When the Commonwealth Games interview panel appointed Nicola Turner director of legacy for the 2022 competition, they saw someone driven by passion, principles and possibilities. It was a natural progression for her to head United by 2022, the charity to emerge from the sporting festival to continue its social impact, and as JON GRIFFIN discovers, she is clearly relishing the role.
It was the biggest cultural event in Birmingham’s recent history, a once-in-a-lifetime sporting spectacular that gave the Midlands capital the international platform and worldwide kudos it had craved for so long.
So often the bridesmaid – missing out through several frustrating decades on the likes of the Olympics, the UK’s European Capital of Culture, the National Stadium and others – Birmingham finally hit the jackpot in true style when it hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2022.
Or as Nicola Turner, the director of legacy for the games’ charity United By 2022 so evocatively puts it today: “It was that glorious summer when the sun seemed to shine for weeks and when the world first met Ozzy the Bull.”
Two and a half years on from those golden memories of a summer tournament which at long last saw Birmingham strut its stuff on the world stage, Turner remains at the helm of a charity which continues to mine a rich seam of achievement from the games’ legacy to help transform the lives of thousands of people.
And it’s a considerable legacy that the Games have provided for a city still too often derided by some parts of the media as a poor relation to the likes of Manchester and Liverpool, let alone London. As Turner says: “When we measured all the procurement activity, such as the volunteering, we managed to generate £300 million in social value. The tide has gone out on the games but we can still use all the learning and the expertise which delivered that figure.”
The Cambridge-born daughter of an academic father and lab technician mother had made the West Midlands her home to pursue a successful career as director of employability at Aston University and later national head of skills at the Government’s Higher Education Funding Council for England. She was awarded the MBE in 2015 for her work enabling 15,000 young people to find their first jobs in the West Midlands.
“The MBE was a surprise,” she says. “I didn’t know who put me in for it. The work I did at Aston University included a region-wide project to support disadvantaged young people and find them their first job in a local SME.”
With the benefit of years of hindsight, Turner says she “kind of fell” into the role at Aston which led to national recognition and her subsequent MBE. “I didn’t have a really strong career plan. If I could go back to my 18-year-old self I would probably remind myself that I need to feel connected to the purpose of what I am doing – that is when you get my best work out of me, as in making a difference.
“I felt really strongly about people who would not normally go to university, providing them with new pathways, giving them good information about how to make good choices.
“What we tried to do with Aston was make it a social mobility university. I think that is still happening now. I was there for 14 years, a long time, and I loved it.”
Turner left Aston to work for the government setting up degree apprenticeships in England in 2016 with the then Higher Education Funding Council.
“I loved the work I did there because I got the chance to tinker with the national system. I had a nice broad portfolio, enabling people who perhaps wouldn’t normally go to university to feel they could. I wasn’t looking for a move – I was very happy with the way degree apprenticeships were rolling out. We had gone from zero to something like 55,000 degree apprenticeships.”
But fate was to play a significant part in the next development of Turner’s already impressive CV.
“I wanted to volunteer at the Olympics in 2012 but my son was six years old and I just couldn’t make the logistics work. I went down to London for quite a few events and promised myself that if anything like this came up again I would put my name forward to do a volunteering role.
“When I found out that Birmingham was getting the Commonwealth Games I hastily looked on the website to see if I could find somewhere to put my name down to be a volunteer. When I found the page at the top of the jobs board it said director of legacy. I thought ‘I could do this job’.
“How do you get jobs to people who are unemployed? I had been doing that for years. How do you ensure that some of the investment made in the games actually impacts communities? I had been doing that in my role for the Government.”
Turner applied for the role and found herself in front of a “very scary” interview panel, including former Birmingham City Council chief executive Deborah Cadman, chair of the games’ organising committee John Crabtree, committee chief executive Ian Reid and others. “None of them were going to let me off easily, were they?” she says today.
“They seemed to like me and offered me the job. A large part of it was to get consensus from all these different parties who wanted something different from the Games.
“Birmingham City Council were really keen on getting some community cohesion out of the Games, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport wanted good economic investment and return on investment, the Combined Authority wanted the Growth Company to be able to see some inward investment but they also wanted jobs for local people.
