REDP: Public has BIG ideas to move millennium forward

Regional Equality & Diversity Partnership

Public has BIG ideas to move millennium forward

Date: 3/11/2011
Summary: The public has told the BIG Lottery Fund where it should be investing its £10 million Millennium Now funding

The public has told the BIG Lottery Fund where it should be investing its £10 million Millennium Now funding.

In a poll conducted by Ipsos MORI and Channel 4’s Big Decision website thousands of people across the UK have set out their views on what is needed right now to make lives better for the future. In response the BIG Lottery Fund has yesterday opened its nationwide search for five creative and inspirational projects.

More than 350 comments were submitted and combined with the results of an Ipsos MORI poll, conducted with 2,000 people from across the nation, to help decide the five distinct project types Millennium Now will fund.

Among the main concerns that featured high on the public’s agenda were improving health and nutrition, more education opportunities and improving employment prospects. ‘Susie ok’ suggested: “Spend it on educating people to eat healthily and to tie up the link between food choice and ill health,” while ‘Alison Card’ thought that: “More money should be put into resources for training for our current young people to create jobs, they are our future.”

Chair of the Big Lottery Fund, Peter Ainsworth, said: “While this programme builds on BIG’s long standing commitment to public involvement in grant making, it is unlike anything that BIG has delivered before. This is the first time that we asked the general public to help us design and develop a grant programme by choosing the themes that best represent the needs and aspirations of today.

“We’re really pleased with the level of participation by the public and we’d like to thank those who took part in helping us to shape this programme. We are now looking forward to making those aspirations a reality and working with Channel 4 to capture the growth of this exciting programme from beginning to end.”

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Source: wired-gov.net

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