Catalogue description Records of the Millennium Commission

The Millennium Commission was set up in 1993 by the National Lottery Act. It met for the first time in February 1994 and was one of the bodies set up to distribute proceeds from the National Lottery. Unlike the other distributing bodies, the Commission was created as a short-life organisation, with a specific aim: to fund projects to celebrate the end of the second millennium and the start of the third. The Commission was an independent body; decisions were made by the Commissioners, advised by permanent staff who worked with the projects throughout the grant-giving process to monitor progress and offer guidance. The Commission distributed more than £2 billion in large capital grants for world-class educational projects to small grants to individuals for community projects. The Millennium Commission stopped receiving an income from the National Lottery in August 2001, although the Commission continued to distribute grants and oversee the completion of projects. Grant-giving work was planned to be completed by 2006 and future checks of Commission-funded projects were carried out by a successor body, the Big Lottery Fund, which was set up on 1 June 2004 as a single lottery distributor.

The Commission was wound up on 30 November 2006