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| NEW
LOTTERY DISTRIBUTOR NEEDS TO DEVELOP ITS OWN CULTURE |
19/02/04 |
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Minister
for Arts Estelle Morris has admitted the character of the Community Fund
is secondary to the need for a new ethos to develop from merging two lottery
distributors.
Speaking at the NCVO annual conference in London, she again made the case
for the merger of the Community Fund and New Opportunities Fund, and said
that initial estimates suggested savings of up to 20% in the cost of running
the distributors could be realised by the merger.
However, she admitted that the merger did cause complications, and stressed
that the government was keen to work with the sector to find acceptable
solutions to these.
Recognising charities' concerns over the independence of funding and praising
the work of the Community Fund, Morris admitted it was one of the problems
with which she had struggled most.
However, she ruled out preserving its distinctive character within the new
distributor. She told delegates the new organisation should "have an ethos
of its own", saying: "The worst thing that you can do is run two funds separately
within one distributor."
The government, she said, was keen to get away from interfering in the allocation
of individual grants but wanted to ensure cohesiveness by providing strategic
themes for funding priorities, "so that it can compliment government funding".
She also said charities would benefit from greater coherence in the application
process: a key aim of the government's policy. "Where we would like to go
eventually is that there is only one port of call [for applicants]."
Similarly, despite concerns in the sector over giving the public more say
in the causes supported by lottery money, she confirmed that "polling of
some sort will form part of our response to the [lottery funding] discussion
document".
She noted the technology to enable buyers to use a tick-box on tickets to
state their preferences would soon be available.
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