U.K. plans to raid charity lottery for London Olympics funding. (General).

U.K. lottery money for Olympics London, UK -- The British government intends to dip into lottery monies normally granted to charities in order to fund the London Olympics to the tune of about 410 million [pounds sterling], says a recent report in The Guardian.

This directly contradicts a statement made by the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, who said in parliament that "contributions from existing sports lottery and a new Olympic (lottery) game would raise an estimated 1.5 billion [pounds sterling]" towards the Olympics. She made no mention of the government's intention to skim monies off the top of the lottery before any funds are distributed to charities.

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport recently confirmed that this 410 million [pounds sterling] will be top sliced from the national lottery distribution fund before its income is divided between good cause funders, including the community fund and the new opportunities fund.

Although a DCSM spokesperson initially said that the money would be taken from the NLDF over eight years, he later amended this saying the money will be taken "after 2009, which is after the current funding agreement we have with the distributors has expired."

Echoing the sentiment of other voluntary sector organizations, Stuart Etherington, chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organizations said "the government must quickly state clearly how it will protect the funding of voluntary and community organizations doing vital work throughout the UK if we are to see the diversion of lottery revenue to the Olympics."

"The lottery's existing commitment to good causes must be honoured and new lottery games must not be allowed to undermine income to the existing good causes," he said.