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No cut in the amount of lottery money going to charities, says lottery minister John Penrose
By John Plummer, Third Sector Online, 16 June 2010
He tells Stephen Bubb, Kevin Curley and Sir Stuart Etherington that the sector will not suffer from plans for Big Lottery Fund
Stephen Bubb, head of sector chief executives body Acevo, has said he received assurances from lottery minister John Penrose that proposed changes to the distribution of good causes money will not reduce the level of funding going to the voluntary sector.
Bubb, Kevin Curley, chief executive of local infrastructure group Navca, and Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the NCVO, met the Conservative minister this week to discuss government plans to reduce the proportion of lottery money going to the Big Lottery Fund from 50 per cent to 40 per cent.
Ministers plan to increase the proportion awarded to arts, heritage and sports distributors from 16.6 per cent to 20 per cent, some of which will go to charities.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is consulting on the proposal, which could be phased in from April next year.
Voluntary sector organisations are concerned they will lose out if the BLF, which gives 92 per cent of its grants to not-for-profit groups, receives less money. But Bubb said Penrose assured him this would not happen.
"The minister clearly appreciated how important the BLF is for Acevo members," said Bubb. "We will look to work with him closely over the coming months to ensure that the voluntary and community sector remains able to draw on this vital source of income, particularly when funding is becoming harder to access in other areas".
Bubb said Penrose was also very receptive to concerns that Government plans to limit distributors' administration costs to 5 per cent could lead to "perverse incentives for funding to be channelled to fewer, larger organisations, disproportionately damaging small community organisations".
Curley said Penrose "understood our concern that if more money is going to the arts and sports and less to charities then it should be money for community arts and community sports, not elite arts and elite sport".
In a statement, the NCVO described the meeting as "positive".
A DCMS spokeswoman said it did not comment on ministers' meetings with groups.
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James Renton, 17 June 2010, 22:30
Sorry Mr Penrose I do not believe you!!!! But it will not be possible for me to prove it one way or another for a couple of years and you will have plenty of time to fix the figures by then anyway – so that is handy for the coalition.
The obvious answer to the situation is a joint Awards for All scheme \(for all grants below £10,000). This situation existed until a couple of years ago!!! For example ringfencing 50% all the extra lottery cash going to the arts, heritage and sports and channelling it directly in to a joint fund for supporting community projects with an arts, heritage or sports theme \(the rest of the extra money can be used to top up existing schemes). Managed jointly it will save money, reduce bureaucracy and be more transparent. So the chances of it happening are NIL.
What the third sector does not fully realise is that the move to deny community groups access to lottery cash is intentional – they want and need to wean the sector away from what they see as its grants dependency – to make it leaner and meaner and not rely on grant handouts – this is as ideologically driven as Mein Kampf or Das Kapital – it just has not been articulated in the same way. The arts, heritage and sports will be given extra time to go cold turkey and some pet projects may never suffer the chills but Messer's Budd, Etherington etc please get it in to your heads they do not like grants FULL STOP!!!
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