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“Scandalous waste by Lottery distributors and cynical accounting by the Government” is depriving the Lottery’s good causes of £730m of funding, according to Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. In ‘Labour’s Lottery “Good Causes”’, he writes that 17.6% of the money given to good causes goes directly to administration costs: the equivalent of 731,014,285 million Lottery tickets. Specific accusations levelled at Arts Council England (ACE) include maintaining 20 press or media officers and 872 staff, and spending £23,400 on staff surveys “in a single year”. Hunt also accuses five of the major Lottery distributors of breaking the principle of additionality, which should prevent Lottery money being used for statutory services, and identifies £107,000 paid by ACE to NHS Trusts. A DCMS spokesperson told AP that the Lottery distributors work “at arm’s length and independent of Government” and added, “We are confident that chief executives of non-departmental public bodies are ensuring they operate effectively, efficiently and within their requirements and responsibilities. … Cutting corners here would run the risk of poor decisions and poorer value for money overall.”

Speaking to AP, an ACE spokesperson has refuted a number of the charges made in the report. The organisation employs “only two dedicated press officers”, with the remaining communications staff handling media contact “as part of their wider role in the organisation”. Of the 762 staff it currently claims to employ, “around 200 work for Creative Partnerships… The remainder work across our Grant in Aid and Lottery funded programmes”. On the issue of additionality, ACE points out that grants made to the NHS were part of the Arts and Health initiative, and avers that “this was not a breach of the additionality regulations of the Lottery”. ACE also defends its spending on a staff survey, saying it represents “good business practice to monitor and understand how our employees feel about their work… and listen to their suggestions about how we can improve the organisation”. ACE administration costs are “down 2% since 06/07 (the year to which the report refers)” and costs are due to be reduced by a further 15% by 2011.