Examination of Witnesses (Questions 500
- 519)
TUESDAY 19 DECEMBER 2000
MR STEPHEN
DUNMORE AND
MS VANESSA
POTTER
500. Yes. National Lottery in your Constituency.
(Mr Dunmore) I do not know the answer to that but
I can certainly provide you with a list of all the grants we have
made in your constituency.
501. It certainly seems odd. Perhaps somebody
else is claiming the credit for the money you have given. The
Sports Council or something like that?
(Mr Dunmore) It is a matter for Camelot to decide
what they put round to people. This is all in the public arena.
My colleague reminds me that the information that Camelot put
out to constituency MPs is based on the DCMS awards database for
all of the distributors, and that is based on the information
we give to DCMS. I can only think that in your case it is the
point in time at which they identified the information but, as
I say, we are very happy to give you a list of the grants we have
given in your constituency. Indeed, we do that on a regular basis
for all MPs.
502. It just seems odd that it is not included
in this massive send-out. However, thank you for that. You also
say that you are half-way through giving the money out. Is it
that you have a lot more money to give than you have had sufficient
applications?
(Mr Dunmore) It partly relates to the issues of timescale
that I was discussing with your colleague. A number of these programmes
run over three to four years in terms of application. That is
set out in our policy directions. Generally speaking, we are now
approaching the half-way mark for most of our programmes. Indeed,
as I say, we have allocated almost half of the funding. Clearly
the rate at which we do get funding applications does depend on
setting up a programme and setting up a customer friendly system
in terms of application forms and processes, whereby applicants
can easily get to us and put in good quality applications.
503. So if more people applied now, you would
still be able to allocate some of your funds?
(Mr Dunmore) Indeed. Under all of the programmes,
(I think I am right in saying), there is substantial funding remaining,
except for cancer machinery in England, where we have allocated
all of the money to cancer machinery. Also, the broader conventional
palliative care programme, where we have already allocated £23
million to that programme in England.
504. It is interesting that this project should
say that, because we have had money for cancer machinery in my
constituency but it is not mentioned in this lot here. Anyway,
that is by the by. The other thing, is the money you have in reserve
for new grants based on what you anticipate the Lottery is going
to bring in? And if it does not bring in as much money as you
hope, what happens to the fund?
(Mr Dunmore) The £1.45 billion that the Government
is suggesting will be spent on the new initiatives, on which it
is consulting, which is based on the Government's forecasts of
the flow of Lottery funding over the next three to four years.
Clearly we then have to base our planning in terms of our cash
flow and the rate at which we get the grants out of the door again
on those forecasts. There are a range of forecasts—low,
medium, high—and we tend to be reasonably prudent and stick
to the low to medium forecasts. There is a clause in all of the
grants that we make—and this is obviously to protect our
own position in terms of the grant conditions that we ask people
to observe—which makes it very clear that the grant that
we are making will be subject to the availability of funding from
the National Lottery.
Derek Wyatt
505. We have had quite a discussion in America
about issues of additionality, yet you have health and education
which comes pretty close to whatever the rules and regulations
and words say of crossing the additionality divide. How do you
feel about that?
(Mr Dunmore) Additionality is an issue that my Board
takes very seriously. The definition that Ministers use is one
that we feel comfortable with, which is that Lottery funding—and
this does not just apply to the Lottery funding that comes to
the New Opportunities Fund—should be additional to current
and planned public expenditure. I know that you had evidence from
the Arts Council recently. I was struck by the fact that Peter
Hewitt said that the grant-in-aid that the Arts Council disburses
from Exchequer funding, goes towards the core infrastructure of
arts in this country and Lottery funding, in addition to that,
goes towards providing time-limited innovative support for various
arts projects. So what I would say is that the issue of additionality
is one not only for the New Opportunities Fund but also for the
distributors in general. Our approach to it is obviously focused
on the individual grants that we make. We make it very clear in
all of our grant programmes—and, indeed, in the criteria
for our assessment which we publish under our grant programmes—that
we will not fund activities which are not additional to current
and planned public expenditure. Just to give you an example. When
I first arrived in this job I had some discussions with an LEA
in London, (who shall be nameless), who said to me, "We have
been funding out of school hours learning through a very well
developed and sophisticated programme across our LEA area over
the past five or six years. Now you have arrived we will stop."
The answer to that was, "I'm afraid that's not how it works."
In terms of individual projects' submissions, we look very carefully
at additionality arguments. If it seems to us that projects are
not additional to public expenditure, then we will turn them down.
It is interesting that most of our applicants understand this
very well, whether they are from the voluntary or from the statutory
sector. There are very few cases where we have to take issue with
them over additionality but we do look at it very carefully.
