Funding Update June 2006

THE NATIONAL LOTTERY

The big news since the last issue of Funding Update (in fact only days after it was issued) was the awarding of the 2012 Olympics to London, and all the likely implications that will have on other lottery distributors. It is quite clear that while there is likely to be some ‘new money’ for the Olympics, with some scratch-card virgins entering into the spirit with the special Olympic cards, most of the finance will just be redirected from elsewhere, and it is certainly not just other Sports projects that will suffer.

There are two key consultations out for public comment until February 28th, one on Lottery Shares from 2009 (how Sports, Art/Films and Heritage will share out their 50% of the good causes pot) and one from Heritage Lottery Fund themselves on how they should distribute their money. IWA will be responding to both consultations. While HLF is encouraging with its emphasis on volunteering and public involvement in delivery of projects, it is also still clearly looking to diversify away from the traditional image of heritage, in which our waterway schemes would clearly fall. Anyone wishing to comment on these should go to www.lottery2009.culture.gov.uk or www.hlf.org.uk/future respectively.

THE BIG LOTTERY FUND (BLF)

Last time, we mentioned Peoples’ Millions, a scheme which has now been and gone (for the 2005 round at least), and congratulations to the Wych barge project in Droitwich and the Islwyn Canal Association for successfully scoring the necessary points in front of the TV cameras to win their £50,000 grants. The second round of Peoples’ Millions is due to open in the Spring.

In the Autumn, Living Landmarks was launched by BLF, initial applications for which had to be in by early January. This is a £140m fund that will hand out one award of between £25m and £50m and several awards of between £10m and £25m. So maybe ten schemes at best from around the country will be chosen.

In November, BLF rolled out Reaching Communities – a scheme worth £100m for England in the first year of its 3-year programme (a similar scheme exists for Wales, People and Places, with £66m available over the three years). The emphasis is on projects that communities identify a need for and where the community itself helps deliver the project. Grants will be for between £10,000and £500,000 and a maximum project size of £750,000, but it should be noted that in terms of ‘capital projects’ there is a maximum grant of £50,000 and maximum project size of £200,000. So this appears to be looking mainly at revenue funding and consequently it remains to be seen how useful Reaching Communities will be to waterway projects other than at a peripheral level, even though developing “improved rural and urban environments, which communities are better able to access and enjoy” is specifically cited. Full details from www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/programmes.

Changing Spaces appears to be an umbrella programme run on similar lines to the old New Opportunities Fund’s environmental programmes. Potential ‘award partners’ have been invited to apply to act as distributors for around £234m over the next three years in three priority areas; Community Spaces, Local Community Enterprise and Access to the Natural Environment. Once the schemes themselves are rolled out towards the end of 2006, BLF anticipate awards of between £10,000 and £500,000.

Of probably limited interest to all but a handful of waterway schemes is BLF’s Parks for People scheme, which is being run in conjunction with Heritage Lottery Fund and will see £90m distributed over three years. This replaces HLF’s Public Parks programme and details of the new scheme are due out any day.

Finally, anyone who is interested to see things from the view of the publicly accountable grant-giver would do well to read BLF’s well thought through discussion paper on Risk and Good Grantmaking http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/assets/er_risk_good_grant.pdf. Although the paper is looking at the specific issue of risk in relation to BLF, the issues are of much wider application and address many of the thought processes that all funders have to go through in deciding which bunch of potential no-hopers they give their money to !

LOCAL HERITAGE INITIATIVE (LHI)

Slight surprising was the news in December that LHI will cease from 30th September 2006, with no new applications accepted after 30th June. Anyone who is thinking of putting in for a grant should speak to their local LHI advisor first as there will clearly be a running-off of monies and some geographical areas might find there is very little money available for new applications. Ironically the announcement comes at the same time as a brochure ‘The Impacts of the LHI’ outlines some extremely good outcomes and satisfaction levels on the five years that the scheme has been running, during which time over 1000 projects have received almost £17m. Hopefully this might mean a re-badged successor of some sort will follow in its wake. When LHI was launched in 2000 it was intended to run for ten years.

COALFIELDS REGENERATION TRUST (CRT)

Just to note that after a very long gestation period the CRT website now seems to be up and running and anyone operating in a former coalfield area should update themselves with what is there - http://www.coalfields-regen.org.uk/default.asp. It sets out details of both their main grants programmes, for awards of between £10,000 and £300,000 (£100,000 in Scotland and Wales), and their ‘Bridging the Gap’ scheme for smaller awards of between £500 and £10,000.

AWARDS FOR ALL (A4A)

We understand that the increase in A4A’s maximum grant from £5,000 to £10,000 is now not expected to take place until June. The increase only seems to apply to England – Welsh schemes look likely to remain on a maximum grant of £5,000 for the time being. As we have indicated previously there appears to be an excess of supply at the moment when it comes to A4A funds, so if you can keep your claim down to £5,000 then it is well worth putting in an application now, while the likelihood of a grant offer seems to be so high.

Andy Screen