Charities urge government not to raid Lottery funds for Olympics
Howard Lake | 20 November 2006 | News
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) has expressed its concern that government Ministers are considering a further raid on the National Lottery to pay for the increased costs of staging the 2012 Olympics.
Stuart Etherington, Chief Executive at NCVO said: “The 2012 Olympics are an exciting opportunity for the UK and present a huge range of volunteering opportunities. But the news that further lottery funding for good causes could be diverted to the Olympics will worry voluntary and community organisations across the country.
“£1.5 billion of Lottery funding is already being diverted to the Olympics. A further raid will therefore leave a significant shortfall in funding to good causes. Charities want the Olympics to be a success, but it is vital that good causes do not bear the burden of Olympic funding.
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NCVO, together with its sister councils in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, has proposed a solution to the current funding concerns, namely a reform of the 12% tax on National Lottery tickets.
By abolishing or reducing the tax on lottery tickets, funding could be returned to good causes and ensure that charities are not unduly affected over the Olympic period.
The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has reportedly backed this approach, saying that he believed that the “first port of call” to tackle overruns should be pressure on the Treasury to forgo its 12p tax on the lottery.
Stuart Etherington said: A review of this tax is overdue – no formal review of lottery taxation has been carried out in the eleven years of the Lottery. The original rationale for the tax was to compensate the Treasury for duty lost from other forms of gambling as people switched to playing the Lottery. This no longer stands.”
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.