The impact of the 2012 Games on Lottery funding in London

Our report reveals that diverting funding from Lottery good causes in London to shore up the budget for the 2012 Games may actually do more harm than good.

Both the Cultural Olympiad, a four-year programme aimed at increasing participation in cultural activity, and the Government’s Olympic sports participation target to increase the number of physically active people by 2 million by 2012 are heavily dependent on smaller grassroots organisations. But these organisations will be hardest hit by the funding diversion.

The report makes recommendations to minimise the impact on these organisations:

• Each Lottery distributor should publish information stating how much and what proportion of their funding in each of the last three years has gone to community and voluntary groups with a turnover of less than £10,000 pa and set out a plan for protecting such groups after the diversion.
• The Mayor should work with other delivery partners to create a single ‘London Cultural Olympiad funding pot’ by the time of the start of the Cultural Olympiad in August 2008 which will provide a source of funding for small voluntary and community projects which want to participate in the ‘third tier’ of the Cultural Olympiad.
• By summer 2008, the Mayor should publish the Department of Health and Primary Care Trusts’ implementation plan for the delivery of the sports participation legacy and the resources allocated to deliver it.

• The impact of the 2012 Games on Lottery funding in London PDF The impact of the 2012 Games on Lottery funding in London RTF