National Lottery Charities Board Scotland

Our priorities - and how they’re decided

A big consultation exercise in 1998 - it involved ten thousand questionnaires and many meetings with community groups and public agencies - helped us to prioritise the issues we want to address and the kind of projects which will address them.

Until 2002, when we will publish a new strategic plan, we will focus our grant-making on four key priorities identified in this consultation. Successful applications will address one or more of these priorities. We will fund

• projects which are located in our high priority areas. These are areas of Scotland where there is greatest concentration of poverty and disadvantage, and those areas which have so far not been very successful in accessing our funds. Currently our high priority areas are:Angus, Clackmannanshire, Dundee, Fife, Midlothian, West Lothian, Glasgow, Inverclyde, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Scottish Borders and South Lanarkshire.
• projects which strengthen the infrastructure of the voluntary sector. This means that the beneficiaries of the project will be voluntary organisations.
• projects which provide equality of opportunity, particularly for groups which often experience lack of opportunity, for example black and minority ethnic communities, people with disabilities and women.
• projects which are run by small organisations (those with an annual income of less than £100,000) and by community-led organisations, those where the management committee is drawn mostly from local people and community representatives.

During the consultation we asked groups how our funds could make the biggest difference in Scotland. They identified the kinds of projects through which our grants could have maximum impact in improving quality of life. We want our grants to make a difference by providing

• community facilities
• learning and training projects
• training and support for voluntary and community groups
• support for networks of community and voluntary organisations
• support for projects which help to maximise incomes.

There are also some principles which guide us in developing policies and in distributing funds.