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Participation targets for 2020 to be published in April
Sport and physical activity participation targets for the next three years will be published by Sport England in April, according to Sporting Future’s first annual report.
The grassroots sport quango is currently in the process of proposing targets for 2020, which the government will agree to in March before publication a month later.
Targets, said the report, would be based on “evidence about how and why people engage in sport”, and will take into account “potential increases in engagement” following the publication of Sporting Future in December 2015.
Over the next four years, Sport England has committed £250m (US$313.9m, €294.1m) to address inactivity, with a focus on reaching demographics that are traditionally less active, such as the elderly, disabled people, and those from lower socioeconomic groups.
Sport England’s first Active Lives Survey was unveiled last month, and revealed that a quarter of the adult population in England is completely sedentary.
National governing bodies will also be expected to maintain and increase the number of people playing their sport after being told by Sport England to concentrate largely on their core market.
When Sporting Future was originally published, it was lauded by sections of the sport sector for encouraging greater collaboration between government departments.
The annual report has added some meat to the bones by revealing that an Inter-Ministerial Group will be established shortly, with members from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the Department of Health (DoH) and the Department for Education (DfE), and other departments.
“It [sport and physical activity] is an important part of how the Home Office looks at tackling gang violence… it is also an important part of how the Ministry of Justice addresses reoffending, how the Department for Communities and Local Government thinks about planning and social integration and links to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs works on the 25-year plan for the environment,” said the report.
Elsewhere, the document revealed that Sport England will be launching a £40m (US$50.2m, €47m) fund for projects which offer “opportunities for families with children to get active and play sport together”, with funding launching in March 2017.
The terms of reference for the Sports Business Council – which will assist the sport and physical activity sector improve its access to finance and developing skills – will also be “announced shortly”.
Presenting the annual report, sports minister Tracey Crouch said that over the next year sports bodies “must reshape and refocus”, while local authorities should “put sport and physical activity at the heart of what they do” despite large cuts to councils imposed by central government.