Recommendation 8

HM Government Acknowledged

The Government agrees that legacy work and evaluation activities are critical to securing long-term value from major events. We disagree with the Committee’s assessment that this is not currently a priority. This can be demonstrated not only with regard to the Commonwealth Games, but also all the other major programmes in 2022 and earlier years. Legacy programmes Ensuring that the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games leaves a lasting legacy for the host city and region, and the whole of the UK, is one of the Government’s top priorities in delivering the Games. In addition to the core Games budget, significant additional investments have been made into a range of legacy programmes, including over £30 million investment from Sport England to remove barriers and provide opportunities for people to get more physically active and to look after their mental wellbeing; a £12 million investment from Arts Council England, Spirit of 2012 and other partners into the delivery of a six month cultural programme, the Birmingham 2022 Festival; and a £24 million investment from the Government and West Midlands Combined Authority for a Business and Tourism Programme to showcase Birmingham, the West Midlands and the UK to international audiences and stakeholders. Looking at major sporting events more broadly, the Government already gives full consideration to legacy plans from an early development stage. A robust legacy plan is key to successfully securing the rights to host major and mega sporting events, and the Gold Framework encourages bidding organisations to consider the long-term impacts of events. DCMS and UK Sport encourage national governing bodies, when they are bidding for events, to engage with any relevant organisations in order to benefit from existing legacy programmes and help development plans to achieve long term benefits. Glasgow, for example, used the Commonwealth Games to invest £474 million in expanding the M74 motorway into neighbourhoods outside the city, and invested £1 billion in games- related transport infrastructure improvement overall. Close cooperation between the Government, event organisers and local authorities is key to delivering benefits from these investments. As part of the Gold Framework refresh, DCMS and UK Sport will strengthen language affirming that legacy and social impact should be considered from the early development stage of bidding. This could include new approaches to legacy spending. For example, the 2015 Rugby World Cup pioneered a new approach by investing not only in sporting facilities, but also in the social spaces of clubhouses, as investments into the social aspects of sport can have an extremely important function in increasing retention rate. Legacy plans are also at the forefront of national ceremonial celebrations and commemorations, which DCMS has a long and successful history of planning. A fine example of a legacy programme for The Platinum Jubilee is the Queen’s Green Canopy, delivered by Cool Earth in partnership with the Department for Environment, Food and rural Affairs - as part of this, over one million trees have been planted in all corners of the UK and around the world. A record eight winners were also selected to receive city status to mark the Jubilee, including Stanley in the Falkland Islands, the first ever Overseas Territory, and Douglas on the Isle of Man, the first ever Crown Dependency, to be bestowed with this civic honour. A number of funding streams were provided to create a lasting legacy from the Platinum Jubilee. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced a £3 million Jubilee fund that will support improvement projects for over 100 village halls. The National Lottery Community Fund, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Arts Council England, Sport England and the BFI, collectively made over £22 million of National Lottery funding available to support communities develop activities to bring people together, and the UK National Archives announced £30,000 of new funding for the Archives sector to explore how people across the country have celebrated Jubilees, Coronations and Royal visits in the past. The Government is also confident that there will be a strong and lasting legacy for UNBOXED. Every partner involved is working hard to deliver a legacy across the UK, continuing to bring people together in shared experiences, drive engagement with STEAM subjects, and create new partnerships. After 2022, UNBOXED will support young people as it will leave behind an array of free-to-access learning resources for teachers and pupils, and many people will continue to use and benefit from the skills and experience developed working on UNBOXED. The public will also be able to continue to engage in the content of the ten projects - for example, Oliver Jeffers is publishing a new book inspired by Our Place in Space, and the Ulster Transport Museum and North Down Coastal Path will offer a semi-permanent home to some of the objects created.