Sport England Chairman Derek Mapp's response to media reports this week that Sport England has £195 million of reserves sitting in the bank.
Derek Mapp, Chairman of Sport England, said:
“We want our share of National Lottery funding to be spent on increasing participation in community sport as quickly and effectively as possible.
"It’s wrong to suggest our Lottery money is languishing in our bank account. All of Sport England’s £195 million lottery reserves are committed to community sports projects. This means that grants have been awarded and the projects have been given the green light to start. Most of the projects will be underway and run over a number of years. That means we must hold some money in reserve to make sure we can fund projects in full.
We encourage all projects to claim money as quickly as possible. However, there is always a time-lag between the commitment of funds and when projects actually draw-down all of the money. For example:
Astley Sports College in Tameside – Sport England provided a grant of £325,000 in December 2004 to increase community access by enhancing its sports hall, fitness suite and creating a multi-use activity room. Building work took two years to complete, during which time Sport England made small payments as and when work was completed with the full grant drawn down in March 2007 on final completion. This facility is now helping local people use the college facilities and enjoy the lasting benefits of sport.
When the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport announced the 2012 funding package on 15 March 2007 she underlined that it was the Government’s intention that no existing lottery funded project need be affected by the extra lottery contribution to the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Like the Secretary of State we don’t want to disadvantage projects in the pipeline or those we have already grant aided. The Secretary of State also said today that she was content with the ongoing work of lottery distributors.
Sport England has no desire or interest to hold onto money. We want to get money to community sport as quickly as possible”.
Additional information:
- Since 1994, Sport England has invested more than £2 billion of National Lottery funding into community sports projects throughout England. Sport England's investment has also generated partnership funding of £1.7 billion
- Sport England committed reserves at 31 March 2007 were £195 million.
- One of the ways in which we are working to speed up funds being claimed is by appointing case officers to projects that we fund to make sure that money is invested as quickly as possible to bring the benefits of sport to local people.
For further information, please contact Alex Russell, Regional PR Manager on 020 7273 1866 or Chris Rolfe, Press and PR Officer, on 020 7273 1593.
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