What steps it is taking to ensure the equitable distribution of National Lottery funding.

A consultation paper on lottery distribution policy, Review of Lottery Funding, was published jointly by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Scottish Executive, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly on 29 July for consultation until 30 October 2002. Section 3 of the consultation paper sets out issues involved in ensuring that funding is fairly distributed to all areas and communities across the UK.Responsibility for distributing proceeds from the National Lottery rests with the Lottery Distributing Bodies. In Scotland, the lottery distributors take part in joint activities, such as the publication of a joint leaflet and maintaining a web portal, to provide information on funding opportunities. All Scottish lottery distributors are taking steps to ensure the equitable distribution of their awards. For example, the Fair Share Lottery Initiative was launched in April 2002 and is a joint New Opportunities Fund and community fund UK-wide initiative targeting disadvantaged areas across Britain; resources of £22 million over three years are being made available, and have been targeted to six disadvantaged areas in Scotland. The Scottish Executive is providing £625,000 over two years for the Kickstart programme which employs development officers who work across area-based social inclusion partnerships to help build the knowledge and skills base of local voluntary and community groups to ensure that they can access funding, including lottery funding.