Memorandum submitted by the Coalfield
Communities Campaign
ABOUT CCC
The Coalfield Communities Campaign (CCC) is
the all-party association of over 80 local authorities in present
and former coal mining areas in England, Scotland and Wales. CCC's
work is predominantly focussed on the social, economic and environmental
regeneration of coalfield communities. Lottery funding is an important
element in the jigsaw of regeneration funding. It often supports
community-based regeneration initiatives which complement and
supplement larger scale regeneration projects such as Single Regeneration
Budget (SRB) and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF.) Also
importantly, since 1995, it has provided a potential source of
funding for modest schemes of local importance that would have
previously fallen through the funding net.
CCC AND THE
LOTTERY
CCC has taken a particularly close interest
in the distribution of Lottery grants, since the 1998 report by
the Government's Coalfields Task Force first highlighted the low
level of Lottery funding going to coalfield areas. Since then,
CCC has worked closely with DCMS, its ministers and some of the
distributors to increase the coalfields' share of Lottery funding.
CCC's campaign has won the support of successive Secretaries of
State for Culture, Media and Sport. In November 1998, Chris Smith
MP convened a conference specifically to address the coalfields
problem, and set up a working group within his Department on which
CCC was represented. His successor, Tessa Jowell MP, convened
a subsequent conference in November 2001 where she reiterated
the Government's commitment to raise the coalfields' share of
Lottery grants "to at least the national average".
The key issue for CCC has remained unchanged,
namely ensuring that Lottery funding is more fairly distributed
to all areas. The problem of uneven distribution is not just limited
to the coalfields. Government-commissioned research has shown
that other major areas are also missing out on Lottery grants.
CCC welcomes this opportunity to submit evidence
to the Select Committee. However there are certain areas raised
in this inquiry where CCC has no policy position, particularly
on issues concerning licensing and regulation. Therefore this
response is restricted to the areas where CCC has established
policy and expertise.
LOSING OUT
ON THE
LOTTERY
In response to the Coalfields Task Force report,
the then Secretary of State, Chris Smith MP, commissioned independent
research into the level of Lottery funding in coalfield areas.
The findings were dramatic, revealing that awards per head in
the coalfields were less than half of the national average.
At the same time, new Policy Directives, laid
out in "The People's Lottery" in 1998, required distributors
to move away from the past bias towards large scale capital funding
projects, and to have a greater emphasis on people, activities
and access.
Since then, there has been a slow but gradual
improvement. Comparing 1997-99 with 1999-2001 and 2001-03, the
coalfields' per capita share has risen from 40% to 54% to 72%
of the national average. Nevertheless, despite all the focus that
has been put on coalfields, their share still remains well below
the national average.
A FAIRER DISTRIBUTION
OF LOTTERY
FUNDING
In January 2003 CCC submitted a paper, prepared
at the request of Secretary of State Tessa Jowell MP, outlining
its proposals for the reform of Lottery grant redistribution.
CCC outlined four proposals intended to address the inequities
in the distribution of Lottery funding. These four proposals evolved
over at least three years, drawing on a range of sources including
the experience and knowledge of local councillors and officers
from CCC's member authorities.
1. Indicative financial allocations for
each part of the country. These would be for guidance only, not
rigid spending ceilings or targets. Criteria such as population
and levels of deprivation might be used to establish allocations.
2. A single point of entry to simplify the
Lottery process in favour of the applicant. This approach would
mean that at the interface with the public, the distributors would
function as a single entity. The onus would be on the distributors,
not the applicant, to sort out which is the most appropriate funder.
3. Development support to provide "hands
on" help, including free technical support where appropriate,
from project conception to completion, and beyond where necessary.
The principal vehicles for this support would be One Stop Lottery
shops and development workers. This is one of the main ways that
communities can be assisted to develop and submit Lottery grants.
4. Endowment funding as one means of providing
longer-term revenue support. The current approach to revenue funding
(three years with a possible three-year extension) can be inadequate
to meet the needs of poorer communities where valuable projects
may have little prospect of becoming self-supporting.
It was gratifying to see that all these proposals
were included for consideration in the consultation paper published
by DCMS in July 2002.
THE DECISION
DOCUMENT
In July 2003, a Decision Document laid out DCMS's
response to the consultation on the structure of the Lottery,
and sought a further response. CCC's comments were confined to
those sections relevant to its four policy proposals. For the
most part CCC welcomes the document and considers the proposals
that it contains have the potential to achieve a fairer distribution
of Lottery grants.
1. EQUAL
ACCESS TO
LOTTERY FUNDING
This is the key issue for CCC. The Decision
Document states that the new distributor "will work to ensure
that every county and every region within the UK has equal access
to Lottery funding". Although equal access does not mean
equal share, the two have been shown to go very much hand in hand.
Things have come a long way from the original concept that to
provide equal access meant no more than setting up a universal
application procedure. This simply did not work and resulted in
the huge disparities that we see to this day.
Experience has shown that equal access involves
equalising the capacity, the confidence and the expertise of the
applicant. Where this is lacking, for example in many coalfield
and other deprived areas, it is necessary to put in place whatever
support systems are necessary.
There are signs that this is beginning to happen,
but only beginning. Brass for Barnsley was an extremely successful
initiative but was not repeated elsewhere. At the moment the Fair
Share scheme is directing Lottery money, albeit modest amounts,
into identified deprived areas. There are other examples but as
yet none are tackling the problem of under-performance comprehensively.
Much of the approach concentrates on targeting resources to specific
areas and/or specific groups. This approach has already been adopted
by some of the distributors, and coalfields have been amongst
those to benefit. Nevertheless, this "pepperpot" approach,
which is inevitably tainted by expediency, has meant that many
areas with acute problems are overlooked and a new raft of Lottery
underdogs are created.
