Below is an outline of where we currently stand following Michael Gove’s announcement in October:
The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) detailed that Government funding to School Sport Partnerships (SSPs) will be cut completely and there will be no direct funding to SSPs from September 2011. DfE funding for Competition Managers and Coaches will cease from 31st March 2011, with some already having received redundancy notices.
A Government statement, following on from the CSR, confirmed that it expects schools themselves to take responsibility for continuing the work carried out by SSPs at current levels of activity, and particularly in regard to it's new Schools’ Olympic and Paralympic Competition structure. The statement also confirmed that it would like School Sport Partnerships to survive beyond September 2011 but has made it clear that schools themselves should decide at local level if SSPs are still required, and what they want them to do. At this stage it is unclear how Partnerships would be funded, if at all.
Although we have planned to continue in our current format until the end of the original funding period in August 2011, School Sport Partnerships are now in a period of transition and we are currently awaiting further instructions on the deployment of our resources from February - August 2011, which may well change. With all the recent media coverage, petitions and parliamentary debates which have taken place, we are hoping to be given a clear answer before Christmas on the Government’s plans for the rest of this academic year.
Not surprisingly, concerns have arisen about how schools would manage to maintain the progress made over the last 6 years, without the infrastructure provided by SSPs to run the myriad of activities now offered. The SSP programme has been hugely successful and was the key deliverer of the previous government's Olympic Legacy. Much of the focus has been on children losing out due to these cuts, and the wider benefits to them and their schools of taking part in sport and competitive activity, e.g. pupil's increase in confidence, responsibility, social skills, motivation, health awareness and the use of sport to deliver other areas of the curriculum.
With these recent changes following the spending review, all the opportunities currently available to your pupils may be difficult to access and we are keen to continue with the work of the SSP and to adapt ourselves for the future to best suit the schools that we serve.
I will keep you updated with any information that comes through, and fingers crossed things are made a lot clearer for us all in the New Year!’’ Heidi Maillard, Partnership Development Manager
