Arts for everyone? The distribution of arts lottery funds by region and genre 1995-98

In November 1994, a new form of arts patronage began with the introduction of the British National Lottery. The subsequent distribution of arts lottery funds excited much comment over the regional equity and artistic propriety of the allocations. In this thesis, I address these issues by examining the application processes and the lottery award statistics of the four arts councils responsible for distributing the funds. After establishing conclusions on the equity of distribution, I examine the tools employed by journalists to sway opinion, and compare their representation of distribution with that discovered in the statistical analysis. I then examine the five pilot schemes, introduced by the Arts Council of England in 1996, to reveal how the schemes addressed the public criticism cited by the press. Through this thesis I plot the changing approach of the arts councils to public access to lottery benefits and draw conclusions on their success in achieving equity. Finally, I discuss the changes in arts distribution that limit this study to the three year period April 1995 to March 1998, and suggest some future directions for research.