Culture Secretary Launches Review into National Lottery Funding Distribution

Funding from the national lottery is too heavily concentrated in the south, the culture secretary has said, as she launched the first review in more than 20 years into how billons raised by ticket sales is spent.

In comments that chime with Andy Burnham’s pledge to devolve more power from London if he becomes prime minister, Nandy said the model governing how lottery money is spent was “showing its age”.

“Too often decisions are top-down, remote and made in distant rooms hundreds of miles away from the communities who know their needs and ambitions best,” she said, in a written ministerial statement.

“Funding is concentrated in London and the south-east and is weighted to reflect populations, rendering too many towns and villages invisible to decision makers.”

The lottery has collected more than £53bn for good causes since 1994, when nearly 22 million people tuned in to watch the first televised draw in a special primetime event hosted by Noel Edmonds. About 23p in every pound spent on a ticket goes to these causes.

At present, funding is divided into four areas: arts and culture, sport, heritage and community. The list of bodies tasked with distributing the money is set down in legislation but their grant decisions are independent from the government.

Funding has supported everything from the Team GB Olympics and Paralympics teams, to the film Billy Elliott and local youth clubs and community hubs.

The 12-week consultation will invite the public and interested organisations to offer an opinion on whether this model should change, the first review of its kind since 2002.

Nandy said it would look at making it easier for smaller communities and organisations to access funds. “I’ve always been a devolution radical – and when you look at the national lottery you’ve got a highly centralised pot of money where no one has thought to ask the public how to spend it in over two decades. It’s outrageous,” she told the Guardian.

The right to operate the national lottery franchise was held by Camelot until 2022, when Allwyn, which is ultimately owned by the Czech billionaire Karel Komárek, became the first company to wrest the contract away.

Allwyn has said it aims to double good cause funding to £60m a week by the end of its licence in 2034 but has so far struggled to keep up the pace required to meet the target.

The company won the right to hold the 10-year licence in 2022 after a competition process that has since spawned a series of lawsuits from the media mogul Richard Desmond.