Two of the Lottery fund distributors are to be merged, following an announcement by Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell that the Government has decided to join the New Opportunities Fund and the Community Fund.
Between them the two funds are responsible for distributing more than half of all the money raised for good causes through the Lottery. The announcement has come in spite of the recent refusal by the Community Fund board to give its support to a merger (ArtsProfessional issue 42, p3). The NOF board, which funds programmes determined for it by the Government, had endorsed the merger proposals; but the Community Fund board, which operates independently of government had laid out demands which it insisted should be met before it would participate positively in any further talks.
Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has justified the merger as making the sharing of Lottery good cause money more responsive to the public?s priorities, and claimed that their views had been paramount in her decision to set up the new super-fund. She said ?People don?t feel they know enough about how Lottery money is spent? Many want wider consultation with the public before the distributors decide their priorities? These results chime with our own thinking? I am thinking hard about whether to extend the single brand principle right across the distributors.? She has, however, stated that funding for charities and the voluntary sector will not diminish and that there will be no ?higher control? over this funding than before.
The New Opportunities Fund has welcomed the announcement, describing the move as ?an opportunity to create a new Lottery good cause distributor which will build on the strengths of both organisations.? The Community Fund board has expressed its support for the objectives of a new body and stated that it will take into account the promises made by the Secretary of State when it considers its position at a meeting due to take place in May.
The Directory of Social Change, which has been actively campaigning against the merger, has expressed concerns about what it sees as being the greater enforced integration of charities with government programmes. It has made clear its belief that the merger will lead to a depletion of funding for charitable activity that does not reflect government priorities.