[Tealeaf]

Surely the crux of the problem lies in the way that lottery money is distributed? The difference between taxpayer funded and lottery funded is merely a moot point. The lottery fund is no more than a government quango and while you can argue that people do not have to pay the lottery, an awful lot of people do not pay direct taxes.

Would it not therefore be better to get rid of the lottery fund bureaucracy altogether and simply distribute directly to local councils on a proportionate basis of the amounts staked in any locality? This way you avoid the obscenity’s of vast amounts of money going to mega projects in London while the provinces are relatively starved. It would probably also avoid the some of the crazy payments that have gone into Hyndburn, such as the 250K for an Islamic club up Springhill in the last few weeks and the 400K paid for pregnant Asian school girls some years ago. It should not be too difficult to ring fence the money and then let local organisations compete to get funding.