24 October 2007 - 12:10It really is a lottery, that life business

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?

4 Comments | Tags: news, public funding, rant

Comments:

  1. How do you get people to vote online? | jon bounds says;
    26 Nov 2007 - 23:25

    [...] is that there’s an online and telephone vote, and one of four projects gets all the dosh - I’ve mentioned that I don’t much like the system, but if it has to be this way I think the Black Country [...]

  2. Vote Black Country - it’s not often I say that | Birmingham: It’s Not Shit says;
    06 Dec 2007 - 19:34

    [...] a disclaimer, I don’t like the idea that such important work should be hijacked for publicity purposes (or left to chance by phone [...]

  3. dp says;
    06 Dec 2007 - 19:44

    Yeah. There are four good causes, each apparently worth £50M.

    I’m not sure that £12.5M would do each of them much good, but it would be more than a lot of worthy projects get. But the fact that this is a very public £50M purse means that it’s going to be much more difficult for the funders to change their minds in a year, and this is possibly why holding a TV vote is better than asking the experts. The political masters will be unable to play a shell game with the award.

  4. Podnosh Blog : High Fibre Podcasting » Archive » £50 million for the Black Country or let the cyclists freewheel to a win? says;
    06 Dec 2007 - 20:23

    [...] goes all Black Country it’s Not S**t, despite this earlier post railing at regen [...]

Add a Comment