CCC has already proposed indicative allocations,
but this alone would not solve the problem. The key is increasing
the volume of applications made. The merger of the Communities
Fund and the New Opportunities Fund is welcome if it simplifies
the application process from the point of view of the applicant.
The distributors should provide more development support for applicants
and the creation of One Stop Lottery Shops would be an appropriate
vehicle.
2. Longer-term funding
It is disappointing that the Decision Document
offers no solution to the problems of longer-term revenue support
that sometimes arise in relation to Lottery funded projects. Whilst
the principle that Lottery funding should be transient and only
available to get projects underway is understandable and probably
in most cases is workable, there is the need sometimes for more
flexibility.
In poorer areas, like the coalfields, there
are valuable projects that fail because they cannot, in the timescale
of the grant, become self-sufficient nor acquire mainstream funding.
For such schemes (and they are the exception rather than the rule)
there needs to be some provision to allow them to develop and
mature at their own pace.
This omission in the Decision Document is not
in step with the growing awareness of this problem and the need
to address it. The New Opportunities Fund has recently set up
a £50 million Fair Share Trust which will operate as an endowment
fund in 70 of the Fair Share target areas. Furthermore, a Private
Member's Bill that will allow all the distributors to set up endowments
has recently passed through Parliament and is awaiting royal assent.
The Committee is urged to accept that endowments
and/or other equivalent sources of longer-term financial support
are a necessary "safety net" in exceptional cases.
3. Reducing Balances
Whilst there has been awareness of concerns
about the high level of reserves (£4.2 billion in March 2003)
held in the National Lottery Distribution Fund, CCC has not previously
commented because it was felt that this was an issue that fell
outside CCC's immediate concerns.
However, the Decision Document specifically
invites comment on proposals that would allow the Government to
confiscate any balances that were considered to be excessive.
Any such confiscated funds would then be redistributed amongst
the other distributors.
At first sight this might appear a sensible
move but further consideration raises one or two alarm bells particularly
as the distributors claim quite vehemently that all the money
in the reserves is already committed to projects. As it is assumed
that this can be easily verified, it is difficult for an outside
body such as CCC to see why the level of reserves is creating
such concerns.
The phasing of Lottery financial support for
projects will inevitably mean that there will be large sums held
up in the pipeline. Large-scale capital projects will, by definition,
have long lead-in times but in poorer areas like the coalfields
even small projects may take time to get underway especially if
there are problems raising matching finance. An alternative solution
might be to release more money "up front" especially
for projects in poorer areas.
There have been some bad experiences in the
coalfields already. There is the recent and unprecedented "decommitment"
of 41 approved projects by Sport England because of a shift in
priorities. One of the biggest of these schemes is in a coalfield
community.
Such happenings seriously damage the community
and also seriously damage the credibility of the funder. There
needs to be categorical reassurance that there will be no risk,
however slight, that money promised to a project will not be forthcoming.
CONCLUSION
The Select Committee asks whether the National
Lottery has the right focus, as its awards range from a few hundreds
of pounds to hundreds of millions for large-scale projects. CCC's
position on this is unequivocal—more emphasis needs to be
given to increasing the volume of grants to local groups.
The current government has been encouraging
the distributors to shift away from the large scale, prestige
capital projects towards smaller community-rooted schemes. The
change in emphasis may account for much of the coalfields' improving
share of Lottery funding. The less that is spent on prestige projects,
and the more that goes on grassroots schemes, the more even the
spread of grants is likely to become. Therefore CCC supports Ministers
in their continuing efforts to prioritise community-based initiatives,
and indeed to encourage them further down this route than they
have already gone.
The 1999 research into the Lottery and the coalfields
commissioned by DCMS and undertaken by Sheffield Hallam University
revealed a lack of enthusiasm for the Lottery amongst potential
applicants in the coalfields. Some early, well-reported high profile
awards alienated many and led them to believe that the Lottery
was not for them. A lot of ground has to be made up if this disenchantment
is to be overcome.
Furthermore, the problem of the distribution
of Lottery funding has been compounded by the fact that the really
big grants are going disproportionately to the big cities, particularly
London. CCC would like to put paid to the myth that many of these
large projects serve the communities of an entire region, or indeed
the whole of the UK. For a family living in a South Yorkshire
mining settlement, for example, a day out at The Deep in Hull
could be as inaccessible as a trip to Tate Modern or the Eden
Project, when household resources are scarce and public transport
links are both costly and poor.
Therefore the proposal to create a competing
funding strand to support the London bid for the 2012 Olympics
adds insult to injury. Firstly it would reduce the amount in the
pot for the other distributors at a time when Lottery sales are
falling, and some distributors are taking the extreme measure
of withdrawing awards. Secondly, the amount by which London has
already benefited from Lottery funding is verging on the obscene
when viewed from a coalfield perspective. Yet another large-scale
project for the capital would further skew the balance with the
rest of the United Kingdom. If a separate stream has to be created
to fund the 2012 Olympics, DCMS should make strenuous efforts
to ensure that all areas of the country benefit from the event.
In real terms, what does this reform mean to
the coalfields? Certainly their share of Lottery funding is improving.
But their below average per capita share means that these acutely
deprived areas have missed out on £500 million of funding
since the Lottery began. And as every single week goes by, they
continue to lose out on a further £0.7 million. The best
guarantee of a fairer distribution of Lottery grants is to further
accelerate the shift from expensive, prestige projects to community-based
schemes. Then maybe we can at last truly talk of a "People's
Lottery".
January 2004
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