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A campaign has been launched to secure the refund of money ‘diverted’ by the last Government from Lottery good causes to finance the 2012 Olympic Games.
The principal aim of the campaign is to secure a full refund of the £425 million taken from the BIG Lottery Fund’s share of revenues between 2008/09 and 2012/13 to support the Olympics.
The Directory of Social Change has developed the website www.biglotteryrefund.org.uk to support its Big Lottery Refund campaign, which includes a clock that will tick down to the Olympics closing ceremony. The site will help gather supporters and information together to raise the issue up the agenda in the run up to the Games next summer.
A 2007 Memorandum of Understanding between the Government and the Mayor of London outlined how the Lottery would be reimbursed using the proceeds from selling Olympics assets after the Games. According to correspondence DSC has received from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, this agreement remains in place, but is apparently ‘being updated in light of the spending review’.
DSC wants a clear statement from the Coalition Government explaining precisely how and when it will honour the commitment to refund the money taken from the BIG Lottery Fund, before the end of the 2012 Olympics closing ceremony.
Ben Wittenberg, DSC’s Director of Policy, said ‘the financial and accountability arrangements for all of this are murky and getting murkier. Without a stark reminder of the promises made to return the money, there’s a growing concern that the good causes supported by the Big Lottery Fund will lose out when Olympics assets are sold off. We intend for this website and the campaign to help prevent that from happening.’
He went on to add: ‘The original decision to fund the 2012 Games with lottery proceeds that should have supported good causes across the country was totally outrageous. We can’t help the thousands of charities that have missed out on crucial support as a result of the raid on BIG, but we can do everything possible to make sure the money is returned, and that funding providing vital support for communities is restored.’
A number of other organisations have already signed up as supporters. Learn more about the campaign and become a supporter at www.biglotteryrefund.org.uk.
For more information please contact Richard Lee, Directory of Social Change by email or phone (0797 008 7207).
Notes to editors:
- Founded in 1974, the Directory of Social Change (DSC) is a national charity which supports an independent voluntary sector through campaigning, training and publications. DSC is the largest supplier of information and training to the voluntary sector, and its work helps tens of thousands of organisations every year achieve their aims. Learn more at www.dsc.org.uk
- In June 2007, following the Government’s decision to take an additional £675 million from non-Olympic Lottery revenues to support the Games, the then Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell told the House of Commons that the Government had agreed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Mayor of London, designed in part to reimburse the Lottery for lost revenues, using the proceeds from selling Olympics assets. In her statement, she said that this arrangement would:
"give lottery distributors real confidence that the additional funding necessary for a successful Olympic and Paralympic Games will be re-paid—providing them and the whole country with a further 2012 dividend"