Agenda item 2 is evidence from the Big Lottery Fund. I welcome Jackie Killeen, who is the director for Scotland. Thank you for coming along this morning. The Big Lottery Fund has come up on a number of occasions in our deliberations and we felt that it would be useful if we had a chat with you. If you have any opening comments, we will hear those before we go to questions from the committee.
Thank you for inviting me along. I hope that we are able to share our experience, which may give some insight into the challenges that communities are coming to us for help in addressing. I am very happy to say a little by way of introduction about the Big Lottery Fund. I am not sure how much information members have.
Go ahead.
Some of you will know us on a constituency basis. We are the largest of the lottery distributors, which means that we distribute 40 per cent of all the money that the national lottery raises for good causes.
Thank you very much.
Yes. The Big Lottery Fund put £30 million into the programme in England.
As a consequence, the Scottish Government received around £3.5 million, which it has made available for welfare and advice. Has the Big Lottery Fund discussed the issue with the Scottish Government and, if so, why have we not seen the same result up here?
There are a couple of things to say about that. First of all, like us, colleagues in England had been working on advice for quite some time. They receive policy directions from the UK Government for their work in England and we receive them from the Scottish Government.
That is helpful but, with regard to your comment that you could be driven by UK Government policy, do you have the same relationship here? Did the Scottish Government say, “We like what you’re doing but we want you to reciprocate and put in £3 million”?
No. I should make it clear that the policy directions in England and Scotland are set at quite a high level. As the Government in England has only very recently issued policy directions, the programmes in England are at a different point in relation to the timeframe. A whole new raft of programmes has been developed there, whereas our programmes have been running since 2010. That is all that I meant by that comment. We were not directed in England; I think that it was decided that the funds should be combined because of timing rather than any specific direction to work together.
But have you had a specific discussion with the Scottish Government about whether it would be appropriate to replicate the approach in England or about topping up the £3 million, or was it just assumed that things would carry on as they were without any specific discussion?
We spoke to the Scottish Government while we were developing our fund, and we have worked with it to ensure that we are taking full advantage of its intelligence. Because it wanted the focus of its fund to be much more specifically about advice, it decided to route it through other channels, including the Scottish Legal Aid Board. We have tried to ensure that we are still making the best use of all the funds that are available. The Scottish Government did not issue us with a direction to do anything specific in Scotland, but we have kept in close contact with it. The funds are different—they have a slightly different focus.
That is fine.
I will cover some of the same ground from a slightly different angle. If we look at the headline funds, we see that, south of the border, match funding is being provided to support advice services. That is not obviously the case in the Scottish context, so many people are afraid that the amount of money that is available to support those services in Scotland is half as much per capita as it is south of the border. Are you telling us that the Big Lottery Fund is putting in that additional money in Scotland, but that it is going in in different ways?
Yes—you have expressed it far better than I did. That is exactly what I am telling you.
Other members might be interested in digging into what you are doing, but I want to look at a highly specific issue: how decisions are made on funding that relates to advice services. Does the way in which that is done in Scotland differ significantly from the way in which decisions are made on Big Lottery Fund match funding in England and Wales, with the result that the outcome might be different?
I am not sure whether the thrust of your question relates to decisions that are taken by the Big Lottery Fund in Scotland. We have a Scotland committee that takes decisions on our strategic direction as well as funding decisions.
My question is fairly general, so I will ask it in a fairly general way to get an impression of what is happening. Let us imagine a situation in which the arrangement that exists south of the border were simply duplicated in Scotland. Is the current circumstance likely to divert resources to specific areas in a way that is different from the effect of the decisions that are taken south of the border?
Yes. We have just had in the first lot of applications for the support and connect fund and although we have not been through them all yet—we received a very high number of applications—we can see that they include applications from a large number of citizens advice bureaux. I cannot tell you specifically what they have asked us for, as we have not yet had the chance to go through them in great detail. We have also received partnership applications. For example, a number of applications involve CABx working in partnership with other organisations such as community-based organisations. In some cases, those organisations are in contact with local authority services and, in others, they are working with housing associations.
