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This blog is the fourth in a series from Andy Churchill, previously of Network for Europe, who is sharing his reflections on programmes and policy developments relevant to the VCFSE sector nationally and regionally.
Drawing on decades of experience advocating for the sector’s place as a key strategic and delivery partner, Andy explores the learning and legacy of programmes including Building Better Opportunities and Big Local, and what they...
The National Lottery Community Fund agreed to be involved in the 2014-20 European Social Fund Programme (ESF) in the UK. This was seen as an attempt to support bottom-up community style projects, while the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was moving away from local projects, favouring big lumps of funding for training providers, saying they hadn’t got the resources to work with smaller groups. While the DWP were increasing the complexity of the funding and seemed to focus on tracking receipts for every penny spent, the Lottery focused on delivery, and finding out what worked.
The Lottery ran Building Better Opportunities (BBO) using ESF and provided its own funds as “match”, unlike other organisations who used imaginary match. Instead of starting with a major bidding round, it first allocated some of its own money for Project Development Funds (PDFs) to start the ball rolling. The PDFs were for each area to publicise the funding and run seminars and meetings to bring organisations together to jointly develop bids. Most of the 39 Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) were allocated a few million pounds, expecting one or two consortia to be funded in each area. Liverpool LEP originally rejected BBO funding but were persuaded by VCFSE sector to accept it. Each consortia then submitted an outline bid. If they were successful they were funded to prepare a detailed bid.
Unlike the rest of ESF in the UK, the Lottery provided continual support and brought organisations from different areas together to share ideas and experience and solve problems. And they were keen on evaluation and finding out what works. They produced documents on different aspects of running the BBO projects and produced a yearly update covering progress. Most of this is still online. They did get trapped by the DWP into making financial processes vastly overcomplicated, like the rest of ESF in England. (and vowed not to do ESF again).
At about the same time the Lottery was developing and running Big Local. This allocated a lump sum to a variety of disadvantaged areas – it was up to local residents to decide what to do with it, what was relevant for their area. They provided a great deal of support and did evaluations. The results are very positive. The programme finished in March 2026, but there is lots on the web (and a continuing email update from communications@localtrust.org.uk).
The Lottery set up Local Trust as a time limited trust and gave it an endowment to deliver the Big Local programme. While £150m was to go to the 150 Big Local areas, a further £67m was given to fund a comprehensive programme of support, training, networking and other advice to help residents in all the Big Local areas.
The Big Local story provides a uniquely rich, long-term evidence base showing what happens when power, trust and resources sit directly with local residents. Much of this evidence and research can be found on Learning from Big Local, a website launched in January 2026 which captures 15 years of learning from the programme.
Local Trust will close next year and is now focussing on disseminating what has been learnt in supporting people in the worst off areas to take control of their own lives. There are a series of sessions in different parts of England – the first one for the North West launched in June, with a further four sessions taking place in September. More information can be found about these sessions here.
Local Trust has a wealth of experience and evidence about how to support local people to bring about change in their area. This is of especial importance as we will have a new Prime Minister and look at subsidiarity – devolving power to the lowest appropriate level.
