The Department of Culture, Media and Sport this morning published its new sports strategy consultation paper, seeking views on 10 broad themes:
- Participation
- Physical activity
- Children and young people
- Financial sustainability
- Coaching, workforce and good governance
- Elite and professional sport
- Infrastructure
- Fairness and equality
- Safety and wellbeing
- International influence and major sporting events
The public consultation will run until Friday 2 October and the paper can be found here.
Responding to the publication, Sport England’s Chief Executive, Jennie Price, said:
“Sport England welcomes the breadth of this consultation and the opportunity for fresh thinking, drawing where appropriate on what currently works, to get more people active and playing sport.
“We recognise that the new strategy will mean change, we welcome that and hope others in sport will also do so.”
The consultation highlights some major new opportunities for grassroots sport including:
- a greater focus on people for whom sport is not a natural choice
- more opportunities for cross-Departmental working within Government, and we know this works best when funding, effort and ambitions are truly aligned and come together
- the potential for new ways to invest public funds
- the acknowledgement of a need for coaches and the workforce as a whole to have excellent broader and softer skills as well as technical qualifications.