1.  The Charter of the Royal Archaeological Institute states that the purpose for which the Institute is established is "To examine, preserve and illustrate the ancient monuments, past history, manners, customs, arts and literature of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and other countries . . ."

  2.  The following points are offered in the name of the President and result from discussion among the Institute's officers.

  3.  The Royal Archaeological Institute promotes its cause by making small grants for research amounting to up to £20,000 per annum. Its application form is clear and brief. It believes the current application procedures to the Heritage Lottery Fund are unduly complicated. Even expert applicants wilt under their complexities and the expense of completing an application fully. In desperation some applicants turn to professional fund-raisers. If the Fund wishes to encourage ordinary citizens to apply, the application procedure should be simplified and clarified.

  4.  The Institute wishes to see Heritage Lottery Funds used to encourage archaeological and architectural projects which would improve the understanding, preservation and illustration of ancient monuments and historic buildings in the widest sense. The "pound for pound" rule in this context is daunting to those individuals and small societies responsible for such projects. It would help them were HLF grants to be made to cover either specific parts of a project fully or to be on a sliding scale, thereby to ease the finding of smaller grants from other sources.

  5.  The need to provide a Conservation Plan as part of an application for funding for a project can put a severe burden on those responsible. Might it be feasible for funding to be arranged in two distict stages? Initial funds might then go towards a pilot stage, and fuller and greater funding become applicable when a successful pilot has eased the problem of providing a Conservation Plan?

  6.  In general funding should be primarily devoted to projects which are specifically aimed at improving the general viability of monuments or buildings, rather than to projects specifically aimed at enhancing their money-making capabilities.

August 1998