Consultation on National Lottery Heritage Fund Policy Directions

In this consultation document the Department for Communities (DfC) sets out draft policy directions for NI for the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The NLHF is one of the pre-eminent funders of Heritage activity in Northern Ireland. The National Lottery etc Act 1993 allows government to give directions as to matters to be taken into account when awarding funding. 

There have to date not been NI policy directions for NLHF. With work in recent years to develop an outcomes-based Programme for Government, and the growing appreciation of the importance of heritage in matters such as wellbeing and placemaking, coupled with the scale of funds disbursed to NI’s heritage through NLHF, it seems both appropriate and necessary to improve official links with NLHF’s activity to the priorities of the Executive through Policy Directions. A tailored review of NLHF also recommended that such directions were considered. Officials have therefore created an initial draft set of NI policy directions and the Executive has agreed to progress a consultation on the matter.

The purpose of this consultation is to seek the views of all interested parties on the Department’s proposed policy directions. The consultation will run for eight weeks. The Department will give due consideration to all responses and a synopsis of responses will be published as soon as practicable following the consultation period.