National Lottery Heritage Fund draft Policy Directions - screening

The National Lottery Heritage Fund (formally the National Heritage Memorial Fund) was established under the provisions of the National Heritage Act 1980, and took on lottery distribution in 1994. It operates under Policy Directions from DCMS at a UK level, with Devolved Administrations also able to provide Policy Directions for its work.

A 2017 Tailored Review of NLHF (at that stage known as the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF)) included a recommendation that: The Northern Ireland Executive should keep under review whether to set HLF Policy Directions.

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 more formally to link NLHF’s activity to the priorities of the Executive through Policy Directions. Officials have therefore created an initial draft set of NI policy directions