Active Sussex Strategic Plan
2013-17
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Introduction – Who we are
Active Sussex is our corporate name for The Sussex County Sports Partnership
Trust: a not-for-profit incorporated charity established in 2007, consisting of a
network of local agencies committed to working together to increase participation
in sport and physical activity.
Active Sussex is one of 49 County Sports Partnerships in England. Together they
form the National County Sports Partnership Network (CSPN) that is responsible
for the coordinated delivery of a variety of nationally funded sport and physical
activity programmes in each respective local area.
Our partners include National Governing Bodies of Sport (NGBs) and their local
clubs, Education providers (secondary, further and higher levels), Local Authorities
(LAs), Leisure Trusts, Health (Physical Activity) Departments, local business and
many other sport and non-sporting organisations across Sussex.
We have developed this strategic framework to provide a common vision in Sussex,
where people enjoy taking part in sport and physical activity and continue to do
so at whatever level they choose. This strategy identifies Active Sussex’s business
priorities and describes our plans and support services for the post-Olympic period
to March 2017.
The Strategic Context
The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games was undoubtedly an excellent
sporting showcase. It demonstrated elite sporting success and harnessed thousands
of community volunteers. The political aspiration was for more people to get
involved in sport and/or become more physically active in the lead up to, and
beyond, the Games.
Active Sussex takes account of this aspiration, but we also have due cognisance
of the succession of Government policies and local community strategies that are
the key drivers in the delivery of sport, health and physical activity outcomes in
Sussex. This is reflected in the resources we secure; and in the types of activities
we undertake. Our priorities, work and performance measures demonstrate our
local contribution to increasing participation levels nationally. For example, Active
Sussex has a key role in supporting the Governments new youth strategy, ‘Creating
a sporting habit for life’ which aims to increase and widen participation in sport and
physical activity, particularly amongst those aged 11-25 years.
Similarly, the Dept. of Health’s 2009 strategy ‘Be Active, Be Healthy’ establishes
a new framework for the delivery of physical activity alongside sport for the
period leading up to the London 2012 Olympic Games, Paralympic Games and
beyond. It sets out new ideas for Local Authorities and Primary Care deliverers to
help determine and respond to the needs of their local populations, providing and
encouraging more physical activity, which will benefit individuals and communities,
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as well as delivering overall cost savings. To achieve these ambitions for a healthier, fitter nation, Government recognises
the need for a world-class delivery infrastructure for physical activity; much is
already in place, and there is current political will to resource those elements of
the existing delivery network, that can contribute to the wider delivery of physical
activity and remain fully aligned with the delivery of sport.
So, through its core work and targeted investment programmes, Active Sussex
aims to (i) contribute positively these strategic aspirations and, (ii) develop new
and innovative partnership activities that will offer what people want, when/where
they want, and at a cost that means they can continue to enjoy participating and
being physically active.
Our community strategies across Sussex are consistent with national policy
directions, where participation in, sport and physical activity are identified as key
priorities in each of the above strategies. In addition to the fun and health benefits of
taking part, sport and physical activity programmes can be significant contributors
to improved community education, skills development in the voluntary and paid
workforce, economic growth and community safety. Therefore they are worth the
investment for the gross value added to the local community.
Active Sussex – What we do
Simply put, the aim of Active Sussex is to help increase participation in sport and
physical activity in Sussex, as measured by the Active People Survey (Fig 1). This
is the outcome or the end goal.
Increased participation in sport and physical
activity
More
Activities
Quality
coaches
More
clubs
More
volunteers
National Sports Governing Body (NGB) Core
Services
CSP Effective Communication (internal/external) Leadership,
Investment & Operations
Figure 1 – What we do 2013-17
In December 2012, Sport England’s Active People Survey for Sussex showed show
that approximately:
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36% of Sussex’s population aged 16+ are physically active once a week
18% are receiving sports tuition (coaching)
15% take part in competitive sport
8% volunteer their time to sport
This, and further detailed data, is available from the Sport England website.
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Underpinned by good governance, communications and business operations, our
work and that of our partners, aims to increase the sport and physical activity
participation levels in these four key areas.
Active Sussex – our strategic business values
As informed by our network partners in October 2012, Active Sussex’s seven
business values are clearly shown in the diagram below. Working strategically our
efforts will be focused on protecting and securing local and national investment in
order to help our partners promote, coordinate and deliver more enjoyable sport
and physical activity projects across Sussex. We want to increase the uptake of
these opportunities in our communities.
