The Cabinet Office has today published the new policy directions for the Big Lottery Fund, which introduce a new priority for boosting the capacity of the social investment market.
The document also makes clear that BIG funding will go “primarily” to the voluntary sector and social enterprises, leaving the door open for the funder to continue to award some money to statutory bodies, as it does now.
The publication of the final policy directions is the culmination of a comprehensive programme of research and consultation by the government and BIG around the content of the funder’s strategy for the next few years.
When the draft directions were published at the end of last year, the Directory of Social Change raised concerns about changes to the clause on additionality – the principle that lottery funding should be additional to things the government has a duty to fund – and threats to BIG’s independence from government.
The Third Sector Research Centre also published research highlighting five areas that sector groups said needed to improve about the relationship between the sector and BIG. These included independence, transparency and the consistency with which the funder aims to influence government policy.
The NCVO also argued that the proposed new priority on social investment should make clear that any money should be used to increase the capacity of the social investment market, not to fund social investment itself. This has been taken on board in the final version.
And the NCVO and others argued that BIG money should go solely to the voluntary sector, though this has gone unheeded.
Additionality changes
Responding to the final document today, the Directory of Social Change said the net result of the changes to the additionality definition in the new draft – which removes the specific reference to government funding - is that it’s “probably even muddier than before – so a missed opportunity to really clarify the principle”.
But overall, said the DSC’s head of policy Jay Kennedy, the revised directions “provide less specific instruction to BIG which is a good thing, and they are less detailed and complicated than previous versions which is also good”.
Social investment
Richard Caulfield, chief executive at Voluntary Sector North West, tweeted: “Social investment clause still bothers me in new lottery policy directions”, and “I don’t think lottery funds should be used to: strengthen & increase the capacity of the social investment market - too vague and open”.
Oppenheim: Sector needn't worry
But consultant Gerald Oppenheim, former policy and partnerships director at BIG, did not think the sector needed to worry unduly about the changes regarding independence, additionality or social investment.
On independence, he said BIG has always been a non-departmental public body, and so it is technically an arm of the government. But ever since the New Opportunities Fund merged with the Community Fund in 2004 to create BIG, the policy directions have been very “enabling”. “To the credit of this government and the last, the policy directions have never borne any resemblance to the directions of the New Opportunities Fund, which basically said ‘you will run this initiative and you will spend this much on it’. They have always been much more in the spirit of the Community Fund.”
Regarding social investment, Oppenheim said BIG CEO Peter Wanless was already on record as saying that the vast majority of BIG’s funding will remain as grants. “There will be no dramatic slamming on of the brakes in that respect,” he said.
And on additionality, he said the DSC’s concerns belonged in another era, when there was plenty more money around and it was easier to separate causes that should be statutorily funded from those that could be additional. Now that the government was having to make such drastic cuts to statutory sevrice budgets, it is surely more important that the most deserving causes receive funding rather than arguing over the “slightly esoteric” subject of how additionality should be defined, he said.
“It is right that the DSC and others continue to be the guardians of the conscience on these issues,” Oppenheim added, “but I don’t think there is anything for the sector to really be worried about in the new wording.”
Maude: 'We won't micro-manage'
Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said the new directions “reinforce the coalition’s commitment thast we will not micro-manage BIG”.
The directions cover Big Lottery Fund expenditure in England, the Isle of Man and UK-wide spending. Policy directions for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are issued by the devolved administrations.
