Regional Investment Strategy 2005 - 2009

POLICY UPDATE, 31st October 2006: The Regional Sports Board will not accept increased awards for any applications unless a comprehensive justification can be presented that the circumstances and reasons for the increased project costs could not be foreseen at any point in the project development, pre or post award stages and that financial need is demonstrated
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If your project is for people living in the north west of England, funding decisions will be made by the North West Regional Sports Board.

We advise all potential applicants to read the Sport England North West Regional Investment Strategy 2005-2009 - full report, which outlines the regional funding streams and priorities for the Community Investment Fund in the north west region. There is also a downloadable Executive Summary. Below is a brief overview of Sport England North West's Regional Investment Strategy for 2005-09, outlining our funding streams and priorities.

The Regional Investment Strategy has been created to help applicants see the broader funding picture for sport and physical activity.  The overarching message is that we want to see proposals that help make a real leap in participation and that reach low participant groups and are able to retain them.

Funding

Please note the levels of funding available when you consider your application to the Sport England Lottery Fund. Awards of over £250,000 for individual projects are extremely unlikely other than in exceptional circumstances, and the average award is currently around £50,000.

A total of £21 million is available through the Community Investment Fund over the next 4 years, equating to just over £5 million each year across the whole of the North West for both capital projects and revenue programmes. These will be channelled through 3 funding streams, as shown below:

Open Fund

With over £1million already invested in helping to create ‘Active Workplaces’, currently around £2.5 million is available through the ‘Open Fund’ until 2009 – around £700,000 a year on average for the whole of the North West. This funding will complement the ‘Strategic Fund’ (see below), particularly for projects where:

i)   the Sport and Physical Activity Alliance has not yet been set up
ii)   the allocation for your local Sport and Physical Activity Alliance has already been committed to projects.

Don’t forget to read the Priorities for Funding section below for information on what kind of projects we’re looking to support.

Strategic Fund

Half of all our funding – over £10 million – is being targeted for priorities which will be identified at a local level. ‘Sport and Physical Activity Alliance’ (SPAAs) are being set-up at a local authority level, and will consist of relevant partners involved in boosting physical activity levels such as local authorities, Primary Care Trusts, Educational institutions, sport governing bodies, and others. These ‘SPAAs’ should all be set-up and running during the spring and summer of 2006 and will then be preparing ‘delivery plans’ for funding to increase participation in their area.

Contact details for the SPAA in your local authority area will be available here as soon as they are available. You can also contact your local County Sports Partnership – linking partners together at a county-wide level – for further advice, information and support.

Please note: funding under the Strategic Fund will be proportionally allocated to SPAAs on the basis of population and deprivation. With 43 local authority areas in the region, the amounts therefore range from around £150,000 to £600,000 per area.

Targeted Fund

Sport England NW Region will be working with key partners on a regional and sub-regional level to develop the programmes and projects to target key areas that will meet the overarching aims of significantly increasing participation, particularly for target groups. This will help to support, among other things, coaching, volunteers and workforce development. Around £6.7 million over 4 years will be allocated to this fund.

Priorities for Funding

High priorities

The key priorities for funding are schemes that will:

• Increase Participation - projects that can demonstrate that a significant increase in participation can be achieved.
• Widen Access –projects that help to encourage those groups who traditionally have lower rates of participation to become physically active (such as girls and women, black and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities and people on low incomes).

We’re particularly interested in schemes that:

• Encourage multi-sport and multi-activity environments – showing good value for money with regards to increased participation for every £1 invested.
• Show innovative ways of increasing participation or widening access.
• Focus on people rather than buildings – remember, increasing participation levels is the key objective.

Low priorities

Single Sport Applications
Over £40 million has been made available nationally from 2006 to 2009 for National Governing Bodies to support capital projects for clubs in Sport England's 20 'priority sports' (listed below). Single sports clubs for these sports are therefore requested to go through their appropriate NGB and the Community Club Development Programme. Single Sport Applications are therefore a low priority through the Community Investment Fund.

Sport England priority sports

Applications from Schools
Huge amounts of funding has recently been pumped into capital sports projects in schools, through the Big Lottery Fund’s PE and Sport in Schools Programme (over £500m between 2003-6) and is ongoing with the Government’s Building Schools for the Future. Revenue funding continues to be invested in schools through organisations such as Sport England, the Youth Sports Trust and the Football Foundation. Applications from schools are therefore a low priority through the Community Investment Fund.

How to Apply for Funding

The application system is now web based and you can apply for funding online via the Sport England website. Alternatively you can also apply by phoning 08458 508 508 to receive a hard copy of the application form. The online system will help you to determine whether you are eligible for funding and helps to guide you through the application process.

Click here to read a statement on the Regional Investment Strategy from the Regional Director for Sport England and the Chair of the Regional Sports Board.

Documents for download

• Regional Investment Strategy 2005-2009 - full report
• Regional Investment Strategy 2005-2009 - executive summary

County Sport Partnerships

Sport Cheshire

Cumbria Sport

Greater Manchester Sports Partnership

Lancashire Sports Partnership c/o Myerscough College, Bilsborrow, Preston, PR3 0RY. Tel: 01995 642340

Merseyside Sport