Written evidence submitted by the Mayor
of London
SUMMARY
1. This submission from the Mayor of London:
— describes the Mayor's overall role in
the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and his specific
role in securing the legacy of the Games for London;
— explores the nature and scale of the
opportunity to capture a legacy from the Games, and some of the
issues and challenges in realising that legacy;
— briefly describes, and comments on, the
arrangements in place to secure lasting regeneration in the five
east London host boroughs as a result of London 2012; and
— describes the priorities of the Mayor
to maximise the legacy of the Games for all Londoners. This covers
work in the fields of sport; employment, skills and business;
volunteering; and education, and relates both to work directly
managed and funded by the Mayor and to work being done by other
agencies which the Mayor supports.
THE MAYOR'S
ROLE
2. The Mayor of London is co-chair of the
Olympic Board, which supervises the overall programme of work
to prepare for and stage the 2012 Games and capture its legacy
for London and the UK. The Mayor also has a number of other specific
formal roles with respect to the Games, including:
— founder member and shareholder of the
London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic
Games (LOCOG);
— funder of the Olympic Delivery Authority
(ODA); and
— signatory to the Host City Contract with
the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
3. The Olympic Board has agreed that the
Mayor will co-ordinate the range of work being done to capture
the legacy of the Games for London and Londoners. This does not
mean that all projects and initiatives under that heading are
directly managed from City Hall: instead, as with much of the
work of the Greater London Authority, the Mayor sets an overall
strategic direction, and performs an important co-ordination function,
but the majority of delivery is done either by bodies under the
control of the Mayor (such as the London Development Agency) or
by a range of other partners. Specific examples are given later
in this submission.
4. The Mayor is also a founder member and
shareholder of the Olympic Park Legacy Company and Chair of the
Olympic Park Regeneration Steering Group; these roles are discussed
further in the East London and the Olympic Park section of this
submission.
OPPORTUNITIES AND
CHALLENGES
Defining an approach to legacy
5. The Mayor and his fellow Olympic Board
members are convinced that the London 2012 Games present a massive
opportunity to leave a lasting legacy for London and the UK, and
are determined to capture that legacy. They are also clear that,
despite some interpretations of the word "legacy", there
are benefits of the Games that can and should be felt before 2012.
6. A limited number of these benefits, such
as a boost in London's reputation as a place to live, work, study,
visit or invest, will to a certain extent come about as a result
of staging an outstanding Games in 2012. This is of course one
of the Mayor's main motivations in pursuing his various roles
and interests across the 2012 programme, including the work he
is doing to provide an outstanding Games-time experience across
London and co-ordinate the running of London's Games-time services,
under the umbrella of the "City Operations"programme.
7. However, the Mayor strongly believes
that the full range of hoped-for benefits will not arise simply
as a side-effect of staging the Games. Experience from previous
host cities—helpfully synthesised in the 2004 Demos/ippr
report After the Gold Rush: A sustainable Olympics for London—clearly
shows that, without specific dedicated interventions, often by
bodies other than those responsible for staging the Games, most
of the opportunities for capturing the real benefits of a major
sporting event like the Olympic and Paralympic Games will be lost.
Legacy priorities
8. The Olympic Board has identified a broad
range of areas in which it believes the Games offers opportunities
for a legacy, and in which interventions are therefore felt to
be desirable. The Mayor has identified, from within that list
of aspirations, the particular priorities for him and his administration,
informed to a great extent by the Mayor's overall policy priorities
for London. These are:
— a regeneration legacy for the Olympic
Park and east London;
— major long-term improvements to London's
public transport network and public open spaces;
— an increase in sport participation among
Londoners, particularly among those previously doing little or
no sport or physical activity;
— targeting employment, skills and business
opportunities at Londoners most in need of them;
— increasing levels of volunteering in
London and strengthening London's volunteer infrastructure; and
— maximising educational opportunities
for children and young people.
9. The Mayor and Olympic Board are also
determined that all work associated with the Games—whether
in staging the Games themselves or in capturing their benefits—should
be sustainable and inclusive. The Mayor is very clear that a failure
to meet these aspirations risks compromising the legacy of the
Games for London. The importance attached to these two cross-cutting
themes, and the significant progress in both areas, is reflected
in the annual publications Towards a One Planet 2012 (first
published in 2007) and Working Towards an Inclusive Games (first
published in 2009).