Influencing key
leaders and shaping
policy through high
level advocacy, PR and
positive promotion
Influence
More partners and
businesses involved
in continued proactive
review, planning and
delivery of community
sport and physical
activity
Involve
Better communication in
all directions. Sharing of
high quality information
to/from the sport and
physical activity sector
via contemporary and
traditional means
Inform
Increase
Innovate
Invest
Inspire
Innovate. New thinking and
solutions about how community
sport can be delivered, promoted
and funded. Facilitating new
partnerships
Attracting investment
from government, private
sector and charitable
foundations to ensure
a thriving community
sports infrastructure and
workforce in Sussex
Using inspirational sporting
leaders, outstanding coaches,
teachers and volunteers; events
such as Sussex Sports Awards,
Olympic legacy programmes and
conferences, to reward, raise
the profile and quality of sport
in Sussex
Business Aim: to increase participation
Getting more people physically active, more often, through sport
Facilitating Sussex’s contribution to meeting Government targets for
sports participation
Demonstrating Active Sussex’s gross value added to the community
through sport
Figure 2 – Our Business Values 2013-17
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Active Sussex - How we do it
How we do it - (NGB Core Services)
1. We provide club funding advice and guidance relating to Sport England
Lottery Fund investment; and we coordinate generic (or cross-sport) club and
volunteer development and training courses to meet local NGB priorities. At least
12 workshops are delivered annually.
2. We introduce NGBs to the relevant strategic networks and facilitate their
discussions with relevant partners who can help them land their sports offer locally,
in order to drive up participation in Sussex. At least three strategic network events
are held annually, in addition to individual partner meetings.
3. We provide cross-sport coaching development services (coach education,
mentoring and training) to meet local NGB need. At least 12 development
opportunities are coordinated annually.
4. We provide policy guidance in relation to Safeguarding and Equality standards
in sport, and as a charitable not-for-profit organisation committed to continuous
service improvement, we provide NGB’s (and our wider stakeholders) with the
assurance that Active Sussex is a financially compliant, accountable and soundlygoverned county sports partnership.
How we do it - More Activities
Community Games in Sussex
The Community Games (CG) programme is a joint venture between the national
County Sports Partnership Network (CSPN) and YMCA England. Born out of
the successful West Midlands Community Games Initiative, it has expanded to
become a nationwide programme funded through the Cabinet Office Social Action
Fund (from April 2013 to September 2013).
The Community Games are a way for local people to bring their communities
together to take part in sporting and cultural activities inspired by – and as a
legacy of London 2012. Some CG events involve competition; others focus simply
on getting people participating in sports or cultural activities they might never
have tried before. Active Sussex secured funding from CSPN and YMCA England
to roll out the Community Games in Sussex, and is able to offer small grants of up
to £500 to community groups towards the cost of their event. We aim to fund up
to 40 community projects, create at least 500 volunteer opportunities and engage
up to 19,000 participants over the period of the project.
National Legacy Programmes
Sport England’s’ ‘Places People Play’ programme is a £150m national initiative
launched in November 2011, that set out to harness the inspiration and magic
of a home Olympic Games and Paralympic Games into the heart of local
communities. Active Sussex has secured funding from this national pot, and
since then has involved and worked together with local government and other
community providers to deliver and embed the following 2012 Olympic legacy
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programmes:
School Games A government-driven school sports programme, that aims to offer competitive
sporting opportunities to every school nationally. There are 3 levels (i) intraschool, (ii) inter-school: and (iii) inter-area or county level. In Sussex, the
organisation of the county event is done by a Local Organising Committee which
is supported by Active Sussex officers, both at strategic and operational levels.
In 2013-14, in conjunction with education, leisure and business partners, we aim
to deliver these games successfully and involve up to 1,000 children and young
people as participants, and to recruit at least 40 volunteers (Event Makers) to
support the winter and summer events.
Sportivate
Active Sussex has secured national investment that will enable new/existing
partners in local government, health, businesses, education, facility operators
and other voluntary sector organisations, to offer innovative and inclusive sport
and physical activity opportunities to children and young people aged 11-25
years. During 2013-14 Active Sussex seeks to fund projects that will retain just
over 2,100 participants in these activities.
Business Investment
Sussex Sports Awards
On behalf of its member organisations, Active Sussex continues to recognise
the outstanding personal dedication and commitment shown by many people
in order to make sport happen in Sussex. The annual Sussex Sports Awards
is recognised as the most high profile sports celebration events covering East
Sussex, West Sussex and the City of Brighton & Hove. Active Sussex works with
commercial sponsors primarily to deliver a high quality event, showcasing and
rewarding the best of Sussex sport (coaches, volunteers, clubs, and businesses).
The Sussex Sports Awards also serves to advocate the positive benefits of being
involved in community sport as a private, public and voluntary sector consumer.
We aim to engage with at least 12 corporate sponsors, local authority leaders,
education leaders, physical activity commissioners, local and regional media to
ensure those messages are understood and disseminated further, helping to protect
and where possible to increase their investment in community sport in Sussex.
