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Harnessing the true power of sport and activity

As he leaves Sport England after seven years as chief executive, Tim Hollingsworth reflects on how Uniting the Movement and the Covid-19 pandemic changed forever how our sector should see its role - with the challenge now being to make sure its impact is truly felt by those that need it most.

31st July 2025

by Tim Hollingworth
Chief executive, Sport England

We're here to champion the life-changing impact of being active and ensure everyone across the nation can benefit from it.

So opens Uniting the Movement – Sport England’s 10-year vision for change for the sport and physical activity sector. 

We published the strategy towards the end of January 2021. In the teeth of the third Covid-19 lockdown. A fully online launch, brilliantly brought together by my team that, at one stage, clocked over 5,000 attendees.  

It felt like a huge moment – but also one that couldn’t afford to be just a moment in time.

Tim Hollingsworth, Sport England's chief executive, poses with other representatives of our sector at the Place expansion launch event in November 2023.

Looking back with pride

Uniting the Movement was, and is, meant to be more than one organisation’s strategic ambition. Rather, it is a vision for change across a sector that should result in positive and permanent impact on society and help build happier and healthier lives.   

One too that understands the stuff that matters to create change, the need to tackle the stubborn inequalities that exist and how best to work together to deliver it. 

It was devised and written as we experienced the full force of Covid-19. How it ravaged lives and families put unbelievable strain on public services and changed utterly how we lived our daily lives.

It is easy to post-rationalise behaviour now, but at the time what I remember most was the complete uncertainty of it all. 

Which is why our response as Sport England – whether it was the Sport Survival Package for professional sport; the National Leisure Recovery Fund for local authority leisure centres; the Community Emergency Fund we created to support thousands of clubs and community groups to stay alive across the country; or the Join the Movement campaign devised to help us all stay active – is one of my proudest reflections now. 

We moved quickly and with purpose, both to support and work together with the sector, to make sure we removed as much jeopardy as possible. 

And understood very early on that only by working together could we get to those who needed help most.

It was these two elements – tackling inequality and working together – that became Uniting the Movement’s driving force. Together with a third prong: a determination to change our traditional top-down investment approach to a more collaborative, systemic way of using our resources.

So, while there are many other things to reflect on and be proud of during my tenure – for example the significant move we have made now to investing up to £250m in place-based working; the understanding of the role of facilities in driving participation; creating a safer sport environment through direct action and intervention; and working more closely than ever before with the other Home Country Sports Councils and UK Sport to be more unified around our common ambitions – and while I know I leave with Active Lives showing record levels of overall activity among adults (with two thirds of the nation – that’s 30 million people – doing at least two-and-a-half hours a week) – it is the triple force of the pandemic response, Uniting the Movement and more collaborative ways of working, to which I continue to return.
 

We moved quickly and with purpose, both to support and work together with the sector, to make sure we removed as much jeopardy as possible. And understood very early on that only by working together could we get to those who needed help most.

It is also the central mission of Uniting the Movement, born of that extraordinary time, that remains for me the greatest element still to be delivered.

Whilst we have done much together to set the conditions and change the language used across grassroots sport and activity, we have not yet meaningfully moved the dial.  

The challenges ahead

Action is now needed truly to start to close the gaps that exist – for the near-quarter of the population that still do fewer than 30 mins of activity a week; and in particular those from historically marginalised parts of the country and communities who have previously been less well served.

We need to do more to align being active with the provision of public health and recognise that the power that a more preventative approach can take.  

We need to continue to protect our playing fields and the places and spaces where people can play.  

More than anything, we need to make sure that as a nation we prioritise provision and opportunity for our children and young people so that they can build the physical and mental resilience and sense of purpose and agency that we know sport can provide.

All of this will mean being ever more effective and efficient in a world where resources are scarce and demands on the public purse remain huge.

The future health of The National Lottery is vital here – two thirds of Sport England’s funding is received via its returns to good causes. Sport England itself will need to change to become better and slicker in its delivery and use of data and digital services.

Ultimately though, it will depend on a sector’s willingness and ability to collaborate effectively. Truly to understand the communities in which we are seeking to deliver and how best to serve them.

In the words of a man called Majid Hussain, from Clemency House in Oldham, whom I met on my very first visit in the role, to strive everyday to ensure we “don’t make us more like you”.

It has been the greatest of privileges for the past seven years to lead Sport England.

With a fantastic Chair in Chris Boardman, a great new CEO in Simon Hayes and a wonderful team of people in place, I have no doubt that the next stage of its delivery and the collective journey of Uniting the Movement will achieve amazing things.    

The health and happiness of a nation depends on it.
 

Tim Hollingsworth leaves Sport England

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