Sport England has today released its new strategy, Towards an Active Nation, which sets out how it will use its investment over the next five years.
As expected, given the Government’s Sporting Future strategy published in December 2015, there is a heavy emphasis on getting the inactive active and particularly seeking to drive up activity in currently under-represented groups.
There is also a continued focus on investing in the core market – those already active to a greater or lesser extent, but a recognition that the way sport and activity is delivered to this market needs to deliver better value for money over time.
The main change in Sport England’s approach is a focus on funding based on what organisations can do rather than who they are.
Commenting on the new Strategy, Emma Boggis, Chief Executive of the Sport and Recreation Alliance said:
“Today we have learned more about the “how” Sport England will invest over the next five years. We already knew quite a lot of the “what” because of the clear actions they were given in Sporting Future.
We welcome the focus on an outcomes based approach, the emphasis on collaboration and working in partnership, the importance of being customer focused and using data to really understand the market and deliver what people want, when and where they want it. These are all themes which we highlighted in our Fit for the Future report that we published in 2015 and have been working on with our members over the last year.
We also welcome the recognition that the sector is already delivering great things whether that is encouraging people to start becoming active, supporting the core market, using sport for individual and community development, or helping create our next generation of Olympians and Paralympians. I know that I continue to be inspired every day by what sport and recreation does deliver.
There is clear indication in the strategy that Sport England have listened to the points raised by us, our members and the wider sector during their consultation. In particular we welcome the recognition that their new investment in the 5-14yrs age group must be coordinated with what is delivered in and around the school day.
We look forward to working with Sport England on specific parts of their strategy like the work on shared services and we look forward to supporting them, our members and the wider sector to help bring about the changes that are needed to ensure that the sector can continue to be improving the lives of so many people across the country in so many different ways.
The good news is that there is already huge appetite and activity taking place to support the delivery of Sporting Future and now Towards an Active Nation. We look forward to hearing more from Jennie Price at the Sports Summit 2016 next week when we will be focussing on using data and measuring impact – a key part of delivering this new approach.”
You can download the Towards an Active Nation document here.
Read more reaction to the strategy from our Director of Policy, Governance and External Affairs, James Allen.
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