How we do it - Quality Coaching
Active Sussex Coaching Bursaries
We offer coaches in Sussex financial support in gaining coaching qualifications
to improve the quality of their coached sessions. This helps improve participant
enjoyment and satisfaction, and encourages them to continue participating for
longer. We aim to qualify at least 150 coaches over the four year period of the
bursary scheme.
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This supports the cross-sport coaching development services (coach education,
mentoring and training) that are provided as part of our NGB Core Services.
How we do it - More Volunteers
Sport Makers: Making Sport Happen in Sussex
This is an inspirational learning programme for sports volunteers in Sussex. Based
on Olympic and Paralympic values, it aims to help volunteers recognise and build
upon the leadership skills and qualities they already have, and seeks to deploy them
to help build capacity in community sports clubs – whether as event organisers,
club administrators or session leaders/support – they help make sport happen.
Through a series of Sport Maker workshops organised by Active Sussex (and
often supported by inspirational Olympic/Paralympic athletes), by the end of the
programme in September 2013, we aim to have trained up to 1,220 people as
registered Sport Makers in Sussex and that they will each have contributed at least
10 hours of sports volunteering.
Club and volunteer development and training are delivered as part of our NGB Core
Service to meet local NGB priorities. At least 12 workshops are delivered annually.
Active Sussex – What’s new for 2013-17?
Active Sussex Workplace Health Programme This programme originally began in 2008 with 3-year funding from the Sport
England Community Investment Fund & Big Lottery Fund Chances 4 Change
programme. The scheme promotes fitness and wellbeing at work, and aims
to get more employees physically active in and around their place of work. It
provides employers with all the advice and support they need to promote healthy
options to their staff, as well as coordinating regular sporting events and training
opportunities.
Active Sussex aims to get at least 800 people physically active through this
project during 2013-14, and with the launch of the new and innovative web-based
‘Workplace Health Challenge’ tool in January 2013, we aim to offer a low cost
sustainable product in future years.
How we do it - More Clubs
Satellite Sports Club Programme
January 2012 saw the launch of the new national youth sport strategy ‘Creating
a Sporting Habit for Life’ by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. This
strategy identified County Sports Partnerships as a key agency in delivering
on some of its outcomes, particularly those around raising sports participation
amongst children and young people aged 11-25 years through school competition
and also in school/club settings via the development of Satellite Clubs on school
sites.
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In July 2012, ahead of any other CSP, Active Sussex was pro-active in appointing
an experienced manager to drive this policy work forward in Sussex: to provide
strategic support to the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for the Sussex School
Games and to liaise with high level education leaders and local government to
broker increased community access to school sports facilities. Having secured
external funding for this post for a three year period from April 2013, we initially
aim to facilitate the establishment of 15 satellite clubs by March 2014.
Primary School Links
‘Primary school sport is set to be transformed thanks to a £150m-a-year boost
that will improve PE and school sport for the youngest pupils and inspire the
Olympic and Paralympic stars of the future’, the Government announced back in
March 2013. This new sports funding aims to improve the quality of provision
in every state primary school in England, and in Sussex just over 450 primary
schools are set to receive £9,000 per annum for academic two years to July
2015. Sport England is investing £1.5 million a year (2013-2014 and 20142015) of lottery funding to build capacity in the 49 County Sport Partnerships
(CSP’s) to strengthen links between Primary Schools and Sports Governing
Bodies. This is an emerging piece of work and Primary Schools are a new
stakeholder, which Active Sussex looks forward to working with in order to
increase primary pupils sport & PE participation.
Getting the message out: Communications & PR
The Trust’s communications objectives are to support and maintain the main
aims of the organisation: increase sporting participation via more activities, more
coaches, more volunteers and more clubs.
Branding
To maintain the consistency of the Active Sussex brand, through use of the hero
logo, Active Sussex logo and associated strapline: “Your County Sports Partnership.” Sub-brands, such as Workplace Health, Sussex School Games and Sussex
Sports Awards will be regularly monitored for consistency against the established
typography and design as outlined in our Brand Guidelines (November 2012).
Incorporation of ‘hero’ motif into all sub-brands assets.
Messaging
uu To continue to affirm Active Sussex’s pledge to get more people more active,
more often
uu To maintain the Trust’s corporate association with three national bodies: Sport
England, County Sport Partnership Network, and CIMSPA through brand alignment
and cross promotion
Audience
To maintain and extend the Trust’s engagement with existing audiences as
outlined in the Communications Plan. These briefly comprise five main areas:
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Internal communications
Executive, management and professional
Volunteer and delivery
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Participants
Media and opinion formers
Key methods and developments
To ensure the Trust’s communication methods are fit for purpose including its
digital, print, video, and social media, as outlined in the Communications Plan.
