26 October 2007
Senior MPs have urged the Heritage Lottery Fund to be more punctilious in its funding decisions as the impact of £160m diverted to the Olympic Games kicks in.
In a report published on October 23, Heritage Lottery Fund, the Public Accounts Committee said that the fund was unable to demonstrate effectively that people from deprived or minority backgrounds were benefiting as they should from the National Lottery.
PAC chair Edward Leigh said: 'With less money to go round, the fund should look harder at whether applicants have exhausted other sources of funding, and it must have a sharper sense of what its funding is achieving.'
He added: 'The fund must also ensure that it distributes money as fairly as possible. It needs to stimulate good quality applications from hitherto under-represented groups so that they gain access to lottery funding.'
The PAC also criticised the 'bureaucratic hurdles' faced by applicants.
The fund, it said, needed to introduce a simpler process to reduce the burden and provide more advice to help less experienced applicants.
PFoct2007
