003\05 20 January 2005
Jowell Publishes Response To Children's Play Review
The Government today reaffirmed its commitment to revitalising children's play areas up and down the country with a huge investment from across lottery distributors.
Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, responding to a review of children's play conducted by Frank Dobson, acknowledged how important play was to young people's development and stated that she expected £200 million of lottery money to be spent on new and improved play opportunities.
In a letter to Frank Dobson, published today, Tessa Jowell paid tribute to the work he and Tim Gill, former director of the Children's Play Council, put into producing the review. She also underlined how, despite the lack of a 'ring-fenced' pot of money for play, she fully expected the lottery to take forward the review's recommendations and make a massive difference to the current quality of play provision in the UK.
Tessa Jowell also expressed her desire to hold a meeting with Frank Dobson, Tim Gill and Lottery Distributor Chairs to discuss how best the funding for play will be taken forward.
She said:
"I very much welcome your review and recognise the huge amount of thought and effort on the part of yourself and Tim Gill. It underlines the importance of play and highlights the contribution that effective play can make to a range of important issues – promoting physical activity, tackling obesity and reducing anti-social behaviour.
"We are as committed as ever to seeing children's play areas transformed by lottery money. The decision not to have a specific pot of money is because we feel the lottery should not work in this way - for any area of funding.
"We feel more can be achieved for play by allowing lottery distributors to decide on how this money is spent. The freedom to give money to a range of projects - and a range of innovative ideas for new play areas.
"In fact I will be getting all of the key players – Frank Dobson, Tim Gill and the Distributor Chairs - together to look at how we can all now move forward.
"Be sure that play is as important as ever to this government. I am convinced the difference the lottery will make for play will be felt far and wide."
Stephen Dunmore, Chief Executive of the Big Lottery Fund added:
"Play has been well-supported by the Lottery in the past and the New Opportunities Fund was closely involved in the Children's Play Review.
"We hope that the Big Lottery Fund can continue to support innovative play projects. We are developing our future funding portfolio following a UK-wide consultation to establish priorities. Decisions on new programmes are expected to be made later this year."
Notes to Editors
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