“We are probably the only game in town now” were the parting words of Jenny Abramsky, former chairwoman of the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), when she stepped down in July.
In a climate in which funding from public sources is diminishing across the board, it is hard to argue with her statement – particularly as the HLF’s £375m budget will not be reduced next year.
This month marks the 20th anniversary of the first National Lottery draw. Since then, the HLF has distributed more than £6bn, raised through lottery ticket sales, to 37,000 heritage projects across the UK.
That figure includes the restoration of more than 17,000 historic buildings, 750 community archaeology projects and the training of 3,000 people to fill specialist skills gaps in heritage.
The museums and galleries sector has long been one of the most significant beneficiaries of HLF funding, with £1.84bn going to 3,016 museum and gallery projects up to March 2014 (see graph).
That figure spans capital builds such as the Hepworth Wakefield through to major redevelopment projects, such as the recently reopened Imperial War Museum in London. It also includes thousands of smaller redevelopments in regional museums, as well as numerous learning, audience development, training and acquisition programmes.
Last month, the HLF announced the latest round of its £5m Collecting Cultures programme to fund strategic acquisitions, as well as contributing nearly £11m towards the target required to save the Wedgwood Collection from being sold off to plug a pension deficit.
Double figures
The difference such grants have made to the sector is difficult to overstate. As well as preserving heritage sites, and rejuvenating museum spaces and collections, the HLF has transformed attendance figures and public engagement with the sector.
On average, attendance figures double following an HLF investment, while three-quarters of visitors say their enjoyment of the site has improved and more than 60% say they will revisit within 12 months.
The process of applying for a grant has also had an impact on the working practice of the sector. Over the past 15 years, the HLF has made learning outcomes a mandatory requirement of all funding bids, helping mainstream education activity.
Likewise, its focus on audience development and public participation has played a large part in changing how museums view and interact with visitors.
And although the HLF has been criticised for not doing more with the thousands of evaluations it gathers, the stringent evaluation process does provide the sector with some hard evidence as to the value of culture and heritage, should any politician care to ask.
But as the organisation moves beyond its 20th anniversary, it has some difficult issues to face. In a sector in which many organisations are struggling to survive, the competition for grants has increased dramatically, meaning the HLF is now able to fund only 35% of the bids it receives – down from 70% in 2006.
The share of funding going to museums and galleries – while still significant – is also falling. The HLF says this is because of an increase in the number of bids from other types of heritage organisations representing areas such as intangible heritage, which have gradually woken up to the fact that they too are eligible for grants.
There is also the knock-on effect of swingeing reductions in government and local authority funding. These have led to a “dramatic change” in the availability of match funding, says Fiona Talbott, the head of museums, libraries and archives at the HLF.
With public sources of match funding increasingly restricted, museums are turning to private streams such as sponsorship and trusts, she says. This has led some applicants to ask for an uplift in their second-round bid because they overestimated their ability to raise the required cash.
Lack of commitment
The commitment to long-term sustainability required for HLF bids has also caused some councils to get cold feet. Snibston Discovery Centre and Bromley Museum are among those organisations that have been forced to withdraw bids because their local authorities failed to commit funding for the stipulated 25-year period.
Some in the sector have called on the HLF to focus more on museum activities than capital projects as a means of ensuring sustainability.
Meanwhile, the difficult climate has also forced the HLF to move ever so gradually away from the additionality principle on which it was founded. Although its focus is still on supplementary projects, Talbott says that in some cases, the organisation has now started to provide core funding for a limited period “as part of the overall project”.
There are also ethical questions to consider. The National Lottery has never quite overcome the accusation that it is a stealth tax on disadvantaged people, who make up the majority of ticket buyers.
The Policy for the Lottery, Arts and Community in England report published earlier this year did little to dispel that impression in its scathing critique of the arts council’s allocation of lottery funds, although it reserved some praise for the HLF as a far more equitable distributor.
But the HLF’s spend per head since 1994 still amounts to £55 in London, compared with £21 in the rest of the UK. With falls in funding hitting poor areas the hardest, questions have been asked about whether that balance can be improved.
Talbott says the HLF is deeply committed to regional balance, with all of its grant-making decisions made at regional level except for projects of more than £2m.
But could the HLF do more to demonstrate a commitment to equality? In a comment piece last month, the BBC arts editor Will Gompertz said the HLF’s failure to adequately recognise and pay tribute to the contribution of lottery ticket buyers in its Wedgwood grant was “condescending, snobbish and divisive”, saying it highlighted an underlying belief among cultural funders that the “sort of people who play the lottery aren’t interested in culture”.
There is no doubt that museums and heritage organisations that have benefited from the impact of lottery funding on their communities would disagree with those words.
But as the heritage sector moves towards an uncertain future, and other funders drop out of the game, the challenge for the HLF will be to ensure it continues to reach those areas that need it most.
"Before the HLF, a grant of £40,000 was a large amount. The sector has always been creative, but with money you can be much more creative. It has allowed museums to be more ambitious and to take a step into a different world.
They have gone from being quite shabby and neglected to being visually interesting, almost unrecognisable from what they were before.
It is when you visit other countries that you can tell the difference lottery money makes – you walk through some museums thinking: ‘Nothing has changed for years, there is no attempt to engage.’ They might have amazing collections but the power of the objects is lost. The HLF has completely transformed museums in the UK.
We have done various pieces of evaluation work to look at whether people think that where they live and work is better following an HLF investment. They might not be consciously aware, but they can feel the difference.
In future, we hope to look at participation: getting people more involved with their local museum and encouraging more large-scale, long-term engagement projects. We would like to turn museum visitors into museum advocates."
