5 Hour Offer
5 Hour Children and Young People's Sports Offer - Update
INTRODUCTION
1 On 13th July the Prime Minister announced the investment of an additional £100m (over three years 2008-11) into the National School Sport or PESSCL [1] Strategy in order to give every child and young person (aged 5-19) the chance to do 5 hours of sport a week. This paper provides an update on what this is likely to mean for Sport England. Final plans are still being developed and agreed with the Government.
Background
2 The National School Sport or PESSCL strategy went live in April 2003 with the objective of getting 5-16 year olds to do 2 hours of high quality PE and sport within and beyond the school day. The Public Service Agreement (PSA) target was to get at least 75% of children doing this by 2006 and then 85% by 2008. The strategy is lead jointly by DCMS
[2] and DCSF
[3] and in the 5 years to March 2008 over £1.5 billion exchequer and lottery funding is being invested. Sport
3 On 13th July the Prime Minister announced the investment of an additional £100m (on tope of existing DCSF/DCMS school sport baselines) for the National School Sport Strategy, in order to increase the number of children and young people aged 5-19 participating in PE and sport The new money comes from both Departments (£60m from DCSF and £48m from DCMS). It is envisaged that the new DCMS funding will be deployed through Sport England. The additional funding will provide for:
3.1 the addition of FE sports co-ordinators linked to School Sport Partnerships (DCSF lead/funded £18m over 3 years);
3.2 the completion of the roll out of competition managers linked again to School Sport Partnerships (DCSF lead/funded £18m over 3 year);
3.3 top up grants to School Sport Partnerships to pay for coaching (DCSF lead/funded £21.5 over 3 years);
3.4 multi sport clubs for children with special needs linked to School Sport Partnerships (DCSF lead/funded £3m over 3 years);
3.5 a regional resource to lever in additional funding for positive activities from local authorities and other sources (DCMS lead/funded £12m over 3 years); options for roll out are under consideration see paragraphs 7 and 8 below; and
3.6 funding to support extended club activity designed to attract a different type of young person (DCMS lead/funded £36m over 3 years).
The Offer
4 For 5-16 year olds (children in statutory schooling) the offer will be made up of: 2 hours of high quality curriculum physical education and 3 hours of sport beyond the curriculum delivered through a range of school, community and club providers. The assumption is that as children grow older they will increasingly be directed towards club/community provision. This will get them used to doing sport outside of a school setting and hopefully slow and reverse the drop in sports participation which currently occurs at 16.
5 The additional funding for the first time formally extends the reach of the strategy to 16-19 year olds. For 16-19 year olds the offer is 3 hours of sport, rather than 5, as unless they are studying sport they would not be accessing curriculum PE.
Delivery leadership
6 The two Departments will continue to jointly lead the overall strategy and Sport England and the Youth Sport Trust will work together to implement plans with accountability delivered through the existing delivery arrangements. It is envisaged that Sport England would lead on delivery of the DCMS funded elements of the new funding package – the regional resources and the extending activity funding, with the Trust leading on the DCSF funded elements (6.1–6.4). Sport
Regional Resource
7 The plan is to investment £4m per year (£12m over 3 years) to provide a dedicated regional resource – a high level regional officer – designed to: lever local funding from local authorities and other sources; position sport (and specifically the 5 hour offer) as a key local authority activity and funding priority; connect the activity and funding from the delivery system for sport with that being invested by schools/educational establishments and local authority children and young people’s services. The aim of this is to provide more effective co-ordination and utilisation of local resources ensuring a better offer for children and young people. In some areas this would be a new post but in others it would be buying in a day or more time from an existing local officer.
8 Following the % Hour announcement Ministers requested more information and asked us, and the Youth Sport Trust, to consider a range of options including: national roll out of the regional resource – the originally plan; testing out the deployment of the regional resource at both regional (Government Office) local (County Sports Partnership) level; and seeking to prioritise funding for sports provision targeted at 5-19 year olds in both school and community settings in other ways. We await the decision from Ministers after which detailed roll out plans will be developed.
Extending Activity
9 The plan is to invest £12m per year (£36m over 3 years) into extending activity primarily focused on out of school hours and club activity (both within schools and the community). Activity will build on the existing club links and Step into Sport workstrands which Sport England is leading. The investment will help bring the together the worlds of school and community sport and will be a key factor in engaging the 50% of children and young people classed as semi-sport (so doing 2/3 hours of sport at the moment).
10 To enable new and different children and young people to access and take up the 5 hour offer (3 hours 16-19) the current club network requires strengthening and developing along the following lines:
10.1 improvement of current traditional clubs to accommodate and appeal to more/a wider range of children and young people;
10.2 investment into new types of clubs which may be more informal and with ‘different’ types of sports activity;
10.3 better signposting of opportunities and a walking time commitment to enable youngsters to access venues; and
10.4 a wider range of introductory activity sessions on, or linked to, school sites to introduce young people into alternative activity.
11 Sport
Funding would be devolved through County Sports Partnerships (CSPs)
11.1 CSPs would receive an activity allocation per School Sport Partnership. CSPs would also receive some additional funding to fund their role in this work (it is envisaged this would reflect the size and coverage of the CSP area).
CSPs co-ordinate the drawing up, with the agreement of local partners, of a simple/practical 3 year plan to increase take up of the 5 hour offer (3 hours 16-19)
11.2 The CSP would act as a broker – not line manager – to bring local partners together to determine how the activity funding should be devolved. A plan would be developed to cover each Local Education Authority/Children’s Trust area so often a CSP would oversee the development of more than one plan. This would be a short, sharp and focused discussion. The plans would be approved jointly by regional Sport England and Youth Sport Trust officers. This would then release funding quickly and simply. The Departments would also be involved in sign off.
Each CSP areawould take a share of the expected take up number
11.3 This area of funding is designed to get an estimated 1.25m 5-19 year olds to take up the sports offer. Each CSP area would take a share of this and set out within their plans how they would deliver this level of increased participation.
12 Sport
FE sports co-ordinators
13 The roll out of FE sports co-ordinators is being funded by DCSF (i.e. education). Ministers have decided that as the co-ordinators will link into the network of School Sport Partnerships the Youth Sport Trust will lead delivery and implementation. However, given our post 16 remit we will have – and indeed have already had – input to the development of the job spec and their deployment. At the September meeting the Sport England Main Board agreed that this was the right approach.
Management/monitoring
14 The delivery of the national strategy is overseen by the joint DCMS/DCSF PE, School Sport and Club Links Delivery Board. Sport
Chris Dyson Presentation 07.02.08
Sport England Presentation 07.02.08