LibDem charities spokeswoman warns on Tory lottery proposals

Finance | Tania Mason | 21 Jul 2009

Jenny Willott, charities spokeswoman for the Liberal Democrats, has warned that the Conservative Party’s pledge to replace the Big Lottery Fund with an independent Voluntary Action Lottery Fund will reduce the money going to charitable work.

Speaking exclusively to Charity News Alert, Willott said the Conservatives' plan to stop 20 per cent of lottery funding going to statutory organisations such as local authorities, and instead pledge all the money to the sector, sounded good but actually “covered up a state of hand which meant less money went to the sector”.

“The Conservative Party’s proposals will not mean the sector will have same amount of money as now,” she said.

“What they are talking about is taking the 20 per cent away that goes to the statutory sector and putting it into other elements of the lottery like arts and heritage. So it will actually remove the amount of money in the pot for charitable work.”

BIG structure 'beneficial to sector'

Willott also said the existing Big Lottery Fund structure was beneficial to the relationship between the voluntary sector and the statutory sector:

“I think the benefit brought to the sector from statutory funding from the Big Lottery Fund has been quite significant and the change in the long run that it will make to the relationship between the statutory sector and voluntary sector could be quite important. I would give the BLF some flexibility so, especially, Local Education Authorities can improve the work they do with the third sector.”

Willott also said that the Conservative Party’s mooted change of the Office of the Third Sector to the Office of Civil Society could be significant as it would change the types of organisations who would be consulted on the sector. But she warned that as such a new structure would encompass a larger set of organisations, any change would have to ensure that smaller charities were not squeezed out and fairly represented by any new body.

Volunteering 'mustn't be compulsory'

Willott criticised Labour's pledge to introduce compulsory civic service for 14 to 19-year-olds:

“You lose the whole point of volunteering through making it compulsory. The whole point of volunteering is that you’re doing it because you want to do it. For example, if you volunteer to visit a housebound elderly person, it makes it special because you want to do it. If you feel someone comes because they have to, it completely undermines the purpose and value of volunteering.

“We have to be careful not to undermine the fundamental principle of volunteering, but still make it more possible for people to volunteer.”

LibDem leader Nick Clegg is giving a talk on the party's vision for the voluntary sector and other principles today.

Directory: Office of the Third Sector
Who's Who: Tania Mason

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.