You mentioned that the support that is provided might include support for advice services through housing associations.
Yes.
Does that form another substantial part of the bidding?
Yes. Even before we introduced the new fund, such requests had already been made to us. When we have talked to bureaux, housing associations and local voluntary organisations throughout the country, we have found that there is a big appetite for that approach. There is a desire to create a more joined-up safety net locally so that there is less chance of people dropping through. Although people will sometimes go straight to their CAB for advice, on other occasions they will seek advice elsewhere. In some cases, the relationship that people have with their housing association is more immediate. People in a housing association can spot when someone might be in need of advice but might not come forward for it voluntarily. It is about ensuring that we have put in place as much local connected support as possible.
I have another question about general headline figures. There is a perceived gap of about £3.5 million in support, and you have explained to us where it would be filled. You have talked about a £10 million fund. Are we talking like for like? Is that an annual figure?
Because we already have the investing in communities programme, which has been making very large grants to organisations that help people in need, our committee has decided to set up a £10 million fund that will fund projects that run over two years. That will give us the opportunity to see demand and what organisations are able to do, and to think about the best approach in the longer term.
So we are looking at a sum of money that will do the same thing that is being done south of the border and an additional sum of money that will be available to deal with additional problems.
Yes. Our main grants programme in Scotland, investing in communities, had already been funding such work. It funds projects that run over five years up to £1 million, and tends to focus very much on long-term preventative work that is about addressing the root causes of challenges. I suppose that in numerical terms, the difference between what we have been doing and what we are additionally doing is that the support and connect fund will make grants of up to £350,000 over a two-year period, and it very much recognises that there is a need to meet the immediate hardship and challenges that people are facing. That includes the provision of advice and dealing with issues around preventing homelessness and preventing children from being unable to access food. In the initial bunch of applications, there are applications about the provision of white goods, food banks and breakfast clubs. People are looking to make such provision available in their local communities.
Thank you.
Good morning, Ms Killeen. Over what period has the money south of the border been made available?
I just have to check my notes, if you do not mind.
I will wait.
It is a transition fund. From memory, I think that they are three-year grants. However, I would be very grateful if you would let me double check that and get back to you. I know that there was a single deadline. Applications have already been submitted and assessed and, as far as I know, the grants will be made in June.
So there is around £65 million to cover a three-year period.
Yes, but please let me double check that.
Of course.
There are two deadlines: one that has just passed and one in September. The grants will run for two years and, as I said, we will keep the situation under review. Our committee may take the view that, based on what people have asked us for, we might need to extend the fund or do something different.
So you might supplement the grants with additional funds. I am not asking you to commit to that; I am just saying that it is a possibility.
Yes, it is a possibility. We try to be responsive and take account of what is happening, which is why we introduced the fund in the first place.
That sounds an eminently sensible approach to me. In essence, we are talking about £20 million—
Sorry, no, it is—
Sorry—please let me finish. It is £20 million between what is being provided for the making advice work programme—I can see what your concern was, because you thought that I was saying it was £20 million from the Big Lottery Fund—and the £10 million from the Big Lottery Fund in Scotland over two years. In England, there is £65 million over three years. It seems to me that, proportionately, more is being invested in Scotland.
From the Big Lottery Fund perspective, Scotland receives 10.35 per cent of the overall money that is available across the UK. We have probably put in a bit more than you would have expected.
I am talking about a like-for-like basis in terms of the programmes and not so much about what your organisation is allocating. I appreciate that the programme that you are taking forward Is different from what is being taken forward south of the border. I would like to know the position, as far as you can state it, on a like-for-like basis. There is £65 million over three years in England and £20 million over two years between the Scottish Government and the Big Lottery Fund in Scotland. That sounds to me like, proportionately, higher investment in Scotland.
Yes. You could say that.
Thank you.
Can people apply for capital and resources grants or just resource grants from the support and connect fund?
