Please Accept My Apologies for the Delay in Clarifying This Point
You contacted the ICO regarding your below FoI request about Olympic Lottery Funding and your follow –up query regarding the statement in our response: “The four national sports lottery distributors – Sport England and the Sports Councils in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (but not UK Sport) are granting a total of £340 million from their National Lottery income” and your concerns that this sum did not tally with those provided in the table.
Please accept my apologies for the delay in clarifying this point.
It appears our original response may have been slightly confusing in the way that is worded, and I have made some amendments in red that should make the position on funding clearer. To explain, the figures in the table make up the £1.085 billion being contributed from the National Lottery distributors, and the £340 million from the four national sports lottery distributor is an additional sum being contributed.
I hope this is clearer.
Best regards
Ryan Cannon
Freedom of Information Team
Department for Culture, Media and Sport
Tel: 0207 211 6168
“1. How much money in total has been taken from the National Lottery to fund the Olympics?
2. How much money was taken from particular budgets of the National Lottery to fund the Olympics? Please provide details of which budget and how much money was taken from which budget.
3. Was money from particular budgets spent on designated projects or was it put into a general fund?
4. How will this money be repaid to the National Lottery?
5. Will all the money be repaid?
6. Will repayments include interest to take account of inflation?
7. Is further money to be taken from the National Lottery for the Olympics or Legacy? If so, how much and from which Lottery budgets?”
I have dealt with your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and can provide the following information in numerical order:
1. A total of £2.175 billion of Lottery funding is included in the £9.298bn public sector funding provision for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. A full breakdown of the Lottery funding is available in the Government Olympic Executive London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games Annual Reports here: http://www.culture.gov.uk/publications/7800.aspx and the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games Quarterly Reports here: http://www.culture.gov.uk/publications/8086.aspx
2. The designated Olympic Lottery games are on track to raise £750 million of the £2.175 billion Lottery funding contribution to the 2012 Games.
The £1.085 billion from the National Lottery Distributors included in the £2.175 billion is being contributed by the individual distributors as follows:
Distributor
Contribution
Arts Council England
£112.499m
UK Film Council
£21.797m
Arts Council of Northern Ireland
£4.514m
Scottish Arts Council
£12.478m
Scottish Screen
£1.870m
Arts Council of Wales
£8.061m
Big Lottery Fund
£638.098m
Heritage Lottery Fund
£161.220m
Sport England
£99.956m
Sport Northern Ireland
£4.192m
Sport Scotland
£13.059m
UK Sport
NIL
Sports Council of Wales
£7.255m
All figures are rounded to nearest £0.001m.
In addition to the contributions set out above, the four national sports lottery distributors – Sport England and the Sports Councils in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (but not UK Sport) are granting a total of £340 million from their National Lottery income. £50m of the Sport England contribution is going towards the Aquatics Centre, Velodrome and Broxbourne. The remaining £290m has already been spent on ensuring that both elite and grassroots sport capitalise on the 2012 Olympics being held in the UK.
3. The position as regards the expenditure of the £340 million is set out above. The income from the Olympic Lottery games and the £1.085 billion being contributed from the National Lottery distributors is paid into the Olympic Lottery Distribution Fund (OLDF). It is drawn down from the OLDF and paid out in grants by the Olympic Lottery Distributor. The Olympic Lottery Distributor may make a grant from the OLDF if it considers it necessary or expedient for the purposes of, or in connection with, the provision of facilities, services or functions for the 2012 Games. The distributor’s main grant recipient is the Olympic Delivery Authority which has provided the venues and infrastructure for the Games.
4. After 2012 we aim to repay £675m (the additional Lottery contribution to the Games announced in March 2007) to the Lottery good causes from the proceeds of Olympic Park land sales which will take place in the years after 2012.
5. Not all the Lottery funding will be repaid.
6. Repayments will not include interest based on inflation.
7. There are no plans to take further funds from the National Lottery for the 2012 Games or Games’ legacy projects