Funders

Sport England is the Government agency responsible for advising, investing in and promoting community sport to create an active nation.  Their ambition is to get two million people more active in sport by 2012 – and to make sure that participation is sustained.

Sport England exists to sustain and increase participation in community sport, this includes informal activities like aerobics and pilates; newer activities, such as skateboarding; and more traditional team sports like football and netball

We seek to do this by promoting, investing in and advising on the development and maintenance of high quality sporting pathways which release potential through:

• Community sports activities
• Sports clubs
• Coaches and officials
• Player pathways
• Volunteering

Sport England also works with a range of partners to help ensure the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games deliver a lasting sporting legacy across England, including:

The Government

London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games

Youth Sport Trust

UK Sport

Greater London Authority

Sport England brings together national governing bodies of sport (NGBs), regional sports boards (RSBs), county sports partnerships (CSPs), community sports networks (CSNs) and the coaches, clubs and volunteers who are making sport happen, every day, across the whole of England.

The Delivery System connects those involved with sport at national, regional, sub-regional and local levels to help ensure appropriate targeting of investment, time, energy and other resources into initiatives that will really make a difference to levels of participation.

Our customers are the people who play sport – or those who might play given the right encouragement, environment or opportunities.

The Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF) is a special non ring-fenced grant which has been made available to England's most deprived local authorities.  Enabling them in collaboration with their Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) to improve services and narrow the gap between deprived areas and the rest of the country.

Forming partnerships allows the NRF to tackle five key themes:

1. poor job prospects
2. high levels of crime
3. educational under-achievement
4. poor health
5. problems with housing and the physical environment.

Youth Engagement
Young people often feel excluded from neighbourhood decision making, seeing other groups as making the decisions and holding the power. This exclusion is often more pronounced among young people in disadvantaged neighbourhoods as they generally experience worse services than more affluent localities.

Young people have a right, as equal members of a community, to express views and interests not only on specific young people's issues but also on concerns that go beyond this. This will build respect between young people and others in the community.