2. The aim of the UK Film Council
• “To stimulate a competitive, successful and vibrant UK film industry and
culture, and to promote the widest possible enjoyment and understanding of
cinema throughout the nations and regions of the UK. The UKFC had a
mandate that spans cultural, social and economic priorities.”
• This represented a significant change from the UKFC's objectives when it
was first established, when it stated its purpose was to create a "sustainable
UK film industry".
3. • The UK Film Council (UKFC) was a non-
departmental public body set up in 2000 to
develop and promote the film industry in
the UK. It was constituted as a private
company limited by guarantee, owned by
the Secretary of State for Culture, Media
and Sport, and governed by a board of
15 directors. It was funded from various
sources including the National Lottery. John
Woodward was the Chief Executive Officer
of the UKFC.
• As at 30 June 2008, the company had 90
full-time members of staff. It distributed
more than £160m of lottery money to over
900 films. Lord Puttnam described the
Council as "a layer of strategic glue that's
helped bind the many parts of our disparate
industry together."
4. Abolishment of UKFC
• On 26 July 2010, the government announced that the council would be
abolished; Although one of the parties elected into that government had, for
some months, promised a bonfire of the Quangos, Woodward said that the
decision had been taken with "no notice and no consultation". UKFC closed
on 31 March 2011, with many of its functions passing to the British Film
Institute. This had happened after 2009 when the UKFC had persuaded the
government of the merits of creating a "single public body for film" - in which
the UKFC proposed that the British Film Institute should be abolished
while the UKFC would take over all its assets and funding. However the
legal protections offered to English charities like the BFI, meant that its
proposals were dismissed in a QC's report as being legally impossible.
