In September we wrote to the head of the National Lottery Community Fund to complain about their £500K grant to Mermaids, the charity for transgender children, which has recently been at the centre of several serious safeguarding breaches. The charity is currently under investigation by the Charity Commission and the Metropolitan Police for giving out harmful breast binders to children behind parent’s backs. There are also other serious complaints about the safety of Mermaids online forums for children, and a trustee has resigned this week after it emerged he had written in favour of the destigmatising of paedophilia into a sexuality called “Minor Attracted Persons” (MAPs).
We are very disappointed with the response from the National Lottery customer services department:
Mr. Shepard
I write in response to your email of 13 September 2022 RE: National Lottery grant to Mermaids
Thank you for taking the time to write to the National Lottery Community Fund regarding our decision to fund Mermaids.
While we note your disappointment at our decision to fund Mermaids. Our complaints procedure is limited to our grant holders and applicants, as it relates to our application process and is not open to members of the public wishing to challenge our funding decisions. The relevant section from our complaints policy being;
You cannot use this complaints process for any interaction with us that is outside of our grant making processes. If you do have a concern that falls outside our grant making processes, please contact customer services.
However, members of the public may raise concerns with us via our Raising a Concern process. Please find below link to our Raising a Concern policy which explains the process. This document is available in easy read format upon request.
Your correspondence of 13 September 2022 RE: National Lottery grant to Mermaids regarding NLCF funding provided to Mermaids will be considered in compliance with the above policy.
If you are raising concerns about a decision that we have taken to fund an organisation, we will review the information that you provide and whether it would have affected our decision. However, please note:
- we cannot enter into a discussion about any disagreement you have with a particular funding decision unless it involves a breach of the terms and conditions of the funding
- we cannot become involved with any personal disagreements that you may have with a particular organisation. If your concern is a personal disagreement then you should direct this to the organisation in question
- while we can take action to investigate breaches of a funding agreement, we cannot enforce the law. If your concern involves a breach of the law, you should consider raising the matter with the relevant regulatory body or, in criminal matters, the police.
To protect the integrity of our concerns process, and our investigatory functions, it will not be possible to provide information pertaining to the progress or outcome of any investigation that the Fund consider necessary to conduct.
We thank you again for taking the time to convey your concerns to us. Should we require any further information we shall email you.
Customer Services
We urge anyone concerned about Mermaids do as suggested and raise a concern using the link https://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/media/documents/Raising-A-Concern.pdf?mtime=20190904100523&focal=none
We also be writing to Government minister to express our frustration at the response from the National Lottery team.