Examination of Witnesses (Questions 488
- 499)
TUESDAY 19 DECEMBER 2000
MR STEPHEN
DUNMORE AND
MS VANESSA
POTTER
Chairman
488. Good morning. Thank you very much indeed
for coming to see us. We are well under way now. We are in a little
bit of a limbo as to knowing who is going to operate the Lottery
but somebody is going to do it. Meanwhile, I think this is the
first time we have had you before us.
(Mr Dunmore) Indeed.
Chairman: Therefore, we are particularly
interested in what you have to say. I will ask Mr Fearn to start
the questioning.
Mr Fearn
489. You receive a great proportion of Lottery
proceeds from other distribution bodies. Are you confident that
you can spend such large sums effectively?
(Mr Dunmore) Yes. I think we certainly are confident
about that. As you know, under our current programmes we have
been given an amount to deliver of £1.5 billion. We have
been in existence now for something like just over two years and
in that time we have set up 13 different programmes under those
first six initiatives. All of those programmes are now live. We
have made grants so far of £125 million and we have committed
another £511 million to projects, so we are almost half-way
through committing the money under the first six initiatives.
It is important to remember that the policy directions, which
we have been given, in most cases give timescales for our delivering
these initiatives, and most of the programmes that we are running
go on until 2002 to 2003.
490. What do you mean by timescales?
(Mr Dunmore) What the policy directions say is that
we should distribute the money to projects, under the terms of
reference of that particular initiative set out in the policy
directions, within a given timeframe. For example, in terms of
childcare, we have (from memory) five years to deliver the childcare
programme, which is £220 million worth of grants UK-wide.
So I am really just making the point that one needs to look over
the lifetime of the programme. Obviously we will be judged by
our results and how effectively we performed, once we have all
the grants out of the door, but we are making very good progress.
491. Do you expect the same sum of £1.5
billion for the next licence?
(Mr Dunmore) What the consultation paper that DCMS
has issued says is that the new initiatives which they are proposing,
on which they are consulting, will amount (from memory) to £1.45
billion. So, yes, it is roughly the same amount for our new initiatives.
492. Do you see yourselves taking on the Millennium
Commission's role as funding body of last resort, as it were?
(Mr Dunmore) No, I do not think my Board would see
us as the funding body of last resort. We have very specific programmes
and projects to fund under health, education, and the environment.
It is interesting though that, in some respects, we will take
over the mantle of the Millennium Commission. Just to give you
one particular example. The Millennium Commission have been particularly
good at funding a whole range of small-scale environmental projects.
We would be able to do that through the initiative that we are
rolling out at the moment, the Green Spaces and Sustainable Communities
initiative. There will also be opportunities for us to fund community-based
environmental projects through one of our new initiatives, Transforming
Communities, which is one of the ones that are set out in the
consultation document.
493. We have just been to America—on a
hard working tour, I might add—and whilst we were over there,
we found out that lottery proceeds there do go to education. More
often than not, they are for students from disadvantaged backgrounds,
to enable them to go to university. Is there anything in your
opportunities which does that?
(Mr Dunmore) Not currently. But we are funding that
sort of work in, shall I say, indirect ways. One of our initial
set of programmes is out of school hours learning, which can apply
to children up to the age of 16. We have £205 million for
that programme UK-wide. We have allocated almost half of that
already to a wide range of schemes which are about giving children—particularly,
as you mentioned, disadvantaged children—opportunities which
they might not otherwise have, to build their confidence and build
their skills outside the classroom, and then to take those skills
back into the way they perform in classroom study through curriculum
subjects.
494. Where do the applications come from for
those initiatives?
(Mr Dunmore) For that particular initiative, what
it says in the policy directions and what we have translated into
the way we deliver the programme, is that there has to be a named
school or schools for each of the projects. Therefore, applications
may come from individual schools. They may come from groups of
schools working together. They may come from voluntary sector
bodies. We have some very good instances of that where voluntary
sector bodies have got together with a whole range of schools
to deliver, for example, a particular activity in art or drama.
But, also, applications may come from LEAs, who can put together
consortium applications across their particular area involving
the most disadvantaged schools. There are some advantages to that
in terms of strategic planning and making sure you target on schools
that are most in need.
495. How many are you turning down? What proportion
of those that apply are you turning down?
(Mr Dunmore) I think it is quite successful in that
respect, which may be a reflection of the fact that we are getting
the application form more-or-less right. We are approving over
three-quarters of the projects that come into that programme.
For consortium bids that come in under the out of school hours
learning programmes, it is a good deal higher than that: at the
top end of the 80s, 90 per cent.
Mrs Golding
496. I have had my copy this week from Camelot,
telling me of the small amount of money they have allocated to
my constituency, Newcastle-under-Lyme, but I do not see the New
Opportunities Fund mentioned in it at all. How do I identify the
areas where grants have been given and where you have put in money?
(Mr Dunmore) Although it is perhaps not appropriate
here, we can rehearse the grants that we have given in your constituency.
Just to paint the general picture, we write to all MPs about all
of the grants we award in their constituencies. I know a lot of
paper crosses your desk so that may not always get through to
the parts that it needs to reach. We post all of our grant awards
on our web site, which is obviously accessible to anyone who wants
to get into it.
497. It does not really answer my question.
I have no mention of you in the grants that have been awarded
and I have been sent the full list. Is it because you have not
made any grants in my constituency?
(Mr Dunmore) No, we have made a number of grants in
your constituency.
498. Why would you not be in the list? Why would
your name not be there?
(Mr Dunmore) I am not quite sure whose list this is.
Is this Camelot's list?
499. Yes.
(Mr Dunmore) Is it meant to be a comprehensive list
of all the grants made to your constituencies?
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