Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to Government grants statistics 2020 to 2021, published on 31 March 2022, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of the ALB-Sport England-Children and Young People Fund.

The department agrees objectives and KPIs for Sport England’s grant funding and their board allocates funding in accordance with those objectives. The department and its public bodies deliver all grant funding in line with the Government Functional Standard GovS 015: Grants.

The ‘Children and Young People Fund’ has been used to categorise several Sport England funding streams and investment categories that Sport England have delivered on. As a result, we have identified investment and funding streams within this category that best reflect the impact of said category: the School Games programme and the Opening School Facilities fund.

School Games Organisers

Since the programme started, investment into SGOs totals £134,766,000 – across the period September 2011 to 31 March 2024. Since 2017/18 13,439,699 participation opportunities have been created. 19,483 schools are registered and engaged in the School Games. This equates to 75% of all primary schools nationally and 82% of all secondary schools nationally. 38,105 teachers have engaged since the School Games website was refreshed in 2017.

The 2021 evaluation for the School Games programme can be accessed in section 3 of the webpage on Sport England’s children and young people research here.

Opening School Facilities

In March 2021, Sport England received £10.1 million on behalf of the Department of Education (DfE) which was distributed across all 43 Active Partnerships to Open School Facilities.

Phase 2 work was to be targeted at those who have experienced the greatest negative impact on physical activity levels due to Covid-19, by working with schools with high levels of pupils eligible for free school meals. 1,406 schools benefited, with 284,183 children and young beneficiaries and just over 100,000 community users (including children and young people) in the short period of delivery, with many more to benefit in the 2021-22 academic year and beyond. 78% of schools focused on pupils eligible for Free School Meals, 60% on pupils with special educational needs or inclusion, 52% targeted girls and 28% focused on children and young people from culturally diverse communities.