About Big Lottery Fund
The Organisation
The Big Lottery Fund distributes 40 per cent of the National Lottery Good Causes funding across the UK, around £-700 million per annum, as well as making grants on behalf of others. We are the largest UK grant-maker in our field. We operate a blended funding model – part responsive funding, part strategic interventions – across social change, the environment, health and education.
We believe this funding mix gives us a unique view of the world: one that we need to utilise more widely as we develop. Our new Strategic Framework is ambitious and will require us to be outward-facing and focused on the ambitions and aspirations of the people and communities we serve.
We opened our new £250 million Scotland portfolio in November 2015, aiming to support work that is people-led, strengths-based and connected. Over the next five years, we will work alongside communities and organisations in all parts of Scotland, providing grants and support to improve lives and empower communities. In the months ahead we will also finalise and open a smaller, strategic fund to promote partnerships for early action.
In addition to these larger programmes, our popular small grants schemes such as Awards for All help grassroots voluntary action in hundreds of local communities every year. We have a deep and long-held interest in what can bring and keep people together in neighbourhoods and communities - the strengths, relationships and aspirations of local people, important physical assets, shared ambitions and challenges. This commitment to community and social capital runs through much of our work, from the long-term, asset-based approach of Our Place to the Scottish Land Fund, which we operate on behalf of the Scottish Government.
We want to do all we can to help communities and organisations to be successful, so in addition to funding, we offer access to specialist expertise in areas such as business and financial planning, long-term relationships, and a committed, experienced and talented team.
We aim to be a good partner in Scotland – attuned and relevant to communities, prepared and able to co-operate with others, innovative where there is an opportunity to make resources go further or achieve more. Alongside our main grants programmes, we have also introduced and supported innovative developments in the social investment sphere such as community shares (Community Shares Scotland), social investment readiness (Launch Me) and grant/loan combinations (Resilient Scotland). Our ambition is always to use resources well, and seek and develop opportunities to make them go even further.
How is the Fund structured?
The Big Lottery Fund’s work is governed by a Board with overall responsibility for the Fund’s strategic direction. The Fund is led by a Chief Executive supported by a management team of eleven Directors: this post will be part of that team. There are around 850 staff located across the UK.
What is the Fund’s status?
The Big Lottery Fund is a UK wide, non-departmental public body (NDPB) The Chief Executive, as Accounting Officer, is accountable to the Department for Culture Media and Sport for the Fund's overall performance, whilst high level policy directions are set by each of the four UK nations. The Cabinet Office, in addition to setting our England policy directions, also sets UK policy directions and is our sponsor body for day to day matters.
Background information on the National Lottery, the different Lottery distributing bodies, and the role of the DCMS can be found at: here.
What does the Fund look and feel like internally?
The Fund operates a devolved model of decision-making within the overall Strategic Framework of People in the Lead (LINK required), which was developed through an extensive programme of engagement across the UK both internally and externally.
The Scotland Committee, accountable to the Board, sets funding strategy and oversees decision-making on grants for our Scottish portfolio. Management and operational responsibility runs from the Scotland Director to the Chief Executive.
The Fund's senior management team meets monthly and collectively sets corporate and funding policies which have impact across portfolios - examples would be sustainability or equalities, but a high degree of autonomy within that overall framework is expected in each portfolio, enabling decisions to reflect local circumstances.
Corporate services such as HR, Legal, Finance, and IS are operated centrally and are primarily based in Birmingham. A mixed model of local and central is operated for Comms.
A key thrust of People in the lead is to make us 'more of the sum of the parts', particularly in the field of Knowledge and Learning where we can add more value externally and we are building a small central team to support a distributed network approach to this.
The Scotland Office
Based in Glasgow, the Scotland office has around 100 staff developing and managing funding opportunities for organisations with a keen focus on the voluntary and community sectors. The Big Lottery Fund in Scotland assesses and manages a portfolio of grants with an annual funding allocation of around £70 million per annum.