Sport England Announce Financial Package for Sport and Physical Activity

As the country deals with coronavirus (Covid-19), we know sport and physical activity organisations are facing a hugely difficult period of time.

Sport England are making up to £195 million of funding available to help the sport and physical activity sector through the ongoing coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis.

The package is made up of the following: 

• A £20 million Community Emergency Fund, which will be opened immediately for clubs and community organisations to bid into. Grants between £300 and £10,000 are available
• A £5 million pot for existing partners to bid into if they're facing specific financial difficulty
• An additional £55 million to support our sector during an ongoing period of restrictions, to fund new and innovative ways to keep people active and, when the period of restrictions is over, to help organisations get back to business and adjust to a different environment 
• A £115 million rollover of current funding into 2021/22 to give long term certainty to over 100 well established partners who play a vital role in the delivery of sport and physical activity in England. 

Alongside this, given cashflow concerns in the sector, we’ve also agreed to consider requests to release six months of the coming year’s funding (50% of awards) to our partners, meaning additional funding will be available sooner. 

The package follows our recent decision to offer major flexibilities to those who currently receive funding – including the ability to change timings, key performance indicators, targets and conditions, and redirect money to new activity in response to coronavirus.

Please note the in terms of the Community Emergency fund it is only costs incurred that they will fund, they will not fund a loss of income.  

For example if a club had organised a gala that was then cancelled because of coronavirus and were expecting to make £5,000 in entry fees and had hired and paid £1,000 for the facility up-front. The club could claim for the £1,000 costs of hiring the facility but could not claim the £5,000 for loss of entry fee income. 

NB – the club would need to meet all other eligibility criteria within the Sport England guidance.

To read and find out more click here to visit Sport England's website.