They can apply for both, but we expect the majority of the funding to be revenue. That is one of the changes that we have made, because we recognise that there are requests for funding for small capital items, which we have not seen previously.
What do you mean by “small capital items”?
People have asked for help with some quite practical things such as washing machines. We would not have expected to see such items in applications to us, but we have made it possible to fund them in the current programme.
You do not envisage the grants funding buildings, for example.
The amount of capital work that could be undertaken with a grant of up to £350,000 would probably be fairly limited. We expect the grants to be primarily for revenue. I have not had the chance to go through the first raft of applications in detail, so there might be more requests for capital.
In your submission, you say:
Yes. We spend about £75 million a year in Scotland in new grants. It depends on what you describe as projects that address those most in need. Last year, through the investing in communities programme, we invested around £50 million in projects that help people with long-term challenges and issues such as employment; they also help young people who have been in the criminal justice system and young people with additional needs. Recently, we have seen some of those challenges become more difficult. For example, on employment, it is harder for young people and other marginalised groups to access jobs.
Okay.
We have worked with the Scottish Government team that is working on welfare reform. We have also worked with Money Advice Scotland and the Scottish Legal Aid Board, which are administering the funds that the Government is putting into the area. We have gone through the Government’s funding criteria to understand in detail what it is looking to fund so that we can make sure that people who call us or are directed to us are directed towards the best source of funding for what they want to do. My staff have been in regular contact with the teams at those organisations.
You said that the arrangements have not settled down yet. When is that likely to happen?
As the Scottish Government’s funds begin to flow through, we are trying to make sure that we share intelligence with the Government and give consistent advice to people who want to apply. We know that some organisations want to apply quickly, and it might be that what they want to do fits better with what the Government is funding through the Scottish Legal Aid Board and Money Advice Scotland. We will make sure that we direct those organisations accordingly.
Kenneth Gibson has asked some of the questions I was interested in asking. However, I am particularly interested in the whole ethos of connecting services because it is really important. Surely it is achievable in a country the size of Scotland. Are you confident that everyone is on the same page in relation to that?
I think that the situation is getting better but, when we have talked to organisations across the country, we have found that they are sometimes very busy responding to the needs that people present to them and they might not be aware of other services that are operating at local level that they could be connecting with.
Are you finding that those at the top who make the decisions work together? Is there on-going dialogue at that level?
Yes, we have seen good examples of that throughout Scotland, particularly between housing associations and citizens advice bureaux. Where those partnerships are already in place, they are beginning to work quite well—that is admirable, given the challenges that organisations now face. However, it can be harder for small locally based organisations, which often have small numbers of staff or are volunteer run. With the support and connect fund, we hope to help those locally based organisations to make connections as well.
Sometimes, at an even higher level, bureaucracy can get in the way and slow things down terribly. How have you found the situation in your dealings with Government, Government agencies, local authorities and so on?
We have probably had more contact with local government over the past six months than we had previously. We have also had a really good response from organisations such as the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, which has played a facilitating role in helping to broker dialogue with its network.
Do you feel that things are improving?
Things are improving. As I said, we have had a high level of interest in the fund. I will be happy to share with you the detail of the proposals once we have been through the assessment. The deadline was 13 May, and we are working through the applications at the minute.
You said that the fund can be used for small capital items but will generally be for resource expenditure. Will any of that resource expenditure be used to employ more people?
Yes, absolutely.
What checks are there in relation to the people who can be employed? For example, with the Government’s change fund for local authorities, I know that all that has apparently been achieved in some instances is that there are more people in jobs but there is not a lot of difference on the ground. Do you have checks and balances to monitor that aspect?
Yes, there are a few requirements. First, lottery funding must be additional—that is an absolute requirement—so we cannot fund statutory obligations, such as things that are the responsibility of other agencies. Added value and additionality are key watchwords for us, so we will want to understand clearly what the added benefit of a new post would be.
