The Big Lottery Fund (BIG) is a grant-making non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom created by the Government to administer the funding of "good causes" following the creation of the National Lottery. It has an annual expenditure of £630 million [1]. There has been considerable criticism about the diversion of lottery money away from genuine good causes towards ministerial targets, and party political targets for the Labour Party which should be funded by taxation.[2] [3] The Conservative Party has reportedly promised to introduce a National Lottery Independence Bill to ensure in future all funds went on voluntary and community projects[4].
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BIG has an income of approximately £630 million a year as of February 2007, which comes from the weekly Lottery draw and other games run by the National Lottery and represents roughly half the total amount of funds raised for "good causes". BIG’s budget also makes it the largest of all the Lottery funders.
BIG was unofficially created on 1 June 2004 by a merger of two UK Lottery distributors: the National Lottery Charities Board (trading as Community Fund) and the New Opportunities Fund.
BIG's official creation occurred on 1 December 2006 by an administrative merger of Community Fund and New Opportunities Fund and was further established by the National Lottery Act 2006 which incorporated the Millennium Commission.[5]
The Big Lottery Fund is now a single body with single set of rules, intended to make it easier for potential applicants to access Lottery money. The Act also allowed for increased public involvement in the Lottery, with distributors given the powers to consult and take account of public views in making distribution decisions.
The aim is to support projects which bring real improvements to communities and the lives of people most in need, and one third of the Fund’s money is distributed through a broad funding stream focusing on local community needs.
In December 2007, a competition called The People's £50 Million took place in which a public vote, using telephone and internet voting, was held to select one of a short-list of four worthy projects to receive a grant of £50 million. This was the largest sum of money to be awarded by a public vote in TV history.
The winner was Sustrans' Connect2 project. Other finalists were the Eden Project and their Edge (a desert biome dome for people to come together in tackle the environmental and social problems of the planet), a Black Country Urban Park (environmental transformation benefiting over a million people in one of the most deprived parts of the UK) and Sherwood Forest: the Living Legend (restoring the forest and developing visitor facilities).
As with previous National Lottery schemes, BIG (through predecessor funders) has funded both popular and not so popular projects.
BIG has launched a whole range of programmes across the four countries it covers – England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – and includes broad programmes supporting skills, communities and enterprise as well as targeted work on advice provision, community building and research.
In 2010 The Big Lottery Fund allocated £1.5 million to be spent over 5 years to be spent by its Delegated Partner The Manx Lottery Trust independently on good causes on the Isle of Man.[6]