Sport for a change

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Attenders at a Lottery Monitor event in Taunton had an early glimpse of the changes Sport England is likely to make when it reveals the results of its overhaul of funding programmes and priorities later this month, including the replacement of all its current lottery programmes by a single funding pot with just two strands, national and regional. Delegates heard that the new funding approach will be far less prescriptive than at present, with a heavy emphasis on projects being partnership-based, outcomes-led and clearly related to key government policy objectives in health, community safety, social inclusion and regeneration. There will also be a high priority given to raising participation rates in sport and activity, something that Sport England has failed significantly to achieve thus far. County Sports Partnerships have been identified as the key strategic partnership forum at local level. Local projects of any size that do not interrelate with these bodies in some way are unlikely to succeed.

The radical change in direction for Sport England will draw a line under two years of turmoil in which the body has been comprehensively out of favour with government ministers, has lost two chief executives, a chairman and an entire board. When the government’s sport trouble-shooter Patrick Carter stepped in as chairman at the end of last year, he suspended all new grant-making until at least April, and possibly for longer. Sport England is heavily over-committed on its lottery budgets, and may be forced to reduce its regional funding allocations over the next two years to half of their former level or less. Regional allocations are also more likely to be allied to population and deprivation figures in future, too.