Why oh Why...?

Come on - someone tell me what it's all about. WHY was so much Lottery money being spent on the Olympics for 2012 ?

Please note: This page was written in 2009 and may contain outdated links and information

Yes, this is going to be a rant - I'm sorry, but I feel VERY strongly about this. The UK National Lottery raises money for 'The Good Causes', which in my mind is to help the community. Yes, some money is spent preserving things like the Opera, which a lot of people are not happy about, and I tend to agree with them. People who go to the Opera are not below the poverty line, they can afford to spend more on tickets than the average Joe in the street, so why is Lottery money being spent on Opera?

But, worse still, MILLIONS (£3 Billion or more at last count) of Lottery money was being ploughed into the 2012 Olympics - something that the average Joe in the street will not go along to watch, will maybe see bits of it on TV, but is otherwise uninterested. Yes, great, so someone will win a medal or two - and it's going to be on the telly for weeks on end. The TV companies, worldwide mind you, will be paying someone for the honour of carrying the broadcasts, so where is that money going?

I've bought Lottery tickets and scratchcards for years, on the understanding that at least 28% of the money will go to 'Good Causes' - I personally do NOT see the Olympics as being a 'Good Cause' to this extent. By all means let some funding go to the darned games, but it's just crazy the amount they're talking about. One report I saw suggests an EXTRA £300 million will be taken from Lottery funding - crazy money!

A petition (click here to read it) was raised on the Downing Street website, over 25,200 people signed it. It was to ask the government NOT to spend more Lottery money on the Olympics but to consider the many community projects that SHOULD benefit from the money instead. Downing Street have gone ahead and agreed to the extra cash - despite the petition. Obviously they are not listening to the people they are supposed to serve. Over 25,000 people, including myself, took the time to add their voice to that, what was the point?

My main interest at the time I wrote this was a community radio station, I was part of the team at the time. We estimated it would take around £400,000 to put together and run for the first 3 years - but could we get that from Lottery funding, nope - the only stream we qualified for went up to £500,000 but only £50,000 of that could be 'Capital'. That's where the group needed to buy things - like a building to operate from, and the studio equipment. It was vital for our project, but where we thought we would be able to get support from the Lottery funding, we couldn't.

There were stacks of forms to fill in to get anywhere with applying to the Lottery in the first place, and they want every T crossed and every I dotted, plus a complete breakdown of every penny we asked for. We had to provide reporting, giving them a list of what we had spent, copies of all the documentation, an admin nightmare. All we want to do is provide a service to our community, yet we'll be tied down so tight with paperwork that someone would have to be employed just to look after that. In the end we didn't apply for the big lottery money back then.

The people getting all this money for the Olympics were able to employ whole teams of people to look after their paperwork, if they have to do similar reporting. That will be factored into the millions it's costing to put the games on in 2012. Yes, hundreds of thosands, probably millions, of pounds to pay people to keep track of where the money is going. What it cost them would have run our little radio station for years!

If the Lottery wanted to support the Olympics then they should have a SEPERATE series of scratch cards people can buy for that purpose ONLY. They did bring out one that clearly stated all proceeds would go to support 2012 in London. Fine, I'd probably buy a couple to add my support to that. But, what have they gone and done - ALL the scratch card sales over a period of YEARS were being used to go to that bottomless pit. It's true - it says so on their website at http://www.national-lottery.co.uk/player/gaming/instantGamesLobby.do - "The Good Causes contribution arising from the sale of all Instant Win Games will go to the fund set up for the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games." I

Where was the announcement to tell people that? I've stopped buying scratchcards now, I'll not bother with them at all. Back in May 2003 the Guardian reported that Camelot will raise some £750 million towards the Olympic fund - (click here to read that story). Tash Shifrin, the reporter in that article, started the piece with "Voluntary sector groups fear charities could lose millions of pounds..." and goes on to tell how many groups would lose out.

The Elsecar Heritage Railway needs help to keep open, like many good community projects, they rely on volunteer help and external funding as they do not make enough out of ticket sales and donations. Read more at http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/sheffield/hi/people_and_places/newsid_8407000/8407515.stm It's very sad that the people who are trying their best to run the trains are being deprived of support, from the National Lottery, because it's all going to the 2012 Olympics.