Delivering legacy
10. Subsequent sections of this submission
describe the range of work being done in a number of areas relating
to legacy. These illustrate the diversity and complexity of legacy
programmes, and the range of delivery arrangements that underpin
them. For example, to secure the best possible legacy for the
Olympic Park, the Mayor and Government have created a special
purpose company. Meanwhile, wider socio-economic programmes rely
on a complex partnership of existing agencies banding together
to maximise the impact of their work in this field, sometimes
with direct intervention and investment from Mayoral agencies
(for instance by the London Development Agency in the employment
and skills programme) and sometimes largely driven by wider public
and voluntary sector partners (such as in the field of education).
11. Many legacy programmes depend on direct
support from the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and
Paralympic Games (LOCOG) and/or the Olympic Delivery Authority
(ODA). Both bodies are either directly delivering elements of
the legacy programme themselves (for instance through legacy-focused
elements of the ODA's investment in Olympic Park infrastructure)
or enabling their partners to make the most of opportunities arising
from their work (for instance through employment forecasting in
LOCOG and the ODA which facilitates targeted skills training,
or through LOCOG's "Inspire" programme). The Mayor warmly
welcomes the contribution these bodies are making to securing
the legacy of the Games, and expects both bodies to continue working
in this way for the duration of their respective lifetimes.
12. It would be a mistake to assume that
the Mayor could or should have a role in, or even be aware of,
all the work going on in London to derive benefits from the Games.
While the Mayor is driving or co-ordinating a great deal of work
in this area, other organisations across the public and voluntary
sectors have taken the initiative to develop schemes linked to
the Games in some way. While the Mayor can and does support such
schemes in various ways where he is aware of them, and where they
fit with his own priorities, it is obviously appropriate that
some schemes should proceed and succeed without any Mayoral involvement.
LOCOG's pioneering Inspire programme provides an excellent opportunity
in relation to these independent schemes, both for the individual
projects to get the recognition they deserve, and for London 2012,
its partners (including the Mayor) and the wider public to develop
the fullest possible picture of all the work underway to capture
the benefits of the Games.
EAST LONDON
AND THE
OLYMPIC PARK
13. The Mayor's draft replacement London
Plan states (under policy 2.4) that "successful, viable and
sustainable regeneration of the Olympic Park and surrounding areas
is the Mayor's highest regeneration priority". As stated
in the draft Plan, the Mayor will publish Olympic Legacy Strategic
Planning Guidance to clarify in greater detail his proposals
for a planned approach to regeneration, including particular reference
to new housing, exemplary design and environmental quality and
the further managed release of existing industrial land in the
area.
14. The Mayor chairs the Olympic Park Regeneration
Steering Group (OPRSG), the other members of which are the Minister
for the Olympics, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local
Government, the Leaders and the Mayors of the five east London
host boroughs and the Chair of the Olympic Park Legacy Company.
The OPRSG's remit is to supervise and co-ordinate the range of
work described below to secure a regeneration legacy of the Games
for east London, focusing both on the Olympic Park itself and
on the wider benefits for the whole area.
Olympic Park Legacy Company
15. The Mayor is a founder member and 50%
shareholder of the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC), with the
Departments of Culture, Media & Sport and Communities &
Local Government the other two shareholders at 25% each. The Mayor
is strongly committed to the OPLC as the vehicle for securing
the best possible legacy for the Olympic Park: creating a stable,
financially secure future for the new permanent venues and parkland
and driving development in the Park that supports London's growth
and makes a transformational contribution to the regeneration
of the area. Responsibility for the Legacy Masterplan Framework
(LMF), which forms the spatial basis for proposed development
in the Park after 2012, has recently passed from the LDA to the
OPLC.
16. The details of the OPLC's work will
be described in a separate submission to the Committee by the
OPLC itself; the Mayor fully supports the Company and its leadership
team, and does not propose to include a separate account or analysis
of the Company's work in this submission.
