Letter from the National Amenity Societies,
dated 30 October 2002, to Rachel Miller at DCMS
REVIEW OF LOTTERY FUNDING
The Joint Committee of the National Amenity
Societies is the body that co-ordinates the strategic activity
of those organisations given at the head of this letter. We have
discussed the DCMS Paper on "Review of Lottery Funding"
on two occasions and we wish to contribute the following observations
to the critically important debate on the future of the Lottery
and its Good Causes.
We shall follow the questions as laid down in
the Paper but would like to begin with a statement of reaffirmation.
1. The Foreword states that "The National
Lottery has been a resounding success . . ." We should like
to endorse this judgement in unequivocal and emphatic terms in
respect of the work of the Heritage Lottery Fund, the distributor
that most impacts on our area of concern (although not exclusively
so—historic buildings and the historic environment in broad
terms have also benefited from the occasional grant from the Arts
Council, Sports Council, Millennium Commission and NOF). It is
fair to say that, when the Heritage Lottery Fund was first proposed,
we had some scepticism about the ability of this new body to provide
sufficient quality control over projects it was funding. We acknowledge
that our fears were misplaced and that the HLF has brought a high
level of quality control to all its projects. We also feel that
the HLF has tackled the issue of social exclusion from the historic
environment in a positive and imaginative way, for instance by
tailoring its Townscape Heritage Initiative to areas of deprivation.
The £300 million which HLF has brought
and will bring each year to the benefit of the Historic Environment
has been a revolution in financial terms. This figure compares
with grants of slightly under £40 million given by English
Heritage and financed by the taxpayer. The £250 million scheme
for Urban Parks could never have been financed from a heritage
agency other than the HLF. Only HLF can find the millions of pounds
necessary to bring back from the brink historic buildings and
structures as diverse as St. George's Hall, Liverpool (£10
million), the SS Great Britain at Bristol (£7.7 million)
and Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwickshire (£6 million), a building
which had been in such a lamentable state, even though Grade I,
that demolition had been contemplated. Substantial grants have
helped to stave off redundancy at a number of listed churches,
including many in inner city areas where they have been given
new life through the introduction of community facilities in aisles,
crypts or transepts. Townscape Heritage Initiative which has distributed
in the order of £100 million since being set up, is getting
HLF money into many cities, towns and villages where the market
is insufficiently buoyant to create the funds necessary to repair
the buildings unaided. Another measure of the success of the HEF
in funding local community objectives and in levering funds from
other sources is the extent to which it supports the activities
of Building Preservation Trusts; of the 49 projects supported
by the Architectural Heritage Fund in the last two years at least
30 received funding from the HLF. We believe that the Foreword
failed to capture the sense of excitement and satisfaction with
the previous, present and future record of the HLF.
2. At 1.1 is a clear statement that "We
have no plans to change the funding they (the existing good causes)
receive". This is very welcome but we presume that "We
have no plans" embraces the future as well as the present.
Turning now to the questions:
3. 2.1 and 2.2. We agree that the good news
about the Lottery is not getting through to everybody who should
know about it. Regular and insistent campaigns to raise awareness
would be welcome. However we are sceptical about the need for
"a single promotional body to be responsible for raising
awareness". Extra assistance to existing distributors to
achieve the same aim would be more productive, less expensive
and bureaucratic and allow those with a good story to tell to
be able to tell it directly rather than run the risk of having
the facts garbled by their being passed on to a third party.
4. We believe the idea for a National Lottery
Day is worth pursuing. We feel it is worth exploring the possibility
of associating National Lottery day with the existing Heritage
Open Days and their own plans for an expanded Heritage Week. We
certainly think that the extent of lottery funding to the historic
environment should be publicised during Heritage Open Days.
5. 2.5. We feel that any "targeted
consultation exercise" should consult all local people and
not just particular groups and should always explain the critical
difference between "good causes" which legitamately
and by statute fall to Government through the tax payer and those
which are additional to the latter. We would trust too that "heritage"
would be explained in its broadest remit, as already happens with
the HLF which covers by that definition the purchase of outstanding
land, urban parks, archives, museums, preparation of living history
archives, the preservation of language, machinery, maritime and
transport archaeology, conservation areas, as well as more traditional
listed buildings.
6. 2.6. We oppose Regional Assemblies having
the right of nomination; indeed we feel that no politician should
have the automatic right to nomination. We support the present
policy of the HLF in choosing members for their experience and
enthusiasm for the heritage rather than just for their expert
knowledge. We also support the HLF policy of setting up regional
committees and allowing them to distribute grants within agreed
parameters.
7. 2.7. We would be very concerned about
further allocation of funds for distribution at local level for
three main reasons:
(a) There must be an overlay of basic standards
and criteria. Otherwise local areas, including some cheek by jowl,
will find themselves with indefensibly diverse grant regimes.
(b) Setting up myriad local distribution
outlets will be overly complicated and expensive to administer.
(c) "Local Heritage" is never exclusively
local, being enjoyed as well by visitors, whether pupils on an
educational outing, tourists or foreign visitors. To delegate
decisions exclusively to local people is exclusive, not inclusive.
8. There might be demand for "micro
grants" for heritage causes, whether it be a Victorian park
bench, a decaying wall painting, conserving an historic diary
or writing a guidebook. However, again, we would be concerned
at the maintenance of defensible and consistent standards and
a multiplication of bureaucracy: We feel that "micro grants"
could form part of the "Awards for All" scheme suitably
expanded or modified.
9. 3.5. A single application form. We feel
very strongly that a single application form for all Lottery applications
is a non-starter and rather than prevent confusion would sow it.
10. 3.8. One-stop shops could be useful
but who would pay for establishing them?
11. 4.2. We are extremely alarmed that the
question "Is Additionality still relevant?" could even
be posed. As the Paper itself states, it is "a fundamental
principle". Dropping it would be an unforgivable breach of
trust on the part of Government and we strongly and implacably
oppose it. Many lotteries in other countries are used quite openly
and cynically as a means of saving Governments from using taxpayers
money and that wretched precedent should not be followed.
12. 4.6. We believe there is a place for
the occasional funding of an Endowment through the Lottery, as
happened in the case of Chethams Hospital in Manchester and is
proposed for Tyntesfield House in Somerset (both by the HLF).
However in a time of falling interest rates and plunging investment
markets endowments would be even more expensive than they have
been hitherto and must remain rare and highly targeted.
13. 4.8. We welcome the relaxation in the
Financial Directions.
14. 5.2. The statement—"One option
could be to top slice Lottery funds . . ." is naive. This
has already happened to create the New Opportunities Fund which
has more money at its disposal than any other distributor. We
oppose any further top slicing, particularly as Camelot predicts
a reduction in the income of distributors year on year up to 2009.
It is worth pointing out that the HLF has, as a part of its strategic
plan already set up a "Young Roots" scheme tailored
to young people.
15. 5.3. We shudder at the prospect of the
creation of "a single umbrella Lottery distributor".
The focus for each of the Good Causes would be dissipated, the
personnel concerned would be less likely to have a particular
loyalty to a given good cause, let alone expertise on it, and
in such a situation Government would find it easier to browbeat
those concerned into accepting the abolition of Additionality.
The Heritage Lottery Fund is carrying out invaluable
work of inestimable value to the Nation and we see no need for
radical change, particularly as FTLF leads the way in delegation
of decision making, the creation of regional structures and the
tightness of its administrative budget.
12 January 2004
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