The New Opportunities Fund's latest round of awards, totalling £36m, will bring the number of out-of-school childcare places it has backed close to half a million and create more than 5,000 jobs throughout the UK. The NOF, the biggest distributor of National Lottery cash for good causes, has handed out more than £236m through 4,355 awards to various projects since the out-of-school childcare programme was launched four years ago.