Fiona Talbott is the HLF’s head of museums, libraries and archives
In a climate in which funding from public sources is diminishing across the board, it is hard to argue with her statement – particularly as the HLF’s £375m budget will not be reduced next year.
This month marks the 20th anniversary of the first National Lottery draw. Since then, the HLF has distributed more than £6bn, raised through lottery ticket sales, to 37,000 heritage projects across the UK.
That figure includes the restoration of more than 17,000 historic buildings, 750 community archaeology projects and the training of 3,000 people to fill specialist skills gaps in heritage.
The museums and galleries sector has long been one of the most significant beneficiaries of HLF funding, with £1.84bn going to 3,016 museum and gallery projects up to March 2014 (see graph).
That figure spans capital builds such as the Hepworth Wakefield through to major redevelopment projects, such as the recently reopened Imperial War Museum in London. It also includes thousands of smaller redevelopments in regional museums, as well as numerous learning, audience development, training and acquisition programmes.
Last month, the HLF announced the latest round of its £5m Collecting Cultures programme to fund strategic acquisitions, as well as contributing nearly £11m towards the target required to save the Wedgwood Collection from being sold off to plug a pension deficit.
Double figures
The difference such grants have made to the sector is difficult to overstate. As well as preserving heritage sites, and rejuvenating museum spaces and collections, the HLF has transformed attendance figures and public engagement with the sector.
On average, attendance figures double following an HLF investment, while three-quarters of visitors say their enjoyment of the site has improved and more than 60% say they will revisit within 12 months.
The process of applying for a grant has also had an impact on the working practice of the sector. Over the past 15 years, the HLF has made learning outcomes a mandatory requirement of all funding bids, helping mainstream education activity.
Likewise, its focus on audience development and public participation has played a large part in changing how museums view and interact with visitors.
And although the HLF has been criticised for not doing more with the thousands of evaluations it gathers, the stringent evaluation process does provide the sector with some hard evidence as to the value of culture and heritage, should any politician care to ask.
But as the organisation moves beyond its 20th anniversary, it has some difficult issues to face. In a sector in which many organisations are struggling to survive, the competition for grants has increased dramatically, meaning the HLF is now able to fund only 35% of the bids it receives – down from 70% in 2006.
The share of funding going to museums and galleries – while still significant – is also falling. The HLF says this is because of an increase in the number of bids from other types of heritage organisations representing areas such as intangible heritage, which have gradually woken up to the fact that they too are eligible for grants.
There is also the knock-on effect of swingeing reductions in government and local authority funding. These have led to a “dramatic change” in the availability of match funding, says Fiona Talbott, the head of museums, libraries and archives at the HLF.
With public sources of match funding increasingly restricted, museums are turning to private streams such as sponsorship and trusts, she says. This has led some applicants to ask for an uplift in their second-round bid because they overestimated their ability to raise the required cash.
Lack of commitment
The commitment to long-term sustainability required for HLF bids has also caused some councils to get cold feet. Snibston Discovery Centre and Bromley Museum are among those organisations that have been forced to withdraw bids because their local authorities failed to commit funding for the stipulated 25-year period.
Some in the sector have called on the HLF to focus more on museum activities than capital projects as a means of ensuring sustainability.
Meanwhile, the difficult climate has also forced the HLF to move ever so gradually away from the additionality principle on which it was founded. Although its focus is still on supplementary projects, Talbott says that in some cases, the organisation has now started to provide core funding for a limited period “as part of the overall project”.
There are also ethical questions to consider. The National Lottery has never quite overcome the accusation that it is a stealth tax on disadvantaged people, who make up the majority of ticket buyers.
The Policy for the Lottery, Arts and Community in England report published earlier this year did little to dispel that impression in its scathing critique of the arts council’s allocation of lottery funds, although it reserved some praise for the HLF as a far more equitable distributor.
But the HLF’s spend per head since 1994 still amounts to £55 in London, compared with £21 in the rest of the UK. With falls in funding hitting poor areas the hardest, questions have been asked about whether that balance can be improved.
Talbott says the HLF is deeply committed to regional balance, with all of its grant-making decisions made at regional level except for projects of more than £2m.
But could the HLF do more to demonstrate a commitment to equality? In a comment piece last month, the BBC arts editor Will Gompertz said the HLF’s failure to adequately recognise and pay tribute to the contribution of lottery ticket buyers in its Wedgwood grant was “condescending, snobbish and divisive”, saying it highlighted an underlying belief among cultural funders that the “sort of people who play the lottery aren’t interested in culture”.
There is no doubt that museums and heritage organisations that have benefited from the impact of lottery funding on their communities would disagree with those words.
But as the heritage sector moves towards an uncertain future, and other funders drop out of the game, the challenge for the HLF will be to ensure it continues to reach those areas that need it most.
The HLF has allowed museums to be more creative
"Before the HLF, a grant of £40,000 was a large amount. The sector has always been creative, but with money you can be much more creative. It has allowed museums to be more ambitious and to take a step into a different world.
They have gone from being quite shabby and neglected to being visually interesting, almost unrecognisable from what they were before.
It is when you visit other countries that you can tell the difference lottery money makes – you walk through some museums thinking: ‘Nothing has changed for years, there is no attempt to engage.’ They might have amazing collections but the power of the objects is lost. The HLF has completely transformed museums in the UK.
We have done various pieces of evaluation work to look at whether people think that where they live and work is better following an HLF investment. They might not be consciously aware, but they can feel the difference.
In future, we hope to look at participation: getting people more involved with their local museum and encouraging more large-scale, long-term engagement projects. We would like to turn museum visitors into museum advocates."
Fiona Talbott is the HLF’s head of museums, libraries and archives
