Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions her Department has had with sporting bodies about improving safeguarding across all levels of sport.

The safety and wellbeing of everyone taking part in sport is absolutely paramount. Sport England and UK Sport (DCMS’ Arm’s Length Bodies for sport) require National Governing Bodies (NGBs) to implement safeguarding policies and practices as a condition of public funding at grassroots and elite level, respectively. DCMS officials regularly meet with both organisations to discuss issues and ongoing work in this area.

The sport sector is rightly prioritising this issue. UK Sport has been working in partnership with the Home Nations sports councils and NGBs to assess and identify improvements to safeguarding systems across the sport sector. This project produced a report in June this year entitled Safe Sport, which includes a set of recommendations for sector-wide reforms. The five Sports Councils have committed to taking this work forward and are now scoping out possibilities and timelines for implementation of the report’s recommendations.