Published: 12 December 2006
It’s Officially BIG
The largest of the National Lottery funders of good causes, the Big Lottery Fund, marked its official birthday recently with the parliamentary sign-off of its establishment.
On 28 November the Big Lottery Fund (Prescribed Expenditure) Order 2006 completed its Parliamentary passage and came into force Friday 1 December at which point the National Lottery Distributors Dissolution Order 2006 also came into effect dissolving the National Lottery Charities Board (Community Fund) the New Opportunities Fund, and the Millennium Commission.
Since its inception in June 2004, the Fund has been developing its new programmes and rolling out grants benefiting communities across the UK.
BIG has given an undertaking that 60-70% of its £2.3 billion good causes budget between 2006 and 2009 will go to voluntary and community organisations.
Welcoming the Big Lottery Fund’s official ‘birthday’ its Chairman, Sir Clive Booth, said:
“The Fund is looking forward to continuing to make the best possible use of Lottery funding to improve lives and help build better communities.
Most people live within a few miles of a lottery-funded project and the public rightly has a sense of ownership of the National Lottery and holds strong views about the good causes.
That is why we have been in the forefront of public involvement in Lottery funding with our People’s Millions TV voting contest which this year attracted close to 350,000 votes for local community projects.”
He added:
“The Fund is building on the £6 billion legacy of its predecessor bodies.
Some £850 million has been used to provide new and improved sporting facilities and equipment to create wider opportunities for young people and communities to enjoy sport.
And we made it possible for 39,000 Second World War veterans, war widows and carers to journey to the battlefields where they saw action or where their loved ones fell. We are proud of these achievements and remain dedicated to building on this success.”
BIG has also adopted the principle of full cost recovery, allowing all legitimate overhead costs to be recovered by voluntary and community organisations. In addition, funding periods have been extended from three years to five years.
The Big Lottery Fund was formed from the merger of the New Opportunities Fund and the Community Fund which together with the Millennium Commission are now dissolved.
Today the Big Lottery Fund also takes on the residual responsibilities of the Millennium Commission, ensuring the Commission’s grant recipients continue to use the £4bn portfolio of assets which the Commission helped fund for the public good.
The first programme to be launched by the Fund was the Young People’s Fund which has been targeting resources on projects to help the development of young people.
BIG Lottery Fund initiatives include:
· Young People’s Fund – BIG’s first ever programme, launched in England in September 2004 and followed by similar initiatives across the UK, is providing £300 million to fund young people’s projects.
The Young People’s Fund puts young people at the centre of creating, planning and delivering projects to achieve the following: - Being healthy: enjoying good physical and mental health and living a healthy lifestyle
- Staying safe: being protected from harm and neglect and growing up able to look after themselves
- Enjoying and achieving getting the most out of life and developing the skills for adulthood
- Making a positive contribution: to the community and society and not offending or behaving anti-socially
- Economic wellbeing: overcoming disadvantages to achieve their full potential in life
· People’s Millions – The Big Lottery Fund’s public involvement scheme has been distributing £15 million to community projects chosen by the public. Viewers in each ITV region have the opportunity to vote for the projects they want to receive the good cause money. In 2006, year two of the scheme, almost 350,000 votes were cast, with 85 winning projects sharing £4.2 million.
· People’s Millions - £50 million competition. Six projects have been shortlisted to battle it out for a single grant of between £25 million and £50 million as part of the Living Landmarks: The People’s Millions programme, run in conjunction with ITV. The winning project will be decided by a televised public vote taking place next winter.
· Investing in Communities – In November 2006, the Big Lottery Fund approved funding for the South Uist Buy-Out, the largest community buy-out in Scotland.
Sealladh na Beinne Moire, which translates as “View of the Big Hill”, has received over £2 million towards the purchase of the South Uist Estate – covering 92,000 acres and taking up virtually all of South Uist, Benbecula and Eriskay. The grant is part of BIG’s £257 million Investing in Communities programme in Scotland.
· Living Landmarks – multi-million awards will go to large-scale projects of national and regional significance that will transform, revitalise and regenerate.
Under the Living Landmarks stream, short-listed projects are competing for grants of between £10 million and £25 million. Decisions on grants to be awarded will be made Autumn 2007.
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