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Lottery fund 'evades minorities'

23/10/2007

A government-supported fund set up to distribute national lottery proceeds is not reaching social and ethnic minorities in the UK, a report has said.

According to MPs on the public accounts committee (PAC) the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has "found it difficult" to provide grants to under-represented groups.

The House of Commons committee says the fund, which has awarded £3.8 billion in grants to 24,000 projects since its inception in 1994, has led to a "wide range of benefits" for British heritage projects.

"The fund, however, is not able to demonstrate effectively its impact in opening up the heritage to people from deprived or minority backgrounds," today's report states.

"Although projects are largely delivered to time and cost, the fund has done little to tackle the poor project management skills of some grant recipients. It intends now to invest more effort in helping less experienced applicants develop and deliver their projects."

From April 2009 onwards, £160 million of funds will be channelled away from the HLF towards the 2012 London Olympics by the government, with a further £95 million earmarked for diversion as well.

"The money available to support heritage projects will be sharply cut between 2009 and 2012, as a direct result of the government diverting more than £160 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund to help pay for the Olympic Games," commented PAC chairman Edward Leigh.

"The fund will have to work hard to make ends meet."

Mr Leigh continued: "With less money to go round, the fund should look harder at whether applicants have exhausted other sources of funding.

"And it must have a sharper sense of what its funding is achieving. The fund must also ensure that it distributes money as fairly as possible. It needs to stimulate good quality applications from hitherto under-represented groups so that they gain access to lottery funding; and it must work to remove bureaucratic hurdles faced by applicants."

MPs write in their report that the HLF has committed itself to grants 64 per cent higher than the amount of money it has received from the national lottery.

To address this shortfall it plans to only award £180 million per calendar year from April 2009 onwards, compared to the current yearly average of £325 million.

An HFL spokeswoman explained that the figures did not represent the fund over-committing itself as grantees were able to draw the money as and when they needed it over a period of time.

Lottery funds were also able to acquire interest during the same period, she added.

A statement from the fund responding to the committee's findings elaborated: "Significant steps have already been taken in the areas highlighted for improvement in the report.

"The report recognises that HLF funding will have to work harder in future, as money available to the fund to make new grants is, for a number of reasons, due to drop significantly after 2009.

"The fund is already working closely with customers to maximise partnership funding and ensure that every penny applied for is needed."