Convergence: a framework for regeneration in the
five host boroughs
17. All members of the Olympic Park Regeneration
Steering Group have a shared commitment to the principle of "convergence"
as the unifying theme for Games-related regeneration in east London:
that people in the five host boroughs should enjoy the same social
and economic opportunities as people across the rest of London.
The Mayor's commitment to the principle of convergence is enshrined
in policy 2.4 of his draft replacement London Plan.
18. The five east London host boroughs have
published a first iteration of the Strategic Regeneration Framework
(SRF), which sets the context for this wider regeneration legacy
and sets high-level targets that give more definition to the overall
aim of convergence. The Mayor supports the principles set out
in the Strategic Regeneration Framework, and looks forward to
working more closely with the boroughs and other partners to develop
and deliver detailed action plans arising from these principles.
The "Olympic Fringe"
19. Successful regeneration in inner east
London will rely on physical regeneration in the areas immediately
abutting the Olympic Park just as much as in the Park. The so-called
Olympic Fringe is important in itself—emerging numbers suggest
that there will ultimately be as many new homes in the Fringe
areas as in the Park—but is also essential in ensuring that
development in the Park is properly connected to its surroundings.
With this in mind, fringe masterplans have been commissioned to
run alongside the LMF in five key areas: Stratford High Street,
Sugarhouse Lane and Three Mills, Hackney Wick and Fish Island,
Hackney Marshes and Mabley Green and the Northern Olympic Fringe.
20. The precise client arrangements differ
for each masterplan, but the core clients are consistently the
LDA, Design for London, the London Thames Gateway Development
Corporation (LTGDC) and the local borough(s) for the area concerned.
They are funded by LTGDC with, in most cases, additional contributions
from boroughs and the LDA. While each masterplan is working to
a slightly different programme, each is deliberately being developed
in parallel with the LMF, with the teams working in close collaboration.
TRANSPORT
21. The Games have directly stimulated billions
of pounds of investment in public transport infrastructure that
will have a lasting transformational effect on the capital. While
these improvements are predominantly focused on improving capacity
and reliability for east London, which is essential given the
long-term growth in jobs and housing envisaged for the area, they
will also deliver improvements for the travelling public across
the whole network.
22. Key transport enhancements include:
— An upgrade to the Jubilee Line, increasing
capacity by 48%. Improvements include longer trains and a comprehensive
signalling upgrade allowing more frequent services, leading to
less crowding and shorter wait times.
— A new Docklands Light Railway line directly
serving the Olympic Park at Stratford International is opening
in the summer of 2010. The whole network is being upgraded to
allow the operation of 50% longer trains, with 55 new railcars
in operation by Games-time and upgrades to every station.
— The London Overground network, including
upgrades to existing lines as well as a significant extension
to the East London Line which provides new orbital connections
which pass around the central area and provide opportunities to
access Stratford without travelling through Central London. The
line upgrade will also provide longer and more frequent trains
with new rolling stock.
— Major improvements at Stratford Regional
station, at which daily traffic is expected to double from its
current level by 2016. Enhancements include new lifts, wider,
longer platforms and a new entrance; many of these improvements
are already complete and benefiting passengers long before the
Games have begun.
Public realm
23. In 2009, the Mayor launched his manifesto
for public space, entitled London's Great Outdoors, setting out
his ambition for revitalising London's streets, green spaces and
water spaces. The Great Outdoors programme includes a number of
public realm improvement projects which have been stimulated or
accelerated by the prospect of the London 2012 Games, with the
initial aim of enhancing the experience for Londoners and visitors
in Games-time, but with a clear long-term legacy of enhanced spaces
and resulting improvements in quality of life.
24. Key projects with a relationship to
the Games, and scheduled for completion before summer 2012, include:
— High Street 2012, aiming to improve and
celebrate the A11/A118 corridor that links the City with Stratford,
reconnecting the places along and making it a world-class destination
in itself, both during the Games and beyond;
— Meridian Square, removing barriers, creating
a genuinely accessible environment and encouraging the use of
public transport in a key space at the heart of Stratford town
centre;
— Exhibition Road, transforming one of
London's flagship cultural arteries into an accessible, pedestrian-friendly
environment through changes in street design, traffic flow and
parking arrangements; and
— Leicester Square, seeking to re-establish
Leicester Square as a national hub for cinema and cultural gateway
to the West End, with improvements to paving, lighting, seating,
public toilets and public gardens.
