£150million Big Lottery Olympic Refund

Unspent money provided by the National Lottery to help the government fund the London 2012 Olympic games will soon be returned.

Up to £150million of the £425million Olympic Lottery Distribution Fund used to fund the 2012 Olympics will be transferred back to lottery distributors.

In a letter to the Directory of Social Change (DSC), Sports minister Hugh Robertson said that the exact refund amount from the Olympic Lottery Distribution Fund would not be known until 2014 but is likely to have a surplus somewhere in the range of £100millon to £150million, including £71million receipts from the sale of the Athletes' Village.

The return of these funds is currently forecast for July 2014, he said in response to a letter from DSC asking for more clarification over how much of the lottery funding would be returned and when to the National Lottery Distribution Fund, which distributes good cause money to lottery distributors including the Big Lottery Fund, the Heritage Lottery Fund and Sport England.

£2.175billion of funding in total was provided by the Lottery to help pay for the Olympics, £638million of this originated from the Big Lottery Fund (BIG), £425million of which would have been earmarked for good causes. The DSC has been campaigning for the full £425million 'Big Lottery Refund' prior to, during and since the 2012 Olympics. The government spent £377million less than it had budgeted for on the Olympics and the DSC has been spearheading a campaign calling on the government to pass this money immediately back to the Big Lottery Fund.

The commitment to return from the sale of the Olympic Park an additional sum of £675million to lottery distributors was enshrined in legislation between Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, and the National Lottery in 2012. This funding is expected to be returned in the mid 2020s with the full amount paid by 2030/31, said Robertson.

According to The Big Lottery Refund campaign from the Directory of Social Change (DSC) the £425m from the Big Lottery Fund would have:

• Funded at least 10,000 charities.
• Enabled the formation of approximately 1300 new charities.
• Enabled approximately 4000 charities to continue operating.
• Helped over 8 million people.

More information on the campaign is available at www.biglotteryrefund.org.uk.