In particular, the Trust recognizes the significance of the move from desktop
to mobile devices and will take steps to ensure its communication channels
are optimised for mobile digital devices; as well as invest in the development
of relevant apps and web applications to deliver location specific results for
these devices. The trust will continue to invest in video assets, to ensure a
comprehensive bank of videos to explain and promote the products and services
of the Trust and its partners.
Knowledge management
To expand and deepen the Trust’s knowledge management, including its data,
intellectual assets, digital assets and brand assets. Particular investment and focus
will be on the Active Sussex Library of Sport, strengthening its links with higher
education sports research, political engagement, opinion and blog posting, and
advocacy through relevant national and local media.
Sustainability
To work with the executive and board to implement any change of internal identity
and external messaging in response to the Trust’s move from an organisation
largely funded by government to a self-funded Charity. The period 2013-17 will see
the development of a new corporate communication strategy to reflect this move,
to be ready for implementation at the end of the current Sport England funding
cycle in 2015.
How we are measured
Sports participation levels in Sussex will be measured through the annual Active
People Survey conducted by Sport England. Active Sussex will focus on the four
outcomes below:
uu Overall Participation
Our aim is to increase the percentage of people taking part in sport and physical
activity once a week by at least 2% by March 2017. Currently the percentage is
36.3%
uu Volunteering
We aim to increase the percentage of people taking part in community sports
volunteering to at least 9% by March 2017. Currently the percentage is 7.7%
uu Coaching
The percentage of people receiving tuition (coaching) in Sussex is currently 18.3%.
This has shown a declining trend since 2005-6, therefore we aim to restore this to
previous levels of at least 19.8% by March 2017
uu Taking part in organised sport
Active Sussex will therefore continue to monitor the levels of people taking part in
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organised sport, and aim to increase this from 36% to 38% by March 2017
Since 2005-6, the Active People Survey results have shown a reducing trend in
club membership, and this is reflected in a reduced percentage of people taking
part in competitive and organised sport. There are many social reasons for this, for
example longer working hours, distance and cost of travel to competition, but the
key finding is an increased move towards taking part in more informal and nontraditional forms of sport that are more matched to current lifestyles and demand.
The data on this will vary for each locality and sport.
Active Sussex – our structure and governance
Sussex County Sports Partnership Trust (‘Active Sussex’) is a private company
limited by guarantee with registered charity status. We are the County Sports
Partnership for Sussex operating across the geographical areas of East Sussex,
West Sussex and the City of Brighton & Hove.
Active Sussex are governed by an openly recruited Board of Trustees, and supported
by a professional staff team based at the University of Brighton sports centre in
Falmer, Brighton.
The Active Sussex Network members come from the following sectors:
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Voluntary sector: NGBs, clubs/charities, leisure trusts
Public sector: local sports development units, health, education
Private sector: local businesses
The Board of Trustees comprise individuals from community sport, local business,
education and local government, and our legal status ensures we are governed in
a manner that complies with Charity and Company Law; including operating sound
risk management protocols and robust financial management procedures. We are
keen to ensure stakeholder confidence in our resource management as we work
towards our organisational aims.
Our professional staff team (currently 11 officers) is led by the Chief Executive
Officer, and offer its partners areas of expertise in sport and physical activity
policy, strategic advocacy, community sports development, funding advice, coach
and volunteer development, events, communication and promotion, financial and
administrative management, and project management.
How we are funded
Active Sussex is recognised by Sport England (the English Sports Council) as the
only strategic cross-county agency for development of sport in Sussex. As such,
the Trust is able to secure national funding from Sport England for the delivery
of sport and physical activity within its geographical area, in partnership with its
member organisations and wider sport and physical activity providers. Figures 3 &
4 provide a graphical illustration of our income and expenditure for 2012-13.
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Annual Income
£645,279 Sport England
£138,859 Other Grants
£ 33,858Sponsorship
£ 32,777 Operating income
£ 19,700 Local government
£870,472 TOTAL INCOME
Figure 3 – Annual Income
Annual Expenditure
£361,351 Staff Costs
£298,849 Club, Coach &
Volunteer development
£144,679 Legacy Projects
£ 19,680 Other support costs
£ 6,989 Governance
£831,548 TOTAL EXPENDITURE
Figure 4 – Annual Expenditure
Sport England is currently our major funder, and whilst we have an excellent
working relationship with them, one of our stated business priorities is to increase
the level and breadth of investment into sport and physical activity in Sussex,
and as such we seek to investigate other avenues of charity funding as a 2013-14
priority.
For more information about Active Sussex visit www.activesussex.org
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