506. Where you have had to do that, can you
give us an illustration of how you would resolve it? You do not
have to name the area but could you name a project or a type of
area?
(Mr Dunmore) Sometimes it is not entirely clear, so
we will then discuss the issues with the applicant. You will appreciate
that there are very grey areas in this because a lot of the Government's
funding programmes that might relate to areas of our spend are
time-limited. One thinks of out of school hours learning or healthy
living activity centres, which might have been supported in the
past through the Single Regeneration Budget or through European
funding. In those sorts of cases we tend to try and be reasonably
flexible because they are very much time-limited programmes. They
always were time-limited programmes. We will discuss with the
applicant how we might not substitute obviously for those programmes
but come in on the back of those programmes and give added value
through doing something new and slightly different. Those are
the sorts of discussions we have with the applicants. Just to
make a final point, the New Opportunities Fund is very much about—and
this was said by the Government when we were set up and it is
reflected in our own policy directions, it is reflected in our
own objectives—complementing other sources of funding (Government
funding but also other funding) in a joined-up way. One of the
ways in which we do add value is by contributing to cocktails
of funding. In many of these areas, like out of school hours learning
and indeed activities around cancer prevention and palliative
care, there are great opportunities for us to put in some funding
and add value to what others are doing.
507. I suppose our nervousness about additionality
was that (a) it became political and (b) it then became a sop,
"They are always going to fund us." When you say time-limited,
in the cancer cases where you are funding, in a sense, how can
that ever be time-limited?
(Mr Dunmore) What you are really touching on here
is the issue of sustainability.
508. Yes.
(Mr Dunmore) The background to that is that all Lottery
funding is, by definition, time-limited. A number of our programmes
run for quite a long while. We can fund healthy living centres
for up to five years which helps. We can fund out of school hours
learning for up to three years.
(Ms Potter) Just to add to that. As Stephen has said,
it is an issue that all Lottery distributors have to look at and
take very seriously but there are a number of things we have done.
For example, on the palliative care and information side of our
cancer programme, we have assessed applicants on their long-term
funding plans. We have also talked to them about the need to diversify
their funding from the very beginning. We try to ensure that they
involve a partnership, where they are applying to us so that they
have a slightly stronger experience of fund-raising. We have tended,
in a programme like that, to be funding slightly more innovative
areas, or areas that are not already involved. We are putting
a very strong emphasis on evaluating, so there is a clear idea.
509. Can you illustrate. It is very hard for
me to understand what all that means. If you can give a concrete
example of funding, we can better understand what happens when
the funding goes down.
(Ms Potter) The cancer programme, breast cancer care,
we have made a grant to. The grant is to provide a local breast
cancer information support service for black and ethnic minority
groups. The funding will be used to build capacity in that sector.
To try and identify what the actual information needs of the black
and minority ethnic minorities are, because that was one of the
things which was very much identified in our consultation, as
a gap in cancer provision for those communities. Also, then help
to develop and implement development plans to provide services.
What we will be paying for is three part-time regional co-ordinators
in the north west, north east and the East Midlands, and a volunteer
services support worker in London, who will set up four outreach
programmes and four new networks. The intention is very much that
they will try this model, see if it works, and if it works they
will then try and use their general fund-raising experience, either
working with statutory bodies or more widely to develop that programme
UK-wide.
510. That seems to me to be additionality, forgive
my ignorance. That is something that the state should do because
if you are targeting it why are we not targeting it? It is not
a criticism of what you do but I am just trying to better understand
this grey area of additionality.
(Mr Dunmore) Certainly I think it is a grey area and
we acknowledge that. There may be an argument that it does not
do to be too precise about these things because areas of health
and education are today funded by a large range of different sources,
not least by the private sector in terms of capital spend on hospitals—and,
indeed, now on schools—through the Private Finance Initiative.
So my view would be that while one needs to treat this with care
and caution, not least in political terms, the funding world has
changed and we are now in a scenario where in many areas one can
give added value by building up partnerships and cocktails of
funding. The other point I would make is—and in a sense
it relates to what you were saying—a number of the areas
that we are funding are relatively new and experimental. Out of
school hours learning is one. There is some evidence that it works
but we need some more. Another one, which is new and experimental,
is the approach which we fund through healthy living centres.
Now, if over three to five years we can demonstrate conclusively
that healthy living centres have real health benefits for communities,
and that out of school hours learning has real benefits for children
in the classroom, then I think there will be an impetus there
for the Government and other statutory funders to think, "This
is an area which we should be funding." In that sense, we
will be judged on our results. These are all areas which ultimately
could be funded by the Government.