“Trying to find a plan or a legacy around all this was my job. I think we did all right though.”
Turner had realised that the Commonwealth Games was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Birmingham to prove to the world that it could hack it on an international stage, while the United by 2022 charity – a concept suggested by John Crabtree – could build on that legacy for years to come. And so it has proved.
“I feel like Birmingham took its chance and I think the games started some really good stuff.
“It connected us better as a region. It definitely began to show the city in a better light – we surprised people. It also catalysed investment that was long overdue in the city. The cranes around Brindleyplace, in Digbeth and where the HS2 hub is going to be, are testament to that.”
But however welcome that investment will in due course prove to be to the city, it is by no means the sole legacy from the summer of 2022.
“It was just a sporting event which came and went, and we had to use those beginnings for ourselves. The people here had to keep it going if we wanted to maximise it. The charity was established in order to keep the social impact going.
“I had joined in May 2020 as director of legacy. We were setting up a jobs and skills academy, and wanted 7,500 local people to be able to benefit from some of the jobs and skills opportunities at the games. We had established a big health, wellbeing and physical activity legacy that was rolling out in communities.
“We had also founded a new youth volunteering initiative for young people who felt they couldn’t get into some of the jobs and skills opportunities that the games offered.”
Turner said the youngsters targeted by the charity were often care leavers or young carers, or those with criminal convictions or disabilities.
“Because this is the youngest city in Europe we felt really strongly that there should be a large presence of young people participating in the games and what it had to offer,” says Turner.
Little illustrates the ongoing legacy from Birmingham’s biggest ever sporting event than the 2,500-strong ‘volunteers collective’ which still operates to this day.
“They still run as a volunteer workforce for the city and the region,” says Turner. “Last year they came out to support 51 events for the city because the pipeline of events has gone up since the games.
“Collectively they have given to the city around 24,000 hours of their time. Through the charity we were able to keep the volunteers going – I don’t know who else would have done it.”
The charity has also established Gen 22, a special programme for young people who were unable to secure a job at the games but were keen to carry out youth volunteering in their communities.
“Four years on, 2,000 people have been through this programme. These are 16 to 24 year-olds, all over the region, who are not in work. The volunteering gives them confidence and skills.
“Many of them have gone on to become youth leaders in charities, some have found work, and some of them have set up their own charities, feeling inspired. That programme has turned around the lives of a number of young people.”
The city and region have also been able to take advantage of some of the £72 million left over from the original DCMS budget of £778 million. This was thanks to good housekeeping and was retained following an agreement with the government which was sealed by former West Midlands mayor Andy Street.
“There is a bit of a myth that the city council went bust because of the games but the two are entirely disconnected,” says Turner.
“The delivery of the games was done under budget, on time and brilliantly. Some of it has been spent on giving us a really strong events pipeline in the region, some on boosting our social economy, and around £9 million was ring-fenced as a grant for communities. That has been distributed.”
So what, two and a half years on, are the future aims of United By 2022? “We would like to cross-subsidise our charitable activities by selling some consultancy services. We did something for the games that is a global benchmark – we measured the social value of the games. No major event has ever done that before and it was my team that did it.
“The plan is to keep working with businesses. We would like them to support some of our charitable activities and a number are. And our job has also been to match-make between some of the businesses on Colmore Row with small local charities they would otherwise never meet. That is a really nice ongoing legacy of the games.”
Turner is understandably proud that United By 2022 boasts 17 employees alongside its 2,500 volunteers and is keen to further strengthen its links with the business community.
“We would like businesses to buy some of our social value services. A lot of people are not quite sure how to do this. We did it for the games on a grand scale and we know all the pitfalls and tricks, so we are offering to help businesses do this.
“In a world where public funding is going to be quite scarce for the foreseeable few years, social value is a massive, untapped latent asset. There is a solution in all of this somewhere and the games gave us the clues.”
While Ozzy the Bull may have decamped to New Street Station, there is clearly much more latent activity to tap into in the still vibrant aftermath of a Commonwealth Games which captured Birmingham at its very best.
“The year 2022 feels like a magic space in time,” says Turner. “People talk about it with a lot of fondness. Now we still want to keep the good things going, the volunteering, the youth volunteering and the support for local charities.”
