Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell said:
"When we bid for London to host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, we bid on behalf of the whole country. I am absolutely determined that the benefits of hosting the Games are spread right across every nation and region of the UK. Legacy Trust UK will help make that happen, by giving out £40 million to cultural, artistic, educational and sporting activities that celebrate the 2012 Games. Some will be national projects, like the UK School Games. Others will be local, with each region and nation deciding what works best for them. But all will use 2012 as a catalyst to improve lives around the country."
Culture Secretary James Purnell said:
“Our Cultural Olympiad will showcase the best of British culture to the world, and of world culture to Britain. Today's launch of the Legacy Trust is a big step towards this. The Trust will also help us achieve our ambition of using the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games to inspire a generation of young people to learn about and get involved in their cultural heritage."
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Written statement to Parliament
Tessa Jowell (Minister for the Olympics):
The Legacy Trust will be formally launched today.
Legacy Trust has been established to help to ensure a celebration of the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games across the United Kingdom and to help create a lasting legacy.
The Trust will use £40 million funding endowed by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (£6 million), the Art Council England (£5 million), the Big Lottery Fund (£5 million), and the Millennium Commission (£24 million - since been transferred to the Big Lottery Fund) to deliver a programme of cultural and sporting activities at local, regional and national level. The Trust will form partnerships with organisations that will deliver the supported programmes.
Following an open competition, the Legacy Trust proposal submitted by a consortium of five organisations, was selected as the preferred candidate. The consortium created an independent Charitable Trust (known as Legacy Trust UK), and a Corporate Trustee (known as Legacy Trust UK Limited). The Corporate Trustee is a Company Limited by Guarantee. It worked up a full business case, which the funding bodies were content with. The funding has recently been transferred. It will start operating immediately, and distributing the bulk of the funds from 2008 onwards.
The Trust plans to support a small number of national programmes, including the UK School Games, the Big Arts Week (working title) and the World Festival of Youth Culture (working title). The remainder of the endowment will be distributed throughout the three nations (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) and nine English regions. In doing so, it will work closely with the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG).
