Museum Practice

asking HLF to assess the needs of the heritage when deciding upon priorities;

involving the public in making policies, setting priorities, and distributing money;

increasing access and participation;

inspiring children and young people;

fostering initiatives that bring people together;

supporting and encouraging volunteering;

encouraging skills development; and

reducing economic and social deprivation.

The HLF has to report back to government on these policy directions, detailing how they are addressing them, evidenced by statistics where applicable. A brief summary of HLF responses may be found in the HLF Annual Reports.

HLF is administered by the Trustees of the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF), the fund of last resort for the UK’s heritage, coming to the rescue by funding emergency acquisitions. NHMF allocates around £10 million of government grant-in-aid money per year to our national heritage. But since it first allocated grants in 1995, HLF has had far greater impact on museums and galleries than its parent body. It has distributed about £1.3 billion in capital and revenue grants, which have touched the majority of accredited museums, enabling them to invest in buildings, renew their displays, and develop new or improved educational and outreach programs.

Achieving a careful balance between income, awards, and commitments is a constant source of concern for HLF. Table 3.1shows how even over a short period (five years) it is impossible to assume stability. Trustees can make awards in a year greater than one year’s income, because they have held back funds in the bank. The sudden fall in awards in 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 is mostly explained by developing a new system of assessing applications in two rounds: Round One passes are not committed awards and therefore do not count. The figure will rise again in 2010/2011 because most of the projects passed at Round One will by then have passed Round Two and will have been awarded a grant.

TABLE 3.1 Heritage Lottery Fund financial and staffing profile 2005/6–2009/10

* However, from this, £43.4m was transferred to the Olympic Lottery Distribution Fund. £10.8m had been taken in the previous year. Source: HLF Annual Reports

Income from the National Lottery derives from ticket sales. Interest in playing the games seems to have fallen in the mid-2010s, but revived again as recession set in – it seems that poorer people gamble more when economically threatened. Unfortunately all of the increase (and more) in 2009/2010 was lost because £43.4 million was “stolen” to help fund the 2012 London Olympics (see Table 3.1).

Investment income from the National Lottery Development Fund (which holds lottery income, maximizing investment income, and releases it to the distributing bodies as required) crashed spectacularly over the past five years because of significant reductions in market interest rates and gilt yields. So, overall, annual income into the HLF fell by a quarter because of an increasingly challenging economic climate and a raid to support the Olympics. However, as the recession continues to bite, the number of lottery tickets sold has been increasing. As of February 2012, projections suggested that the HLF is likely to see its share of funding rise over the next five years. £1.42 billion is expected to be available between 2011/2012 and 2015/2016 – a 14.7 percent increase on 2010 projections (Kendall 2012).

During the earliest years of HLF’s distribution of funding, discussion of its grant awards was dominated by three questions:

1 1. Were the trustees allocating huge grants to the big heritage institutions and neglecting “grass roots” heritage?

2 2. Were some regions (usually a euphemism for London and the South East) getting a disproportionate slice of the lottery cake?

3 3. Were some heritage sectors doing rather better than others?

TABLE 3.2 Heritage Lottery Fund – distribution of awards by size of grant

Source: HLF Annual Reports

The government issues “policy directions” to the lottery distributors, steering them toward ensuring that their independent policies and grant criteria take full account of the government’s own policy. DCMS used policy directions to intervene on the first question, trying to ensure that HLF recognized that the heritage can be tangible (e.g., a church) and intangible (e.g., oral histories); that it is owned and supported by millions, not just an elite few; and that access to lottery funding must indeed be “for the many not just a few.”

The 1997 Act empowered Trustees to assist projects (revenue as well as capital) directed to increasing public understanding and enjoyment of the heritage, and to interpreting and recording important aspects of the nation’s history, natural history, and landscape. Similarly, responding to policy directions meant eventually that a much broader definition of “heritage projects” was accepted and small grants for small community organizations for what they considered to be heritage was encouraged and enabled. The impact of its intervention can be seen in Table 3.2, which shows that the percentage of grant money being allocated to smaller projects increased and the amount allocated to large capital projects fell.

The second and third questions were closely monitored by HLF themselves. With the coming of New Labour in 1997 and a wider definition of what heritage was, it became easier to ensure that grants were not skewed toward major museums or the most well-known heritage sites ( Table 3.2). Grants could be mapped against population densities and “cold spots” identified. HLF also set up development teams in each region who actively helped potential applicants to reach the point where they could submit a proposal. In these ways HLF tried to ensure a fair distribution of lottery money back into the communities that had funded it.

The 1998 Act enabled HLF to “regionalize” by setting up 12 committees in the nations and English regions to which decisions (up to a certain grant size ceiling) could be delegated. It also meant the setting up of regional offices which helped HLF counter complaints that HLF was too London-focused, and not sufficiently in touch with grass-roots heritage across the UK. It also helped ensure a greater degree of fairness in geographical distribution, as discussed above.

All in all, New Labour may be able to claim that its interventions democratized the distribution of lottery grants to the heritage. On its part, HLF may be equally justified in feeling that it has retained its integrity and not deviated from only supporting heritage that merited it.