511. Could I move to NESTA, which is also a
responsibility.
(Mr Dunmore) No, it is not.
512. Not for you?
(Mr Dunmore) No.
Derek Wyatt: I beg your pardon. I thought
it came under the New Opportunities Fund. I am ignorant.
Chairman
513. That is a problem, is it not? You say in
your memorandum to us that you are proud of your work and, indeed,
the list of things that you have done is impressive. On the other
hand, whereas the other areas of the Lottery funding are very
precise and clear, it seems to me that among the public at large,
including those who might apply to you for grants, there is not
a clear grasp of what you do and what you are for. That it is
rather amorphous and nebulous. The actual results of what you
are doing are far from amorphous and nebulous. Nevertheless, it
may well be that people who might be eligible for grants from
you may not come forward because they are not as clear about what
you are doing as they are with the other Lottery grant organisations.
(Mr Dunmore) There may be an element of that, in the
fact that we are still relatively new compared with the other
distributors. People were very familiar with them. They are less
familiar with us. We have put a great deal of effort into publicising
the programmes that we fund. I mentioned our web site previously.
I know that web sites do not reach all the parts but we have also
consulted very widely on our first round of programmes and we
have regional seminars, which went down to quite a grass roots
level, consulting about our programmes. We have been building
relations with a whole range of partners and bodies, including
the voluntary sector umbrellas, like the CVS. It is still fair
to say—and it does not surprise me particularly—that
recognition of us as a distributor, according to polls which have
been taken, is still quite low compared with some of the other
distributors who have been around for longer.
(Ms Potter) There is an inherent challenge in this.
We have very clear programmes. Amongst our target groups, and
potential applicants for the programmes, there is a fairly high
level of understanding. That is showing itself, in some of our
programmes, in exceptionally high success rates. The breadth of
what we are funding does present us with an overall challenge
as an organisation. What we have tried to do is to concentrate
very hard on getting messages out about Lottery funding. Going
into local communities and being accessible. Perhaps some of the
reasons why we were set up was about the perception that there
was not the funding going into smaller local community groups
or going to benefit communities, so we have been trying to concentrate
on that. The point Stephen made about the fact that we are still
relatively new did present us with a challenge, and the fact that
there is a general level of confusion about Lottery distribution
more widely.
514. But the others: Sport, Arts, Heritage,
Charities, Millennium, they are very clear indeed. Everybody can
classify those. If you were to have been asked whether you should
be called the New Opportunities Fund, could you come up with a
clearer name because, in a sense, it means everything and nothing,
does it not?
(Mr Dunmore) Yes. It is not a particularly helpful
name in terms of getting our messages across to the various constituencies
out there. But may I add, building on what my colleague said,
that our programmes are indeed very specific. So for the people
who are involved in those areas—for example, out of school
hours childcare—they all know about us. There is no doubt
about that. There is a very large childcare constituency out there.
So we are getting our messages across to the people who need to
put in applications to us for each of our programmes. It is perhaps
also worth saying that I recognise what you say about confusion
between distributors. We are working very hard with the other
distributors to try and improve that situation. We are, for example,
going to launch in the new year between all the distributors—at
least the London-based distributors and perhaps from some of the
other countries as well—a joint web site so that people
can come to one place on the web site and ask questions about
what sort of funding would be most appropriate for them. Then
we can take them through the process. We are also going to set
up a joint telephone hotline with the same sort of effect.
515. Will people have to visit your web site
first? When you are talking about childcare, I think childcare
is an extraordinarily valuable thing. There is an organisation
in my constituency called Trinity House which, in fact, was very
grateful for a grant from the Lottery Charities Board. It helped
them enormously. They are very active and well-focused people
but I do not know whether they would have known that they could
come to you.
(Mr Dunmore) Do they fund childcare schemes? Let me
just say, in terms of child care, perhaps the infrastructure is
there to a greater extent than with some of our other programmes
because in terms of childcare DfEE is funding local childcare
partnerships in each area. Now I would be very surprised if, given
the breadth of those partnerships, that Trinity House were not
aware of the childcare partnerships. They are meant to pull together
all the different sources of funding for different types of childcare,
whether it is out of school hours childcare or whether it is early
years, or whatever it is. They are meant to produce a strategic
plan for the provision in their area, which is one of the aspects
we take particular account of when we are making decisions on
how we distribute the childcare money.
