CIMSPA Welcomes Increase in Investment for Place-Based Sport and Physical Activity
CIMSPA welcomes today’s Sport England announcement about the expansion of investment into local communities across England to ensure that those in greatest need are able to play sport and be physically active.
The announcement of £250 million in up to 100 places across England where inequality is greatest comes alongside research which shows that inactivity rates are double in the most deprived communities.
To tackle this Sport England is expanding its Place Partners programme to see up to £190 million of National Lottery and Exchequer funding invested in up to 80-100 new places across England.
An additional £35 million will be invested to strengthen work with Sport England’s existing Place Partners; with up to £25 million being made available to create a Universal Offer for other parts of the country to help tackle inactivity and the associated inequalities that stop people moving more.
CIMSPA has been developing its own approach to supporting place-based projects to develop skills which will increase activity opportunities in a range of communities through our local skills delivery work.
Tara Dillon, CEO of CIMSPA said,
“It’s great to see this local, community based investment to support more people to take part in sport and physical activity, particularly those who are living in areas where activity levels are lowest.
We all know the very clear links between physical activity and health and wellbeing. This makes further support for increasing participation in the least active places, where people are twice as likely to have a disability or health condition, so important.
Our own work on local skills development, as highlighted in the recent Government strategy, Get Active, is already helping employers and training providers to work together to ensure that the right skills are being developed within the workforce.
The sport and physical activity sector is reliant on its workforce, to engage people in activity. Having a workforce that is able to support local needs now, and into the future, is imperative if we are going to ensure that everyone, in every place, can benefit from access to a range of opportunities to participate.
CIMSPA has just released a new Workforce Insight Report which highlights, at a local level, how the workforce is developing across the country. We look forward to continuing to work with Sport England, our partners and our members to use the findings of this report and our work across the workforce, to support everyone’s ambition to make every community active and healthy.”
You can find out more about this funding announcement on the Sport England website here.
More on CIMSPA’s local delivery work and the pilot project can be found here.
For more information on the CIMSPA Workforce Insights Report 2023, please click here.