communities we serve are not disadvantaged by any changes.

Currently lottery money is distributed to four types of good causes. Arts & Culture (20%) through Arts Councils or equivalent bodies in each nation, Sport (20%), through sports bodies in each nation and UK-wide, Charitable activities, health, education, and the environment (40%) through the Community Fund and Heritage (20%) through the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The government has statedthree objectives for the Call for Evidence. They are:

Responses are via an online survey. Although there are 28 questions, most are factual questions about your organisation and experience. Below are some first thoughts about some of the more significant questions. They are my initialthoughts, not necessarily the Network’s. We want to hear from you before we make our final responses.

Questions 6-12 ask us to prioritise areas of activity for receiving good cause funding, say if we want any changes to the percentage allocations or whether there should be additionalgood causesectors. It also asks about whether national or local funding should be prioritised, whether allocation to different areas should be on the basis ofneed or whether it should be based on how many lottery tickets were sold.

My first thoughts on this are that the current percentage allocations are a bit arbitrary, but they are simple and that avoids a lot of argument. At a time when NLHF are facing unprecedented demand for their funding, it would be easy for us to shout “give more to heritage” but then if the arts, sport and community did the same we would just waste energy arguing that our cause was more important. I certainly think the four areasare broad enough that they can encompass any good cause that people are likely to want supported and therefore the Government should not think aboutadding any others.

The current arrangement gives us certainty which, as social entrepreneurs, is what we need, which is why I would prefer these allocations to be reviewed as infrequently as is possible.

When it comes to geographical distribution, doing this on the basis of need seems to make sense so that lottery funding addresses disadvantage, but ‘need’ may mean different things in each of the four good cause areas. Of course, as a Network of (largely) local organisations we favour prioritising local funding but not forgetting the importance of national infrastructure bodies (like us) to support local organisations.

Questions 13 – 15 focus on the second objective of the consultation. This sounds good in principle. Who doesn’t want to empower communities? In fact, we are thinking of calling one of our next major projects ‘Empowered Communities’. 

The two examples given by the Government of empowering communities are the Heritage Fund’s ‘Heritage Places’ and Sport England’s ‘Place Partnerships’. The Network are strong supporters of Heritage Places andwe are working directly with a number of them. That’s why we understand (and their Interim Evaluation Report confirms) the challenges they have faced in terms of lack of clarity about first steps and speed of implementation. We know that the National Lottery Heritage Fund are learning lessons from these early experiences. Initiatives like Heritage Places and Place Partnerships led by statutory bodiesinvolve a lot of scoping, infrastructure development, partnership building and strategising. When Government talks about ‘empowering communities’ is this what they mean?We support place-based approaches, but they need a light touch which ensures priority is givento actionto meet community needs. 

Could “empower communities to make decisions” be looked at differently? When communities make the decision that they want to save and re-use a building or a green space, let’s empower them to do it.Could communities be empowered more effectively and efficiently by giving them agency to develop projects to meet their needs, use the application process to demonstrate local support and how they fit into wider local needs,get them funded and crack on with implementing them?

Questions 17-27 ask about your experience of applying for Lottery funding and how it could be better. Here we really need your help. We think the experience of applying to the NLHF has become a lot easier and more positive. We certainly like the new investment principles and the simplification of funds so that there are muchfewer special funding pots. But then we are seasoned fundraising professionals so maybe you would expect us to say that.How has it been for you applying the Heritage Fund or any of the other distributors?

We would love to hear your thoughts about the key questions in the survey. We will aim tosubmit our response during the first week of September so please email me at david@heritagenetwork.org.uk and tell me what you think.

The Call for Evidence is open until midday on 23rd September. Find out more and submit your response here National Lottery Good Causes: Fund what matters to you - GOV.UK (external link) (opens in new tab)