Three national governing bodies of sport (NGBs) have all been rewarded for the progress they have made with a two-year investment award.
This means, like the majority of Sport England-funded NGBs, they will now receive funding until March 2017, the end of our current grassroots sport investment cycle.
The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), Table Tennis England and British Fencing are three of the six sports that were given one-year funding arrangements in 2013 as a result of concerns about their leadership, governance and investment plans.
Although we remained committed to the sports they represented, ring-fencing investment into each, we asked them to demonstrate that they were the best people to receive the funding.
All three governing bodies recruited new chief executives and, in some cases, new chairs and entire senior management teams. They’ve also refined their investment plans, for example:
- The LTA has put increasing participation at the heart of its strategy and focused on customers when making decision. It is also working closely with the Tennis Foundation to develop disability tennis.
- Table Tennis England has greater insight into the people who play the game and has also improved its programme for talented athletes.
- British Fencing has significantly improved its governance and developed a more customer-focused approach to attract new people into the sport.
Three NGBs remain on restricted funding. A final decision about the Amateur Swimming Association and the Basketball England will be taken in March this year. While, despite demonstrating significant progress, England Squash and Racketball has been given a one-year funded award taking it through to March 2016.
“Placing these sports in one-year funding arrangements in 2013, and then keeping them there in 2014, sent a clear message to governing bodies about our intentions to secure improvements for grassroots sport,” said Sport England Chair, Nick Bitel.
"The response we’ve seen has been positive and demonstrates the importance on which sports place the participation agenda."
The NGBs will find out how much they will receive in March, following detailed analysis of their sport’s performance in the latest Active People Survey, also published today. Governing bodies that have failed to meet their agreed targets for increasing the number of people regularly playing their sport could see up 20% of their future funding invested in other organisations that can deliver their sport.
Find out more about our investments into 46 NGBs and sport.