§ Baroness Macleod of Borveasked Her Majesty's Government:
How long the organisers of the National Lottery take to disburse money to charities. [HL1757]
§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyThere are 12 Lottery distributors, each of which will make some grants to charities. However, the National Lottery Charities Board (NLCB) was set up specifically to distribute National Lottery funds allocated for expenditure by charities and organisations established for charitable, benevolent or philanthropic purposes.
The NLCB runs a number of different grant programmes to suit different organisations and projects. Currently the main grant programmes are Community Involvement and Poverty and Disadvantage. They are continuous grant programmes—with no deadline for applications—with grants announced regularly. Eligible organisations applying for funding from NLCB should hear the outcome of an application within three to four months of the NLCB receiving the completed application for its main grant programmes, and two months for small grants and the joint distributor Awards for All small grants scheme. Other specialist grant programmes for Health and Social Research and International grants operate with closing dates and may take around five to six months for results to be announced.
Once a grant is offered, and the successful organisation accepts the NLCB's terms and conditions of grant, the payment of the grant is arranged to coincide with the start date of the project. Most grants are then paid quarterly in advance. The NLCB monitors all projects which it funds.