How not to respond to a blogger
July 17 2012
Ping! In comes an email from the Heritage Lottery Fund, following my recent (I thought rather supportive) post:
I work at the Heritage Lottery Fund’s press office and would like to have a chat with you about the HLF’s very broad funding remit. Whilst our annual budget is currently at an increased level from previous years we are certainly not ‘awash’ with money (as you put it) as there is huge demand for our support and we are currently nearly three times over-subscribed for all our programmes. I am not sure if you realise how broad the UK’s heritage is ranging from museums and galleries to landscapes, endangered species, public parks, industrial heritage etc.
Even if I had not, for some years, worked as a political adviser on arts and heritage policy, including detailed Heritage Lottery Fund policy, I think I would realise 'how broad the UK's heritage is'. Probably most schoolchildren would too. And I'll leave it to you to decide whether an annual budget of £300m qualifies as 'awash' with money.
