public funding

It really is a lottery, that life business

POSTED IN comment | TAGS : news, public funding, rant 24 October 2007

You may have read about four parts of the UK being up for £50M of National Lottery funding – the catch being that they have to compete again on a ITV televised debate.

Doesn’t that just seem wrong? We pay, or give the contact to, a large corporation in order for them to hire experts and have processes about how to devolve this ‘Lottery Money’ to the best causes, but instead of that they use the exercise as an advertising stunt.

Instead of democracy, or meritocracy, there’s another payday for the TV companies, the phone companies, there’s people feeling pressured and at least three communities feeling cheated.

“It won’t be as sexy as Strictly Come Dancing, but this is going to change whole communities,” said Sir Clive Booth, chairman of the Big Lottery Fund.

Does it have to be sexy, couldn’t it just change the communities, couldn’t it be targeted to do the most good?