23 June 2009

All Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) money currently held in the National Lottery Distribution Fund (NLDF) has already been promised to projects that are currently underway. In fact, HLF has also committed considerably more money to projects, confident that future income will safely cover any ‘overdraft’. 

Carole Souter, Chief Executive of HLF, commented: "All of the £440million currently in our balances is allocated to actual projects - in fact we have outstanding commitments to projects worth £995million.  Getting the money out to these projects as fast as possible remains a priority for us.  We do pay quickly and provide cash up-front for smaller community projects.

“We have to have money available to make payments to thousands of on-going HLF projects. Many of these are multi-million pound projects which take years to complete. If you were renovating a house, you wouldn’t pay the builders up-front but would ensure you had the money available to pay them in instalments over the life of the project. The money to be drawn down earns interest which is ploughed back into the good causes."