Sport
25. Central to London's successful bid to
host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games was a commitment to
use the Games to transform the sporting landscape of the UK. The
Mayor of London's document, A Sporting Future for London,
published in April 2009 sets out the Mayor's contribution to fulfilling
this commitment in London. Central to A Sporting Future for
London is a £30 million legacy investment programme.
26. The key aim of the document is to help
deliver a grass-roots sporting legacy for Londoners by securing
a sustained increase in participation in sport and physical activity
amongst Londoners and to use sport to assist in tackling social
problems including ill health, crime, academic under-achievement
and to promote improved community cohesion.
27. A Sporting Future for London
sets out the Mayor's intention to work with key partners in London,
including Sport England; the national governing bodies of sport
to help implement their whole sport plans; the Youth Sport Trust
to help support its work and address the "drop off"
in sport participation among young people; and NHS London to help
deliver a health legacy from the 2012 Games.
28. Participation rates in sport in London
have been static in recent years, though the latest figures from
Sport England[21]
showed that regular participation[22]
by adults (aged 16 and over) has increased from 16.5% to 17.2%.
The figures reveal that only London and the West Midlands had
shown an increase in the last 12 months and London now has
the highest participation rate in the country. However, participation
rates among some groups, for example disabled people, remain relatively
low. A Sporting Future for London aims to address this.
29. Among the many costs of "inactivity",
the NHS in London has identified that it spends £105 million
per annum on ill health related to physical inactivity. In order
to address this, the GLA is working closely with NHS London to
adopt a "joined up"' approach to the work on the health
agenda and NHS London's 2012 Health Legacy Plan.
30. In a practical approach to dealing with
this issue, projects attracting GLA funding will need to demonstrate
how they will get a minimum of 5% of inactive people of those
they target into activity.
"A SPORTING
FUTURE FOR
LONDON": LEGACY
GOALS AND
WORK PROGRAMME
31. A Sporting Future for London"
contains four goals:
Goal 1: To get more people active by tackling
inactivity and increasing participation in sport.
Goal 2: To transform the sporting infrastructure
in the Olympic Park and local community facilities.
Goal 3: To build capacity and skills of volunteers
and people working in sport.
Goal 4: To maximise the benefits of sport to
London's diverse society.
32. From this, the Mayor has developed three
funding streams:
— Facilities investment programme:
primarily to support community or estate-based facilities. The
GLA is finalising an agreement to work in partnership with the
Tennis Foundation to secure 33 "Beacon" tennis sites
in local parks (one in each London borough). The wider facilities
programme, which is due to be launched in spring 2010, will provide
further investment opportunities in sport into the capital.
— Investment in training and skills:
to provide training for employees, volunteers and potential recruits
to the sports sector. The GLA will work with a delivery partner
to secure this. Investment is due to begin in spring 2010.
— Sport based interventions: to
support innovative sports participation programmes that help to
increase participation and encourage social development in London.
Investment in this area is due to commence in summer 2010.
33. While the Mayor has been developing
this work, he has funded some initial projects, including street
athletics, a boxing academy, Panathlon Challenge (a programme
delivering competitive sport to severely disabled children and
young people), and the provision of mobile swimming pools in London.
34. The programme of work set out in A
Sporting Future for London builds upon the achievements of
the London Development Agency in recent years, including:
— Play Sport London: a small grants
programme providing coaching and playing opportunities across
a wide range of sports. Circa 43,000 participants to date
have tried a sport through this scheme, with 68,000 participants expected
by end of year 2009-10. 11% of this year's participants were previously
"inactive".
— Official Sports London: a bursary
fund and support programme, to train 600 sports officials in preparation
for the anticipated increase in sports participation following
the London 2012 Games. 134 trained to date, with 325 scheduled
by March 2010.
— London Leisure Academy: supporting
the start-up of the London hub of the National Skills Academy
for Sport and Active Leisure. This "virtual academy"
will provide a one-stop-shop for Londoners and employers to access
skills training in the sector.
— Inclusive Fitness Initiative:
an accreditation programme aiming to achieve 150 fully inclusive
and accessible gyms and fitness suites across London, providing
a significant legacy from the London 2012 Paralympic Games. The
first six facilities will be accredited by the end of 2009-10.
