National Lottery good-cause money fell by £293.5m last year

Declining figures for the year to March 31 2017 have prompted the operator Camelot to carry out a review

The amount of money raised for good causes by the National Lottery in the year to March 31 2017 fell by £293.5m on the year before, according to the latest figures.

The lottery operator Camelot blamed a fall in sales but warned that it expected them to fall further this year and has launched a review in a bid to boost player interest.

Figures from the Gambling Commission show the total amount of money given to the National Lottery Distribution Fund in the 2016/17 financial year was £1.63bn, a fall of 15 per cent on the £1.93bn handed over in 2015/16.

In the final quarter of 2016/17 (January to March 2017), £428.4m was raised, £135.1m (24 per cent) lower than in the same period the year before. A note accompanying the statistics said there had been a record performance in that quarter of 2015/16 because of a Lotto rollover peak in January.

In a statement this week, Camelot said ticket sales in 2016/17 were 8.8 per cent lower than in the year before, having fallen from 2015/16’s record-breaking total of £7.6bn to £6.9bn.

The lottery operator said it had launched a strategic review to find out how to boost player interest.

Although 2016/17 was still the fourth-best sales performance since the National Lottery began in 1994, Camelot said the review would focus on four key areas: commercial plans to boost sales performance, investment in technology and systems, the existing business structure and long-term succession.

The review will be led by Nigel Railton, chief executive of Camelot Global, who took over Camelot’s UK operations when Andy Duncan, the UK chief executive, stepped down in April.

Jo Taylor, chair of Camelot, said: “Achieving the fourth-highest level of sales ever, creating a record number of lottery millionaires and raising more than £30m every week for good causes is no mean feat.

“However, sales in 2016/17 fell well short of where we’d like them to be, and that’s largely down to a disappointing year for draw-based games and Lotto in particular.”

She said there was work to be done to re-engage players and address the performance of draw-based games, which would be a key focus for the review.

But she said: “Given the current climate of economic uncertainty and increasing competition from the gambling sector, we expect 2017/18 to be equally if not more challenging for the National Lottery.

“It will therefore take time to turn things around and I anticipate a further sales decline this year.”

But she said she was confident the review would enable the company to put the business on the best possible footing to get back into growth.

In a statement, Camelot said it would publish an update on the review when it announced its half-year sales later in the year.

The price of a ticket for the main Lotto game was increased from £1 to £2 in October 2013.

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Royal Opera House pension deficit more than doubled last year

According to its newest accounts, for the year to 28 August 2016, the pension liability went up from £16.9m to £35.7m

The pension deficit of the Royal Opera House more than doubled to almost £36m last year, the charity’s latest accounts show.

In its accounts for the year to 28 August 2016, which were posted on the Companies House website on Sunday, the ROH’s pension liability is listed as £35.7m, compared with £16.9m for the previous year.

The charity said a change in accounting requirements was among the reasons for the large rise in the deficit.

The charity’s defined-benefit pension scheme closed to future accrual on 31 March 2016 and it made £1.5m in contributions to the scheme during the year covered by the accounts.

More than £2.6m was also contributed by the ROH to five other defined-contribution pension schemes.

The charity agreed to reduce its exposure to future pension risk by freezing pensionable salary for any pension accrued after 30 April 2013, the accounts say.

A spokeswoman for the ROH said: “During the 2015/16 year, the Royal Opera House’s defined-benefit scheme was closed to future accrual. The deficit repayments are being managed with the scheme trustees.

“Another reason for the increase is the changes resulting from FRS102, an accounting change that we have had to reflect in our accounts this year, like other charities.”

FRS102, which applies to accounting periods starting on or after 1 January 2015, has introduced a number of changes to the reporting of pension liabilities in accounts that have led to increases in reported pension liabilities for many charities.

The ROH accounts show that five senior employees earned more than £183,000 in the year covered by the accounts.

Sir Antonio Pappano, music director at the ROH, earned a basic salary of £115,301 and fees of £569,099, so he received £684,400 from the charity during the year.

But this was a reduction on the £737,424 he received the year before.

The other four people on salaries of more than £183,000 were Alexander Beard, chief executive of the ROH, who was paid £260,139; Sally O’Neill, chief operating officer, who received £187,262; Kevin O’Hare, director of the Royal Ballet, who was paid £183,423; and Kasper Holten, director of opera, who was paid a total of £253,205.

The spokeswoman for the ROH said the pay for senior staff reflected the “international market” and the fees paid to Pappano were for his conducting engagements with the Royal Opera, which varied from year to year.

The accounts show that the ROH’s total income was £139m for the year, compared with £145m the previous year. Its Arts Council England funding fell by 5 per cent from April 2015 for a three-year period.

The ROH spent £134m, compared with £126m the year before, the accounts show.

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