Britain has a great sporting tradition, and with winning the bid to host the 2012 Olympics, sports have become more and more important. Gordon Brown’s government seems set to welcome the future with more investment in improving sporting facilities for schoolchildren and talented athletes.
Government agencies for promotion and funding for sports
There are three main national agencies for sports in Britain. These are Sport England which focuses on promoting sports in the community; the Youth Sport Trust, whose work is towards school sports; and the UK Sport, which organizes world-class elite events. Although only UK Sport is a directly accountable government agency, Sport England has formed a strategic alliance with the government. As far as government funding to Sport England goes, ‘Since 1994 we have invested more than £550m exchequer or government funding and £2.2 billion National Lottery funding into the sport and physical activity (what sport England). Sport England consists of nine regional bodies which are responsible for the distribution of funds throughout the country. ‘National investment is currently channeled through national partners, such as Women’s Sports Foundation or the English Cricket Board; and some major projects, for example, the Redgrave Pinsent Rowing Lake in Caversham, Wembley Stadium or the 2012 Aquatics Centre’. (What sport England) Sport England wishes to increase participation in sports through community sports activities, sporting completions providing and training coaches and officiators, and closely working with the Youth Sport Trust and UK Sports formed in 1996 to improve participation and develop talent to the highest levels. ‘The Youth Sport Trust starts the race. It then passes the baton to Sport England, who in turn for a very small number of highly talented individuals hands it on to UK Sport’ The Sport England teams have divided the community into categories as the sporty type, the semi-sporty type, and the non-sporty type with plans to increase activity and provide an opportunity to people in every category. The organization plans to carry out surveys recording how many more people have become active and involved in sports. (what we do) Sport England developed a framework that forms a vision for 2020. The idea for this framework comes from the 2002 Government plan ‘Game Plan, a strategy for delivering Government’s sport and physical activity objectives”. Game Plan set the agenda – an agenda to increase and widen the base of participation in sport, an agenda for success on the international sporting stage, and an agenda for reform in order to create effective delivery structures’ (The framework). The focus of the framework as of the ‘game plan ‘ is to make England more active, to make the English teams more successful, and to work for the 2012 Olympic bid. The UK Sport Trust was developed by the Royal Charter and is accountable to the Department of Culture, Media, and Sport. The mission of this body is to work with home country sports councils and other bodies to make achieve world-class success in sports in the UK. UK Sport Trust is also running a major anti-doping campaign throughout the country.
Conclusion
Gordon Brown has announced ‘A £100m campaign to give every child the chance of five hours of sport every week’ and also a national sports week 9(five hours of sports July 2007). The focus of these two bodies in which the government remains closely involved is now to promote sporting activities to combat problems like obesity and to hone new talent to lead British sports teams to a bright new future.
References
- Five hours of sport a week for every child as annual National School Sports Week is announced.
- Sport England (n.d.)
- THE FRAMEWORK FOR SPORT IN ENGLAND MAKING ENGLAND AN ACTIVE AND SUCCESSFUL SPORTING NATION: A VISION FOR 2020 (n.d)
- What Sport England actually does (n.d.).
- What we do and how we do it (n.d.)
- UK Sport (n.d)