Further Olympic raid on Lottery funding expected

It is becoming increasingly likely that the Government will divert hundreds of millions of pounds from the good causes funded by the National Lottery to further fund the London Olympics. The National Lottery is already expected to contribute £1,5bn of the cost of the Olympics with £410m coming from the good causes of charities, environment, health, heritage, sport and arts.

New speculation suggests that as much as £20m could be lost in Northern Ireland alone - the equivalent of abandoning the Big Lottery Fund's Reaching Communities Programme (worth £18m and already 5 times oversubscribed). This is the equivalent of saying there will be no lottery funding directly to the voluntary and community sector from the National Lottery for 3 years. While the raid is likely to affect all sectors of the lottery, including the Arts Council, Big Lottery Fund, Sports Council and Heritage Lottery Fund the impact of these losses will be far reaching.

Negotiations are taking place between the Treasury and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to establish a new public-sector funding package for the games.

The Government's own select committee described the initial grab on Lottery funds as a straighforward raid. This second grab is only possible because the Government changed the legislation in the Lottery Bill to enable it to do so.

We regard the £1.5 billion earmarked by the Government as the Lottery's overall contribution to the Olympics as a straightforward raid - DCMS Committee, Fifth Report of Session 2003-2004