The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mrs Helen Grant)
Our ambition is to be the first host nation to increase the number of people playing sport off the back of the Olympic and Paralympic games. The long-term trends show we are on track and according to the “Active People Survey” data published in December 2013, some 15.5 million people are playing sport at least once a week. That is 1.5 million more than when we won the bid to host the London 2012 games. We are committed to building on that.
This shows a strong recovery on the last six months and a sustained growth a year after the games. As we said in June, bad winter weather during 2012-13 meant that people lost the opportunity to play sport but not the motivation. We have also seen record numbers of disabled people playing sport—1.67 million people aged 16 years and over with a long-term limiting illness or disability—and more people from black and minority ethnic (BME) communities participating than ever before—2.7 million). The number of women playing sport has also increased by 55,000 over the last six months.
Elite Sport
Elite Funding
In February, UK Sport will publish the results of the annual investment reviews of summer Olympic and Paralympic sports. UK Sport continues to track their progress towards Rio 2016.
The Sochi 2014 winter Olympic and Paralympic games take place in February and March. UK Sport has invested £14.1 million into eight winter sports and is targeting at least three medals at the Olympics and at least two at the Paralympics.
As part of the continued Government funding for elite sport to 2016, all funded athletes have been asked to give up to five days a year to inspire children and young people to get involved in sport. UK Sport’s most recent survey of this activity, completed in October 2013, revealed that athletes had given more than 6,000 days to community and school sport since London 2012.
World-class Facilities
Good progress continues to be made on the transformation of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic park. All eight of the retained park venues, including the five sporting venues, now have operators in place, to manage each of the facilities as the park reopens to the public between now and spring 2014.
The Copper Box arena has welcomed over 100,000 visitors and played host to the Badminton Grand Prix, the International Handball Cup, boxing and Great Britain’s men’s basketball and is home to the London Lions British basketball league team who are hosting 21 games for the 2013-14 season.
Major Sports Events
UK Sport’s gold event series, the legacy programme for major events hosting within the UK, has secured 39 major events for the UK and is on track to secure 70 major international sporting events for the UK between 2013 and 2019.
This year will see another 10 major events staged in the UK as part of the series, with three London 2012 legacy venues hosting major international sports for the first time since the London 2012 games. July will also see the UK hosting three stages of the Tour de France for the first time.
Community
Places People Play
Sport England’s investment in grassroots sports facilities now stands at £71 million, with some 1,366 clubs already having benefited from the “Inspired Facilities” programme. The next round of applications for funding has been received, and awards for successful bids will be announced in the spring.
Since the last update over 40,000—14 to 25-year-olds have completed the six-eight week Sportivate coaching course, bringing the total number trying new sports to 297,232. Some 80% of these have continued to play regularly since completion of the course. The community outreach sports programmes developed by the London Legacy Development Corporation with over 20 delivery partners and stakeholders including Take 12, Barry McGuigan Boxing Academy, Active People Active Park (APAP) have already helped over 20,000 local people to get more active. The full APAP programme will be launched in spring 2014.
Youth Sport Strategy
There are now over 1,500 satellite clubs in secondary schools. One hundred and fifty of these are for girls only.
Sport England’s £15 million university sport activation fund was launched in November 2013. This is a revenue fund aimed at universities, to challenge themselves continue to enhance their sport offer to appeal to more higher education (HE) students, and demonstrate the value that sport plays within wider university objectives. We hope that by doing this we will start to create a sporting habit for life among more HE students.
Volunteering
The volunteering legacy remains a key priority for the Government. Join In had a target of supporting 10,000 events across the UK and, in December 2013, published their evaluation of the summer campaign which showed they supported over 11,000 events, helping clubs and community organisations to recruit over 100,000 new volunteers.
More information on the Join In evaluation and the plans for 2014 can be found on the Join In website. This includes their local leaders network of volunteers which launched in January 2014 and will continue to grow over the coming year.
School Games
Some 16,491, or nearly 70% of all schools, are fully engaged in the programme. This is an increase of 7%. Some 2,343 schools have gained a school games kitemark with 260 of these achieving the highest “gold” award—an increase from 69 schools the previous year. Over 100 county festivals of sport took place during the summer and winter of 2013, involving more than 100,000 young participants.
The hugely successful School Games National Finals took place in Sheffield in September, with Manchester recently being announced as this year’s host city. Once again a delegation of young athletes from Brazil took part in three sports winning 15 medals. In return, the UK sent some of our best young disabled athletes to compete at Brazil’s school Paralympic-style games in November, finishing 10th overall in the medal table with an impressive haul of 21 gold medals, three silver and one bronze.
PE/School Sport
Some £150 million per year of ring-fenced funding will now go directly to primary school head teachers to spend solely on PE and sporting provision. An extra year’s funding was announced in the Chancellor’s autumn statement bringing the total to £450 million over the next three years.
In addition, £18 million of lottery money will be used to help around 600 schools improve their outdoor sporting facilities.
Disability Sport Legacy
A record number of disabled people now play sport each week. This has increased by 62,000 over the last year, bringing the total number to its highest recorded figure of 1.67 million.
Awards for the next round of the inclusive sport fund and the new “Get Equipped” fund will be announced in the spring.
The London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) has continued to deliver its Paralympic legacy programme, and has now agreed a business case to invest £1.7 million over the coming three years, to be matched by a £3 million funding from external partners. Led by LLDC in partnership with Sport England, “Motivate East” is an inclusive sports participation project for disabled people living in the host boroughs, inspired by the Paralympic games. Launched in early 2013, it is on track to deliver 26,000 opportunities to participate in inclusive sports and physical activity by 2015-16, meeting initial targets relating to throughput, supported by the appointment of Para-legacy agents to promote the programme.
The date for National Paralympic day 2014 has been agreed (to be held on the 30th August), which will also feature the Mayor of London’s Liberty Festival as well as elite sport in two or three venues on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic park.
International Development
The international inspiration programme is (or has been) active in 20 countries. The vision was to reach 12 million young people. At present more than 15.6 million have been reached with more than 230,000 trainers, coaches and teachers receiving funding.
I will continue to provide quarterly updates to the House on progress with delivery of this plan.