Sport England is a non-departmental public body under the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Its role is to build the foundations of a community sport system by working with national governing bodies of sport, and other funded partners, to grow the number of people doing sport; sustain participation levels; and help more talented people from all diverse backgrounds excel by identifying them early, nurturing them, and helping them move up to the elite level. Nick Bitel is the Chairman of Sport England and Debbie Jevans is Vice Chair.
Overview
Sport England was established as the English Sports Council in September 1996 as an executive non-departmental public body by Royal Charter. It began operating in 1997 as Sport England. It has two statutory, functions: a lottery distributor for sport; and the protection of playing fields, through its role as a statutory consultee on planning applications that affect playing fields, under SI No. 1817. The funding it distributes comes from both the Treasury and the National Lottery. Since 1997, it has invested over £2bn of Lottery funds and £300 million from the Exchequer into sports in England. Sport England is organised into nine regions. Following restructuring in 2009, its former Regional Sports Boards have been disbanded and regional staffing considerably reduced. Closer working with the sports national governing bodies is key to its new strategy to achieve its target of one million people doing more sport by 2012-13. Sport England is headquartered in Victoria House, Bloomsbury Square in London. It is encourages sports venues to enhance their development potential by registering under Sport England's SASP programme as either a National or Regional centre for their particular sport. Its 'Active Places' website is designed to help the public find sports facilities anywhere in England. Searching can be through an interactive map, within a given locality or to discover more information about a known facility location. In 2007 Sport England produced Active Design, which provided a set of design guidelines to help promote opportunities for sport and physical activity in the design and layout of new development. The guide was revised, retaining ‘The 3 A’s’ and refining the criteria based approach to the Ten Principles of Active Design. The revised was published in 2015, and was supported by Public Health England.
Leadership
Derek Mapp resigned as Chair of Sport England on 29 November 2007 after 13 months in the post, claiming he had been forced to leave his position by James Purnell, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, in a dispute over funding. Mapp was succeeded by Michael Farrar as interim Chair from December 2007 to March 2009. Purnell appointed Richard Lewis to review Sport England's funding priorities, and he was appointed Chair on 1 April 2009. On 22 April 2013, Nick Bitel was appointed as new Chairman, succeeding Richard Lewis.
Clubmark
Clubmark is an accreditation which Sport England makes available to community sports clubs which fulfil certain criteria. Its declared aims are: "Higher standards of welfare, equity, coaching and management in community sports club" and "Making sure the nation's sports club infrastructure is safer, stronger and more successful". over 12,000 clubs had the Clubmark accreditation.
Logo and Branding
The sport England logo is based on the 'sport for all' logo which was used from the 1970s onwards.