The BBC have a report (click here) from June 2007 which says the figure allocated by the government would be £2.2 BILLION. Another BBC report from March 2007 (click here) says Tessa Jowell announced a figure of £9.35 BILLION - imagine how many community projects that could help support...

And that stupid logo, which caused an outcry when it was first shown, what did that cost? The BBC again (click here) give that figure - £400,000 !!! I'm sure the BBC's own Blue Peter viewers could have come up with better, and be awarded a simple badge for their efforts! £400,000 - the very figure I was looking for to support a worthwhile community project, well - I think so anyway.

Yes, we applied for Lottery help. One of the bigger pots of money was closed, support was diverted to the Olympics instead. The only pot we could apply for had a ceiling of £10,000. We applied and got £9,700. A good acheivement that has paid for our transmission equipment. We applied for two other grants, one was for about £4,800, but we only got £3,100 of that as the fund was oversubscribed. The third application was to South Yorkshire Key Fund, £12,000 requested, part grant, part loan. They turned us down.

So, we had to cut back on lots of things, a second hand transmitter was found, some of the other equipment was re-specified to be the bare minimum of what would work. We have a very small studio area in a community centre that is akin to a sauna most of the time, we are worried that we will not be able to run the new station for very long. Full-time broadcasting started on December 14th 2009, without some further support it will be closed in Arpil 2010.

The National Lottery was set up to provide support to 'good causes' - and those causes are being deprived because so much is being wasted on the Olympics instead. Camelot should be ashamed that this will go mainly to fat cat companies who are being paid to act as consultants, in turn employing other companies to build stadiums, accomodation and other facilities. It's NOT a 'good cause' by any stretch of the imagination if it is paying for commercial ventures like this. It may be a bit beyond the days of 'Challenge Aneka' or the efforts of 'Ground Force', but this is an amateur event, so some input from community groups would have saved hundreds of thousands of pounds!

I could sit here all night, finding related news stories about the cost, and how it affects the various lottery funding outlets, but I think you've got the idea by now. I am but one person, I tried joining over 25,000 others to protest to Downing Street about this sheer waste of Lottery cash by giving it to the 2012 Olympics, but what more can I do? About the only thing left is a page like this, on my own website, on the understanding that free speech is still allowed.

The Lottery website helpfully tells us that over a quarter of a million grants have been made, totalling over £20 billion - they've been running the Lottery since November 1994, that's 13 years to give out £20 billion to 'Good Causes' - if the top figure I found, of £9.35 billion, is correct, then that's over seven years worth of funding other projects they've blown, or over 120,000 projects that could have benefited.

Why do the Government support spending so much Lottery money on this event? A cynical person may look at the benefit to them. All the people employed using this money will pay income tax, all the goods supplied will have VAT applied, and what percentage of the funding will find it's way into the chancellors coffers? My best guess is around 20%, that could be around £2 BILLION in taxes. Wow! no wonder they are backing the crazy spending.

Hang on, the Olympic participants are amateurs. They do not receive professional fees, so the athletes we're supposed to be supporting in 2012 are not going to get much out of this apart from a medal or two, perhaps some kit to wear, accomodation maybe? Can you see that stretching to millions of pounds? Compare whate benefit they will see against the salaries of those putting this fiasco together. Hmmm.

The cheering everyone heard when London was awarded the 2012 Olympic Games was not of the people who made the bid, it was from the other countries who realised that they would not have to spend so much money themselves...

UPDATE: August 2013. Watch this BBC report > http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23740617 < on how the money was mis-managed and is STILL not going to be made available to charities and community organisations who should have been able to get help from the Big Lottery Fund. The money was paid to consultants, contractors and businesses and that's NOT what the Big Lottery Fund was set up for. The Olympic Stadium has not been sold, it's being leased out, so there's no return from that as was promised when they borrowed the cash. Bloody scandalous !

Go figure...

Other sites with similar views:

Simon Glover on Orange
Daily Telegraph
The Scotsman - complete with readers comments!
Volunteering England
Voscur
NCVO

PLEASE - don't write to me saying you agree with what I say - tell it to your local paper, your MP, anyone who will listen. Millions of us spend money on the Lottery each week. Did we get the chance to say how the proceeds would be spent?

(c) 2007 - Gordon Sharpe

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