National Lottery Charities Board Wales

Who decides which applications are awarded grants.

�The NLCB assessment system is remarkable. It is the most determined attempt that has been seen in Britain, and probably anywhere in the world, to make objective grant making decisions that will still accurately represent the policies of the grant maker.�

Luke FitzHerbert, editor of The National Lottery Year Book,
The Directory of Social Change.

At the heart of all that we do is our mission statement: to help those at greatest disadvantage in society and to improve the quality of life in the community. It is those applications which will best achieve this aim which receive grants.

After you have applied for a grant from the Charities Board you will be contacted by a Grants Officer who will assess your application. However, it is not the Grants Officer who decides whether you receive a grant or not. They make a recommendation as to whether the application is good enough to receive a grant or not to the Wales Committee. It is the committee members who then have to decide which applications are successful.

The Wales Committee has six members, three full Board Members and three co-opted committee members so as to ensure that the committee has a comprehensive well of knowledge to draw on about the different parts of the voluntary sector and about the varied geographical areas of Wales. Here�s a brief introduction to the Wales Committee members:

Elisabeth Watkins, Chair
Elisabeth Watkins is a barrister who has practised in Britain and Bermuda. She is an immigration adjudicator and chairs the NHS Complaints Independant Review Panel in Wales. She has worked for voluntary organisations in Pakistan, Canada and Swaziland, and is a former Chairman of the International Committee of the British Red Cross in Vancouver, and founding Chairman of the Swaziland Hospice At Home.

Rhiannon Bevan
Rhiannon Bevan is Chair of the Keep Wales Tidy Campaign Board and President of the Wales Association of Community and Town Councils. In 1998, she retired as head of the Wales office of the National Federation of Women's Institutes. Mrs Bevan is a former Chair of the Welsh Consumers Council, and a former member of Broadcasting Standards Council, the Broadcasting Standards Commission and the Wales Tourist Board. Mrs Bevan was educated at the University College of Wales, Cardiff.

Jeff Carroll
Retired from the Police Service as Superintendent in charge of community affairs; Jeff Carroll is currently Chairman of the Board of Social Responsibility, Diocese of Llandaff; Chairman of Neath Port Talbot Cancer Challenge; a member of Cardiff and the Vale Race Equality Council; Chairman of Cimla Youth Football Club; a Committee member of the South Wales Police Rugby Football Club; a Rector�s sub-warden at the parish of Neath with Llanwit; and is a former fundraising committee member for the Sir Geraint Evans Heart Research Appeal.

Aled Si�n (Co-opted Member)
Aled Si�n is the South Wales organiser for the National Eisteddfod of Wales. He has been closely involved in organising the Eisteddfod since 1995, and worked for eleven years with Urdd Gobaith Cymru as Director of their residential centre Glan Llyn. He has been involved in the Tryweryn Trust, Llanuwchllyn Village Hall Committee, and the Future of Penllyn Committee.

Margaret Dennis (Co-opted Member)
Margaret Dennis is a freelance PR consultant whose clients included Tenovus, the NSPCC and Leukemia Research. She is the Co-ordinator of Debate of the Age Wales, Chair of Cruse Bereavement Care Cardiff and the Vale, and a member of the Committee of Medialink.

Dr Glyn Williams (Co-opted Member)
Dr Glyn Williams is the Director of the Wales Research Centre at the University of Bangor. He is a sociologist who has lectured at the Universities of Bangor and San Francisco, and has published numerous books and articles. He has worked on committees in the European Commission, the Royal Academy of Ireland, the ESRC, the SRC and the British Academy.