The London Community Sports Board
35. A new Board has been established to
oversee delivery of A Sporting Future for London and to
help support and strengthen the delivery of sport in London. The
Board is chaired by Kate Hoey MP, the Mayor's Sports Commissioner,
and includes representatives from the key stakeholders in sport
in London, including the British Olympic Association, the PROACTIVE
partnership, a sports governing body and a Ministerial nominee.
An executive arm of the Board (the Delivery and Implementation
Group) has been established to support and strengthen delivery
on issues relating to sport and physical activity.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT,
VOLUNTEERING AND
EDUCATION
Employment, skills and business
36. The programme of work to maximise the
employment, skills and business benefits for London from the Games
is led on behalf of the Mayor by the London Development Agency
(LDA), the Mayor's agency responsible for driving London's sustainable
economic growth. The LDA co-ordinates the contributions of a number
of agencies, including LOCOG and the ODA, the five east London
host boroughs and the Learning and Skills Council. Highlights
of the programme include:
— Relay London Jobs (www.relaylondonjobs.co.uk),
a London-wide network of job brokerage and employment support
organisations which plays a vital part in recruitment for job
vacancies and construction courses around the construction of
the Olympic Park. Over 750 previously unemployed people have been
placed into work via job brokerage services since April 2008,
of which 81% have been residents of the five host boroughs.
— Personal Best (www.personalbestprogramme.co.uk),
a groundbreaking training and volunteer programme that uses the
excitement of the London 2012 Games as a way of encouraging workless
and socially-excluded people to learn new skills, engage in their
communities, raise their aspirations and increase their chances
of getting a job. So far, 2,000 Londoners have completed training
in preparation for event volunteering.
— The CompeteFor scheme (www.competefor.com),
a free service that enables businesses to compete for contract
opportunities linked to the London 2012 Games and other major
public and private sector buying organisations and provides access
to business support through the national Business Link network.
To date, over 700 contracts have been awarded to businesses registered
on the CompeteFor system, of which 240 are London-based. In London,
approximately 4,000 potential suppliers have been referred to
business support services to improve their competitiveness.
37. Every six months, the LDA submits public
reports on the progress of the employment and skills and business
programmes to the Economic Development, Culture, Sport and Tourism
Committee of London Assembly. Rather than reproduce here the content
of the most recent report (dated September 2009), the Mayor draws
the Committee's attention to the September report, which reviews
the performance of the programme to date, and looks ahead to the
future challenges facing the programme.
38. The Committee is further invited to
note the following information, which updates figures contained
in the September 2009 report:
— As of December 2009, we estimate that over
15,000 workless Londoners have been supported into jobs through
training and job brokerage programmes for the 2012 Games and associated
activities.
— The Games job brokerage service both
advertises vacancies and supports local people and those across
London into Olympic-related employment and other jobs. Over 750
previously unemployed people have been placed into work via this
service since April 2008. 81% of these have been from the five
host boroughs.
— The lifetime target of 2250 training
interventions (excluding apprenticeships) through the National
Skills Academy for Construction has already been exceeded, with
2442 trainees having received construction training, or pre-employment
training, through the Academy since April 2008.
— The ODA and its contractors have
made a pioneering commitment to deliver 350 construction
apprenticeships. To date, 150 apprentices have worked or
are working on the Olympic Park and Olympic Village sites.
Volunteering
39. It is a high priority for the Mayor
to increase the number of Londoners volunteering, and to strengthen
London's volunteering infrastructure. He strongly believes in
the value of volunteering, not only for the organisation or community
that benefits from the time and work given, but also for the individual—not
least in terms of the skills that can be developed and maintained
by people whose paid work has been interrupted by the current
economic downturn. He has established a Volunteer London portal
(at www.london.gov.uk/volunteer) to make it easier for Londoners
to find out about their local volunteer centre and volunteering
opportunities which may interest them. Since the London Olympic
Games of 1948 introduced the idea of a volunteer Games workforce,
volunteering has become a fundamental plank of the Olympic and
Paralympic movements. The Mayor is determined to take the opportunity
presented by the 2012 Games to make a contribution to his overall
volunteering aspirations.
