Time to Think about the Lottery Fund

email to a friend

Published: 19 November 2008

Time to Think about the Lottery Fund

The Big Lottery Fund is urging organisations and individuals across the UK to engage in the debate on how BIG’s funding should be allocated through its grant programmes between 2009 and 2015. BIG is expecting to distribute over £2 billion over the coming years.

Big thinking (www.big-thinking.org.uk), the Fund’s public consultation launches on Monday, 17 November 2008 and is open to all individuals and organisations across the UK. The fund is responsible for distributing half of the UK’s good causes Lottery cash.

Sir Clive Booth, UK Chair of the Big Lottery Fund said, “We must ensure that BIG can make the best possible contribution to communities and people most in need over the next six years.

Sir Clive Booth continued: ”The financial turmoil of the past weeks has been unsettling for communities across the country. All the evidence shows that it is the worst off who will be affected most. This makes our Big thinking conversation even more important. We want to hear from you how Lottery funding can best benefit communities. Make your voices heard and help influence where Lottery money goes.”

Big thinking is giving everyone the chance to have their say through a series of national, regional and local face-to-face events and online channels including questionnaires, blogs and videos at www.big-thinking.org.uk. It will look back at what has been achieved from the accumulated experience of more than ten years of Lottery funding and what the Fund can do even better with guidance and opinion from the general public plus voluntary, charity and public sector organisations.

Central to the public consultation will be ten ‘BIG Questions’ plus specific questions to reflect the individual priorities of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Questions include:

- Do you agree we should have a greater focus in our funding to benefit those most in need?
- After 2012, when our 60-70 per cent undertaking ends, should we continue to guarantee a percentage of our funding to the voluntary and community sector?
- How can BIG best help build lasting partnerships and networks that support communities and people most in need?
- Are there opportunities for joint funding that BIG should take up?
- Do you agree that the theme of isolation provides a useful starting point for our funding?

Peter Wanless, UK CEO of the Big Lottery Fund commented, “Everyone’s opinion counts and will help form our funding strategy for the next six years. A fascinating feature of the consultation is the learning we can draw from being a UK fund that – within common principles and values – is developing in significantly different and distinct ways in each of the four countries of the UK. In Scotland, we have experimented with a ‘single front door’ for lottery applications. In Northern Ireland we have just launched Building Change Trust, a ten year commitment to support change in the voluntary and community sector.”

Peter Wanless continued: “We listened and learnt from our last consultation by introducing significant improvements to how we fund, pioneering full cost recovery and extending the length of our typical awards up to five years, offering community organisations far greater opportunity to plan for a sustainable future. Now is the time for everyone to get involved in what happens next.”