§ Mr. YeoTo ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport if she will make a statement on the advice that her Department gives people in receipt of Lottery funds on conflicts of interest. [58108]
§ Mr. Caborn[holding answer 21 May 2002]: The financial directions issued to Lottery distributing bodies require them to devise and abide by a procedure for handling potential conflicts of interest which may arise in the evaluation of applications by the body or individual members of that body. The directions also deal with the avoidance of actual or perceived conflicts when bodies solicit Lottery applications; and with conflicts which might arise in connection with applications from companies or persons which the distributing body owns, controls or is able materially to influence.
In preparing their annual accounts, Lottery distributing bodies are required to comply with UK Accounting Standard FRS8 Related Party Transactions. The objective is to ensure that financial statements contain the disclosures necessary to draw attention to the possibility that the reported financial position and results may have been affected by the existence of related parties and transactions between them.