40. LOCOG will require up to 70,000 volunteers
as part of its Games-time workforce in 2012. While the formal
recruitment process will not start until later in 2010, over a
quarter of a million people—including more than 50,000 Londoners—have
already registered their interest in participating in the LOCOG
volunteering programme. The Mayor is working with LOCOG to target
publicity about the Volunteer London portal at those Londoners
who have shown an interest in Games-time volunteering, to encourage
them to volunteer in their community now. The Mayor will continue
to work with LOCOG before 2012, and using LOCOG's databases after
2012, to promote volunteering to those people who have shown interest
in—and, in due course, gained skills and experience through—the
LOCOG volunteering programme.
41. Alongside the LOCOG volunteering programme,
the Mayor has also announced plans to recruit a team of Host City
Volunteers, who will be on hand during the London 2012 Games at
airports, stations, major visitor attractions and other key locations
to welcome visitors and help them get the most out of their time
in London. As with the LOCOG programme, the Mayor has made it
clear that a tangible volunteering legacy will be at the heart
of the plans for the Host City Volunteer scheme as they are developed
by the LDA during 2010.
42. Besides these two formal Games-time
volunteering programme, the Mayor is also working with the volunteering
sector in London to identify other opportunities to capture a
volunteering legacy from the Games. Initiatives emerging from
this collaboration include:
— research commissioned by the LDA to investigate
the nature of volunteering in London, the state of London's volunteering
infrastructure and the training opportunities currently available
for those who wish to manage or lead volunteers;
— Greater London Volunteering's 2012 Volunteering
Legacy website (2012volunteeringlegacy.org.uk), which aims to
connect and equip volunteers, clubs, organisations, events organisers
and London Volunteer Centres; and
— LDA's Official Sports London programme,
described above, the beneficiaries of which will often use their
skills in volunteering capacity.
Education
43. Education is one of the three pillars
of the Olympic movement, alongside sport and culture, and the
members of the Olympic Board—including the Mayor—are
fully committed to realising the educational potential of London
2012. LOCOG's flagship scheme aimed at capturing the domestic
education benefits of the Games is the "Get Set" programme,
which provides resources for schools and colleges to engage and
educate children and young people between the ages of three and
19. At the time of writing, 1378 London schools and colleges have
registered to be part of the "Get Set" programme.
44. The Mayor's involvement in securing
an education legacy seeks to complement LOCOG's work, and therefore
focuses on initiatives that sit outside the mainstream curriculum.
The Mayor has brought together a coalition of educational organisations
from across London that have developed initiatives aimed at a
wide cross-section of Londoners, from young entrepreneurs to 1948
Olympians. By joining the coalition, projects benefit from Mayoral
endorsement and marketing support (including assistance in becoming
part of the Inspire programme) as well the opportunity to link
up with one another.
45. In 2009-10, the programme includes:
— The Get Into Opportunity programme (delivered
by the Prince's Trust) provides 16-25 year olds with taster courses
and work placements with a Games-related theme in the sports,
leisure and digital media industries. The taster days are designed
to give young people an opportunity to learn more about a career
in their chosen industry, with follow-up support offered to help
participants access employment.
— The Tsu'Chu Biz: Developing Young Entrepreneurs
of the Future project (delivered by The Challenge of Excellence)
works with 14-18 year olds across the five east London Host Boroughs,
using football to teach skills including leadership, stress management
and teamwork and to provides participants with at least one hour
of physical activity a day.
— Through its VIP Project, Lifeline has
developed the innovative Vision, Identity and Purpose approach
to personal development for young people. The project works through
a range of initiatives involving games, the creative arts, and
accredited and vocational training.
— The Mayor's Young London website, which
aims to inform and engage young Londoners about a number of issues
in the capital and has been developed in close collaboration with
over 100 children and young people, includes a section devoted
to the London 2012 Games: http://www.london.gov.uk/young-london/teens/olympics/index.jsp.
46. In April 2010, the Mayor will invite
submissions from organisations or initiatives that would like
to become part of the programme for 2010-11.
February 2010
21 Active People Survey 3, published December
2009. Back
22
A least three x 30 minute sessions of moderate intensity sport
a week. Back
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