Derek Wyatt
516. I have been trying to persuade my Committee
to change the way the Lottery might work. If there was more sympathy
it might greatly impact on what you do. The principle is that
10 per cent of the total Lottery spending is constituency, which
stays in the constituency and is able to be spent on out of school
hours or on a cancer scanner or on anything that the local communities
wanted. But what you are saying is that you have quite long-term
commitments to funding, three to five years, and that any change
to the Lottery would seriously disturb your thinking.
(Mr Dunmore) I think my response to that—and
I am sorry if it is not a very helpful one—is that clearly
any changes of that kind to the way in which Lottery money is
distributed, is a matter for Government and for Parliament.
517. Sure, I understand.
(Mr Dunmore) If decisions of that kind are taken,
I think the Government would need to take account of the forecasts
of Lottery income and the commitments which have already been
built up by all of the distributors. Therefore, for a change of
that kind, there would have to be a period of bringing that in,
which might be over two or three years.
518. Sure. On both your living centres and your
clubs, have you targeted and said, "These are the areas that
are most needed"? Do you go out proactively and say, "Please
send us a bid because you are the sort of people who deserve to
get it"? If you do, have you found it to be more or less
successful? This is because my community has bid, and we are one
of the poorest communities in the country, but we have not yet
been successful.
(Ms Potter) We have targeted slightly differently
across our programmes. One thing is worth saying—and this
is mentioned in our submission—that the Board's intention
is to remain relatively small and strategic. We do not necessarily
imagine that we are a development organisation, so what we have
tried to do very hard is to work with other organisations, who
have expertise in fund-raising and working with communities. For
example, on the out of school hours learning programme, we have
worked very closely with Education Extra, who have been at the
forefront of promoting out of school hours activities. They have
done some very targeted seminars and workshops with us and have
provided consultancy advice for some applicants. We have used
a similar approach for the healthy living centre programme, although
we have worked relatively closely with the regional co-ordinators
in NHS regional offices as well to try to support that. We have
used health networks to try and develop. We have stated targets
for some of our programmes so, for example, for healthy living
centres, we have priority areas. There is no guarantee that applicants
from those areas will necessarily get funding but what we say
is that we will be more likely to provide them with development
funding between first and second stage if they are in those areas.
Our panels have been flagged up and given priority. We have health
action zones to help. Similarly, with our education programmes
we would use Education Action Zones. As part of our mechanism
for developing our targeting mechanisms, we consult fairly widely.
Many of you will be familiar with the concerns about targeting
in too tight a way. What we have tried to do is to give priority
and emphasise that most of our programmes are intended to have
a more positive benefit on the most excluded communities but we
are still very committed to ensuring that rural areas are not
excluded. They are one of the areas where people always raise
concerns over targeting.
Mr Keen
519. Derek Wyatt has very kindly asked all the
questions I was going to ask but the answers we have got back
have not convinced me that there is not a problem. The Chairman
put it to you that the New Opportunities Fund was not a helpful
name. To me it is a wonderful name. A new opportunity for the
Government to fund health and education without having to do it
through the taxation system. It is very worrying. It is easy to
justify by asking the public, "Do you think that Lottery
funding should be used for letting toffs go to the Royal Opera
House?" or to fund health centres, because we know they are
going to answer every time, "No, it should be used for the
health service and education"; it is easy for Government
to justify this change in policy by saying, "We listen to
the public." But coming back to you again—it is no
criticism of you because you are trying to carry out policy—but
you have some flexibility because, as you have said, you are able
to say to applicants, "No, I am afraid that sounds like additionality
to me." But what connections and what links do you have,
back up to Government about policy? Do you find that where you
are concerned, (if it is maybe additionality in general terms),
do the Government listen to you on it, or do you feel it is not
your job to go back to them?
(Mr Dunmore) This would apply to all the distributing
bodies but perhaps more so to us, but we are in very regular contact
with Government at a ministerial level and official level. Certainly
a particular period, when we do have those contacts, is when we
are developing new initiatives. So at the present time, when the
Government is consulting on a possible range of new initiatives
for us, we do have the opportunity to feed back comments into
the Government on what is being proposed. It is not for us to
say to the Government, "We think it is a jolly good idea,"
or, "This is a bad idea," in terms of particular initiatives,
but what we can do is feed in comments on the process. For example,
you may have spotted—and I think it is in the consultation
document—there is still a reference to the possibility of
our being able to allocate funding rather than doing it by competitive
bidding, which really goes back to some of the things I was saying
about a strategic view and effective targeting on particular communities.
That is partly as a result of the discussions we have had with
Government about methodology. Indeed, from time to time, in terms
of particular programmes that are proposed, we might have a discussion
with Government about some particular problems that we might see
politically or presentationally in terms of additionality. So
all of those things are discussed.
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