Millennium Commission

The Millennium Commission, a United Kingdom public body, was set up to celebrate the turn of the millennium. It used funding raised through the UK National Lottery to assist communities in marking the close of the second millennium and celebrating the start of the third. The body was wound up in 2006.

The Millennium Commission logo

Composition

Set up in 1993 by the National Lottery etc. Act 1993, the Commission was an independent non-departmental public body. Commissioners were appointed by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister; the Chair of the Commission was, for most of its life, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and for most of its life a second government minister was also a Commissioner. During Tessa Jowell's tenure as Chair the second Minister was Richard Caborn, as Minister for Sport, who preceded Jowell in the department by one day, and who left the department contemporaneously (when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister).

Closure

The Commission was wound up in December 2006 and its role was transferred to the Big Lottery Fund.[1]

Examples of projects funded

The Commission invested over £2 billion in buildings, environmental projects, celebrations and community schemes. Funded projects include:

Commissioners

There were initially nine commissioners – two ministers, one appointed by the opposition, and six independents. The number of commissioners was reduced to five as the work of the commission decreased. The final members were:

Previous commissioners

References
  1. The National Lottery Act 2006, section 16(1)(b); the National Lottery Distributors Dissolution Order 2006 (S.I. 2006/2915), articles 1(2) and 2 (as read with article 1(1) of the Big Lottery Fund (Prescribed Expenditure) Order 2006 (S.I. 2006/3202))
  2. "£4.5m revamp for science centre". BBC News: England. 10 January 2005. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
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