Decision details

The Thanet Community Lotto was created in 2017 by Thanet District Council and was set up to support community projects in the local area. The Lotto operates on the principle of raising money within the community for the community. It empowers local good causes to raise money in a fun and effective way.

Thanet Community Lotto enables people to support the causes they care most about, helping good causes to connect with their supporters.

A ticket for the Thanet Community Lotto costs £1 per week and 60p will go directly to good causes in Thanet. Even better, Lotto players can choose which Thanet good cause gets 50p of the 60p. The Thanet Community Lotto helps over 80 local good causes to generate a regular income. The remaining 10p goes in a central pot for good causes. This has been accumulating with approximately £70,000 accumulated since the Lotto started.

During April 2024 the council's Cabinet and Corporate Management Team agreed to set-up a grants programme using funds from the Thanet Community Lotto good causes pot. It was proposed that the Thanet Community Lotto Grants programme should be available to cover all wards of Thanet with a simple and accessible eligibility criteria for most not-for-profit organisations, subject to the normal council grant protocols.

The headline criteria was for the grants to deliver activities that support Pride in Place and delivered by ‘good causes’ in Thanet. The Fund covered all wards in Thanet and therefore available to apply to for Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise organisations and communities of Thanet. To be successful applicants had to be based in, and serve Thanet residents. The grants were up to a maximum of £2,000.

The grant programme was launched in September 2024 and closed in October. Through an open process, grant applications were invited and sent to the council for the Thanet Community Lotto Grants Fund. 63 applications were received and shortlisted using the published criteria, which were:-

• All sections of the application form have been fully completed with the relevant information. 
• Successful applicants must be based in and serve Thanet. The project must take place in Thanet. 
• Project aligned with ‘Pride in Place’ ethos.

Any project or organisation that did not achieve the criteria were automatically failed, not shortlisted and therefore not considered by the Lotto Grants Review Panel.

A panel of three staff members was set-up to review the bids against the key criteria, with the Corporate Directors forming the approval panel, reviewing the recommendations and providing sign-off of the grant awards. 

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund report, ‘Delivering Shared Prosperity in Thanet’ identified that opportunities for young people is a priority. There was an underspend in the People and Skills intervention and its themes, outputs and outcomes align with the supporting the youth focussed lotto projects. 

All shortlisted projects were scored and reviewed by the Lotto Grants Review Panel and approved by the Director’s Panel on 13 November 2024. 

The applications totalled £113,140.00, of those £90,181.05 were approved for an award of funding on the basis of the criteria for the fund. The funding in the Thanet Lotto pot available for grants was £71,864.00, this left a gap of £18,317.05. Of the total funding requests £31,976.79 was for projects focussed on young people. 

It was identified that in the People and Skills Intervention of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund there is currently available funding that aims to support young people. Officers recommended that this funding was used to bolster the Thanet Lotto Community Grant Fund in order to fund as many of the projects as possible who passed the criteria.

The Thanet Lotto Community Fund was over subscribed and it was decided to use £18,317.05 from the People and Skills intervention of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund to fund some of the youth projects. 

Breakdown of budget allocation for the Thanet Community Lotto:

The Youth Projects will be part funded through Lotto and UKSPF, with a list of the Youth Projects are shown below:

Following the published grant allocation process the Lotto Grant Review Panel and subsequently the Director’s Panel reached their decision to award the grants as stated above. 

The Thanet Lotto Fund’s balance is £71,864.00 (as at 4/11/24) and all of this will be allocated to fund the Lotto Fund projects as stated above. 

The Thanet Lotto Fund was oversubscribed and it was agreed to allocate £18,317.05 from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, People and Skills budget to make up the shortfall. The projects funded will be the youth focussed projects. A separate Officer Decision Notice was published to document the Thanet Community Lotto awards.

The Director’s Panel confirmed their agreement to accept the recommendations of the Officer Grant Review Panel and award grants accordingly.

Both Panels were delighted to receive applications for a wide range of projects that enhance pride in place in the district and look forward to hearing the progress and impact they have had on our communities. Following project delivery, further information will be sent to the council as part of the monitoring process.

Do nothing - not allocating funds from UK Shared Prosperity Fund to support the youth projects applied for through the Lotto fund.This would mean that at least £18,000 of projects that applied to the Thanet Community Lotto Grant Fund programme would not have been funded, which could have included some of the young people focussed projects. This may lead to an underspend for the financial year which could see funding returned to central government. This option was not recommended. 

Prioritising youth projects over the other lotto projects, resulting in £18,317.05 worth of other grants not being awarded and other worthy projects not able to go ahead. This option was not recommended.