Sport England announces additional investment for the regions and national governing bodies of sport.

Sport England, the body that promotes and invests in community sport, is committing a further £75 million to the English Regions and National Governing Bodies of Sport (NGBs) to help develop talent and boost participation in sport over the next 3 years. This new investment is in addition to the £315 million four year funding announced at the beginning of the year for the NGBs and comes from increased National Lottery sales and further savings from back-office costs.

Roger Draper, Chief Executive of Sport England said: “This new investment will play a key role in getting more people into sport through our regional networks, the NGBs and our national partners. We are working towards two important agendas here – to ensure that talented young athletes are not lost to sport and making real progress at a community and grassroots level. With the health of the nation firmly on the agenda and the Games heading to London in 2012, the time is right to increase our investment. Sport England now looks to the sports and regional teams to get more people into sport.”

The additional funding will be invested directly at the grassroots level, funding county sport partnerships and the sports themselves.  It will be used to get more people on the ground across the sporting system, funding coaches and helping with the identification and development of talented youngsters.

Minister for Sport, Richard Caborn, welcomed the additional investment. He said:

“I’m pleased that Sport England is committing additional money to the regional network and to National Governing bodies, because that is exactly where it will make a difference.  In terms of increasing grassroots participation, there is no better mechanism for delivering sensible, effective investment than through the regional network and that’s because they have their fingers on the pulse of what local communities need in terms of access and opportunity to play sport.  More money for our National Governing bodies will go to helping identify and nurture our future Olympic and Paralympic champions.  In the run-up to Beijing and then London in 2012, that can only be good news.”

Len Jackson, Chair of the East Midlands Regional Sports Board has welcomed the announcement.  He said:

‘This is great news for the region.  The extra funding will enable us to roll out Change 4 Sport, our regional plan for sport, and build a more efficient and effective sports system for the East Midlands’.

Sport England has identified that the countries across the world who have been most successful in increasing participation in sport have focussed on three key areas: investing in facilities, running a sustained physical activity campaign and investing in the people within the system to help greater numbers of people to get active.

To date Sport England has invested over £1.7 billion in facilities, including £120 million in a high performance network. The Everyday Sport campaign is now running throughout the English regions, encouraging people to get active. This announcement is the next step to get more people involved in the sporting system both nationally and regionally.

The breakdown of the £75 million investment will be £46.5 million to the Regional Sports Boards, £26.5 million to the NGBs and a further £2 million to national partners. A working group has also been set up with UK Sport and the Youth Sport Trust to ensure that the investment is linked in with current and future plans across the sporting sector. Detailed proposals for the investment will be discussed over the coming months with the sports and key partners to determine the precise breakdown of this investment.

Notes to editors

Sport England is the agency tasked with the development of community sport in England and invests Lottery and Exchequer funds into sport. www.sportengland.org

Sport England has nine Regional Sports Boards (RSBs), each made up of experts from areas such as business, local government, sport, health and education. The RSBs provide the strategic lead for sport in their regions and distribute investment for grassroots sport.

Sport England has invested more than £2.2bn of Lottery funds into sport across England and more than £350 million from the Exchequer.