Agenda item

            (Mrs. C. Moraghan, Sports Development Officer, attended in connection with these items.)

            The Committee considered the undernoted report:

“1     Relevant Background Information

1.1    Support for Sport has been assisting sports clubs and community organisations develop sport and increase participation for over a decade.

1.2    Since 2005, the Director has held delegated authority to approve support for sport hospitality, small development grant awards, and more recently Club Mark payments and Individual grants.  Members, each year, approve a limited number of large development grant awards.

1.3    At Committee on 12 September 2013 members approved the transfer of the Support for Sport Grants to the Central Grants Unit with the evaluation and approval process remaining with the department. 

1.4    The application process for the first tranche of funding for 2014/15 financial year has already closed with 152 applications submitted for assessment.  The applications will be presented to members in April 2014 for information.

1.5    Members have also requested a breakdown of the current financial year allocation.

2       Key Issues

2.1    The Support for Sport Priorities for funding are:

·        The education of coaches and volunteers

·        Increased opportunities for women and girls, disabled and older people

·        Promoting sport and physical activity as a social integration and health improvement tool

·        The need to address any imbalances in applications across the City.

2.2    It is estimated that there are over 19,000 club members benefiting from the 150 successful applications made to the small grant scheme. This is a 3,000 increase from 2012/13 and from this 13,794 are male (up from 11,671) and 5,300 female members (up from 5010).   

2.3    Table below shows the breakdown of awards in 2012/13.

2.4    The data shows that in the current financial year (2013/14) there is a similar spread in small development awards in the East and West of the city with a slightly higher proportion going to North Belfast.  However clubs applying from the South area has reduced from previous years.  This could somewhat be explained in that a significant number of the clubs applying from the south also view themselves as being citywide due to the spread of their members and facilities they use for training.

2.5    The data also highlights a significant level of support for Association Football, totalling 51 applications although this does reflect the high number of football clubs across the city in comparison to other sporting disciplines.

2.6    Support for Sport moving forward

         Targeted workshops were conducted during November and December 2013 to inform and prepare clubs for the new application process through the CGU. It is anticipated that the second tranche will reopen in May 2014 for funding commencing from September.

3       Resource Implications

3.1   Financial

         Members should note that the annual budget has remained the same for the Support for Sport Scheme for the last 10 years.

4       Equality and Good Relations Considerations

4.1    Following the review of Support for Sport, the revised scheme has undergone equality screening in accordance with Council requirements.  This process has ‘screened out’ the revised scheme, identifying only minor, positive equality impacts, and determining that there is no requirement to proceed to Equality Impact Assessment.

5       Recommendation

5.1    The Committee is requested to agree that a further report is brought in 12 months to give an analysis of the full financial year and to assess the impact of the centralised programme.”

            After discussion, during which the Director clarified a number of issues in respect of the Scheme, the Committee noted the information which had been provided.