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Non-lottery funding could overtake lottery grants at BIG
09.06.2008

The Big Lottery Fund could reach a stage where it is handing out more non-lottery money from government and dormant bank accounts than lottery money, according to its new chief executive.

But Peter Wanless, who joined the lottery distributor at the end of January from the Department of Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), said BIG needed to make sure it did not become 'some kind of contractual arm to government or cash-dispensing machine'.

Between 2009 and 2012, when BIG will lose £638m of lottery money to the London Olympics, Wanless said there could be a period where it gives out less lottery money than non-lottery funding.

'You'll only get the full picture of what we are doing by adding together dormant accounts stuff; non-lottery contracts, which will be growing; and new lottery funding, which will be not on the scale of what people have got used to over the last couple of years,' he said.

However, he added that BIG would also be honouring all its current funding commitments, many of which are longer-term contracts and would still make up a significant amount of money.

Looking to diversify In 2007, BIG handed out a total £429m in lottery cash, but it is still unclear how much it will be able to distribute each year between 2009 and 2012 once the Olympic diversion kicks in.

It is looking to diversify, and alongside money handed to it from dormant bank accounts, government contracts will become increasingly important. BIG is already distributing £30m from the Office of the Third Sector through its community assets programme, and last month the DCSF awarded it a £190m Myplace contract to fund youth centres.

Wanless said the same grants officers would hand out both the non-lottery and lottery funding, but the book-keeping would be kept separate.

Resources must be kept separate 'The resources have to be absolutely distinct and separate, because we can't be raiding the lottery to deliver these other outcomes. So the account systems will be completely parallel, but the expertise, the contacts, the networks and all the rest of it - we'll draw on those to add value.'

Wanless said BIG would launch a consultation in the autumn on what its future funding programmes would look like, but said that he was already getting the message that people 'don't need quite so many issue-specific programmes'.

'We've got now considerable years of experience in understanding how to help communities of people in need, what makes an impact and what makes less of an impact. We want, as an outcomes funder, to be concentrating more and more not just on what cause are we going to distribute to over what period, but what impact is that money having.'

Source: Gemma Ware, Professional Fundraising Magazine www.professionalfundraising.co.uk

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