Birmingham Completes Big Lottery Jigsaw

March 16 2007

Birmingham becomes a focal point for distributing millions of pounds of Lottery cash today (13th March), as Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, officially opens the Big Lottery Fund's new centre in the city.

Tessa Jowell will be joined by Stephen Dunmore, Chief Executive of the Big Lottery Fund at the Apex House in Edgbaston, as it becomes the Big Lottery Fund's Birmingham centre, creating more then 200 new jobs for the West Midlands region.

The Birmingham opening competes BIG's work to implement the new organisational structure by moving funding operations out of London and centralising them in key operational centres in Newcastle and Birmingham. This investment in the region is a positive outcome of the Lyons Review, which identified and promoted the relocation of civil service jobs from London and the South East.

The new structure will bring reductions in running costs that will mean more money going directly to projects and communities across the country. The Birmingham centre together with the Newcastle office will be responsible for assessing and managing up to £500m in Lottery grants to good causes every year.

The opening comes at a very busy time for the Fund, as it announces today the launch of the third year of the BIG Lottery Fund and ITV's People's Millions competition, which gives community projects the opportunity to bid for awards of up to £80,000 to be won in a public vote when the on-air contest hits TV screens in November.

Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, said: "I am delighted to be in Birmingham today to see the Big Lottery Fund's new Centre. The Government is committed to spreading public sector activities across the country, creating new jobs and maximising efficiency, and I am pleased that BIG has chosen such a vibrant and multi-cultural city like Birmingham to base its operations.

"The West Midlands has some of the most active and engaged communities in the country, many of whom have benefited from the £1.3 billion that the region has received in lottery funding since it began in 1995.  Be it creating a haven for wildlife or making local beauty spots accessible to wheelchairs, the National Lottery touches all of our lives in small but significant ways. Through People's Millions many more community projects will help to improve the daily lives of local people up and down the country."

Stephen Dunmore, Chief Executive of the Big Lottery Fund said: "We opened our Newcastle office in May and have looked at several other cities across England as potential locations for a second new centre. We were very impressed with Birmingham's many facilities, its excellent transport links and high calibre employment potential. And if recent experience is anything to go by, the new recruits will have a BIG job to do, assessing the funding applications coming in from all four corners of the country.

This is a key milestone for BIG. We have now created a new organisation that is more strategic, accessible and responsive. We are very pleased to have Birmingham at the centre of this exciting development."

Big Lottery Fund is the UK's largest distributor of lottery good cause money and gives out over £600 million a year, bringing real improvements to communities and lives of those most in need. In the short time since the Big Lottery Fund was established in 2004 it has already awarded grants over £13million in the West Midlands.

Picture shows Tessa Jowell and Stephen Dunmore, chief executive, Big Lottery Fund.

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