I have one final wee question. On the issue of obligations, an interesting point that jumped out at me from your written submission was the reference to grants for food banks and the provision of funding for organisations
That has definitely grown in demand over the past couple of years. To an extent, we have always had requests for projects in disadvantaged areas that might include an element of that work, such as after-school clubs that provide a meal for children. However, particularly for the small grants provided through our awards for all fund, there has been an increase from people, often working at a very local level, who see a need around them and are motivated to address it. Quite often, such groups might be a bit unsupported, which people can find quite difficult, so encouraging support connections locally is even more important for those organisations.
Is the food bank part new?
Yes, absolutely.
I assume that the fund is oversubscribed—if I am wrong, by all means say—but, from looking at the applications that you received, do you have any sense of by how much it is oversubscribed?
For this first round, we have received around 120 applications—there will always be a bit of rounding in that when we get to the detail. As yet, I cannot say how much those applications will be for. We did not say that we would make £5 million available for the May deadline and £5 million for the autumn deadline, as we wanted to see what the level of demand is now. However, in terms of monetary value, I expect that the applications in this round will be at a very high level.
You have expressed a number of hopes about what the fund might achieve, such as prioritising projects that connect services. You also said that you hope to be able to support small local volunteer-led projects, which might find difficulty accessing other funds. If the fund is oversubscribed, what criteria will you apply? You said that you have not divided the fund into two parts, so how will you do that? How do you avoid allocating all of it—I was going to say giving it all away, but that would be unfair—in the first round? I am just interested to know what the process is.
We are very much focused on the two outcomes, and we are trying to ensure that we offer the funding across as much of the country as possible. The two key outcomes are that people are better able to access support at the local level and that support is more connected so that there is a reduced risk of people falling through. We are also very conscious that the issues are experienced across the country.
That is quite reassuring, but I am still struggling a little to understand how you will make that judgment. Do you score and rank the applications on the basis of certain criteria?
We do. We always find some applications that are much better developed than others and some applications that might better fit one of our other programmes. As much as we try to direct people to the correct source of funding, they sometimes come into support and connect when they would have been better to come into awards for all or investing in communities. We are able to passport people internally to the more appropriate source. There will also be some applications that will not be successful.
Is it fair to say that it is quite likely that you will need to increase the funds to address the need?
That would be a decision for our committee and it would have to be based on the evidence that the first round of funding brings to us. We would also want to take account of what happens as the Government’s funding begins to come on stream.
My question concerns the fact that the matter is reserved to Westminster and dealt with by the Department for Work and Pensions. What role has the DWP played in the discussions south and north of the border? If money is being made available for other things—which is all well and good—what residual things will the DWP be doing?
In England, the arrangement was with the Cabinet Office, to which we report on policy direction. The advice transition fund was built on previous funding for advice that had come through the Big Lottery Fund and the Cabinet Office and its predecessors. In England, the work is focused on how the advice will be provided now and in the future and how that will be resourced rather than dealing with the DWP per se. However, all the bureaux are conscious of, and work with, the local DWP infrastructure.
Thank you for that. It was interesting.
Probably not so much. I do not know whether people have applied to us for this, but we have been aware of discussions happening at the local level on how digital exclusion can best be addressed. We have seen some good examples of local library networks, for example, thinking about how they can make their services and staff available to help people with that online move. Housing associations are also conscious of that.
That might be another issue to pursue with the DWP, convener.
That seems to have exhausted our questions, Jackie. A picture is emerging. In the fullness of time, once the mist has cleared a bit, we might need to have a discussion again. Do you want to say anything in conclusion?
I am just sorry that I have come to you so soon after our deadline and that I am not able to give you more granular information. I would be happy to write to you or to come back with it in the future.
That would be really helpful. At some point, we might be able to look at the clearer picture and assess it.
It is a pleasure. We will obviously keep the matter under review. Our aim is to be as responsive and responsible as we can be in Scotland with such issues. As the picture of need clarifies, we may well develop further interventions or approaches that address the need. However, as you will appreciate, it is a bit of a moving picture at the minute.
I totally appreciate that.