£77 million: What the Big Lottery Fund SPENDS each year on administration

The quango, which is responsible for handing out half of all Lottery cash, spends 12 per cent of its budget on administration, six times more than some well-known charities.

New figures reveal that the Big Lottery Fund, chaired by Labour Party activist Sir Clive Booth, has 1,103 administrative staff – not far short of the number of people employed at the Treasury.

But while the fund distributes £600million a year, the Treasury's budget is 50 times that sum.

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The fund has been criticised for handing out hundreds of thousands of pounds to help asylum seekers fill in forms to claim benefits and housing.

It has also given grants to a pressure group for prostitutes and a charity helping battered wives in Siberia.

But it refused to support a memorial for British Armed Forces who had died in combat until Gordon Brown intervened personally.

The Big Lottery Fund's budget for staff costs and administration rose from £73million in 2006 to £77million last year.

Over the same period, its payroll increased from 956 to 1,103 employees.

Meanwhile, the total expenditure on good causes fell from £696million to £469million – a direct result of the Government's raid on Lottery cash to bail out the London Olympics.

This week Parliament will debate plans to divert a further £675million from good causes towards subsidising the over-budget 2012 games.

While the Big Lottery Fund spends 12 per cent of its budget on bureaucracy, Scope, the disabled charity, spends just two per cent. At Children In Need the figure is four per cent.

Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: "If charities can control their overheads, why can't the Big Lottery Fund?

"The National Lottery was set up to help good causes, not to fund an army of well-paid administrators who behave increasingly like an arm of the Labour Government.

"It is particularly shocking to see this waste when good causes have seen their Lottery income fall by around half under this Government."

Sir Clive Booth, who is paid £36,000 a year for working just eight days a month, is one of five Labour Party members on the Big Lottery Fund board.

Others include Sanjay Dighe, the former Labour deputy leader of Harrow Council in North London, who receives £24,000 a year for a his part-time job as the fund's chairman for England.

Roland Doven, a surgery clerk for Labour MP Keith Hill, is paid £208 for each day he works, as is John Gartside, a for-mer Labour lea-der of Warrington Council, and Lab-our activist Albert Tucker.

The Big Lottery Fund was formed as the replacement for the discredited Community Fund, which was wound up after giving £420,000 to a project to breed fatter guinea pigs for Peruvians to eat.

A Big Lottery Fund spokesman said: "We are distributing Lottery good-cause funding on a scale not comparable to any charitable organisation.

"Last year we dealt with applications for over £8billion in England alone.

"The number of staff employed and annual administration costs directly reflect the unprecedented demand for funding and the amount of work required to ensure that public funds are distributed safely and effectively.

"Non-executive board members are appointed by the Secretary of State in open public competition."

The Big Lottery Fund is based in the City of London and also has offices in Nottingham, Belfast, Glasgow, Wales, Birmingham, Cambridge, Newcastle, Manchester, Guildford, Exeter and Leeds.