Lottery cheek by Jowell

The Big Lottery Fund (BLF) consultation on future programmes has been revealed as a sham by the UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Tessa Jowell, who has announced that the three new themes for the Big Lottery Fund have already been decided.

Although the public consultation does not close until 30 September 2004, Ms Jowell declared the new themes would be:

1. community learning and creating opportunity
2. promoting community safety and cohesion
3. promoting well-being.

In a press release and letter to key stakeholders the Ms Jowell announces that "In order to give the Fund some shape and focus, they (Department of Culture Media and Sport) will set three broad UK-wide themes for funding, with supporting outcomes that will reflect the different circumstances in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland ."

The Big Lottery Fund website is still claiming that it wants the public's help in determining the priorities of the Fund. The site's homepage invites the public to 'Have a big say' on how it will make grants, the types of programmes that it will support and how it can deliver more effective lottery funding. But it is clear that decisions have already been made on future programmes.

Over the last few years NICVA has highlighted the inadequacies of National Lottery Reform on a number occasions.

• In October 2003 NICVA submitted its views to Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) on its Decision Document for National Lottery Reform stating "NICVA is deeply concerned at the speed in which DCMS is enacting these proposals before proper consultation and analysis of the same has taken place."
• In response to the original consultation on National Lottery Distribution Policy in July 2002 NICVA commented that there "was not any specific promotion of this consultation in Northern Ireland carried out by either DCMS or DCAL. More should have been done to engage participation in a meaningful way on such important issues."

This latest example of pre-judging responses is even more incredible given the statements from DCMS to give the Big Lottery Fund more independence and autonomy.

To top it off, the Big Lottery Fund will be required to consult again in the autumn on how they deliver the new regional directions they receive from DCMS.

Big Lottery Round table at NICVA

The Big Lottery Fund has agreed to hold a round table meeting with NICVA and members of the sector.