Asked by: Michael Wheeler (Labour - Worsley and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to encourage local authorities to develop strategies to bring (a) schools, (b) grassroots sports clubs and (c) other relevant organisations together to promote participation in sport.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government recognises that sports facilities are important to communities up and down the country. High-quality, inclusive facilities help people get active.
Sport England, our arm’s length body that is responsible for physical activity and sport participation in England, invests over £250 million a year into grassroots sport and physical activity. A large part of Sport England’s work focuses on bringing organisations together at a local level including the health and sports sectors. This includes their place partnerships work which is working in a targeted way with local areas to understand and overcome the specific barriers in their communities.
The Government-funded School Games Organisers are essential in ensuring that all children have the opportunity to take part in local and accessible sport and physical activity. There are over 450 SGOs across the country who support schools in their local areas to provide physical activity both inside and outside of school, with many facilitating links to wider club and community engagement.
We are considering how we can best make all of this work for local communities as part of the Spending Review.
Asked by: Michael Wheeler (Labour - Worsley and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to encourage grassroots sports clubs to share their facilities with local communities.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government recognises that sports facilities are important to communities up and down the country. High-quality, inclusive facilities help people get active.
Sport England, our arm’s length body that is responsible for physical activity and sport participation in England, invests over £250 million a year into grassroots sport and physical activity. A large part of Sport England’s work focuses on bringing organisations together at a local level including the health and sports sectors. This includes their place partnerships work which is working in a targeted way with local areas to understand and overcome the specific barriers in their communities.
The Government-funded School Games Organisers are essential in ensuring that all children have the opportunity to take part in local and accessible sport and physical activity. There are over 450 SGOs across the country who support schools in their local areas to provide physical activity both inside and outside of school, with many facilitating links to wider club and community engagement.
We are considering how we can best make all of this work for local communities as part of the Spending Review.
Asked by: Michael Wheeler (Labour - Worsley and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department has made of the potential contribution of grassroots sports clubs in preventative healthcare.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Sport and physical activity including grassroots sports clubs play a vital role in preventing, and helping to treat and manage, a wide range of health conditions and in delivering the Government’s Health Mission.
Latest evidence provided by Sport England shows that physical activity directly prevents 3.2 million cases of long term health conditions per year, including 1.3 million cases of depression and 600,000 cases of diabetes, worth over £10 billion in healthcare savings each year.