How we are structured

Sport England employee on the phone

Our Main Board is responsible for setting direction, providing an extra level of governance and giving our Executive Team support and advice.

Our Executive Team is responsible for the day-to-day running of the business.

We work out of 11 offices across the country - one central office in London, nine local offices and a shared service centre in Loughborough which responds to all our funding applications and queries.

The organisation is divided into eight directorates - each focused on a key group or partners or area of work. They are:

Commercial

The commercial team's role is to find and work with commercial partners to generate £50 million for community sport. The team works collaboratively and innovatively to ensure partners derive real benefit from their investment.

Our Partnership Charter explains how we work and the attributes we are looking for in potential partners in our Partnership Charter.

Download our Partnership Charter (pdf 26KB)

Communications and Public Affairs

Our communications and public affairs directorate is responsible for helping our partners and the public understand what we do and how they can work with us - whether they want funding, advice or information.

Download our logo and logo guidelines

See our latest press releases.
 

Facilities and planning

It is the role of the facilities and planning directorate to help create, support and maintain the buildings, facilities and spaces we need to play sport.

They provide expert advice on facility design, work with the planning system to generate more investment in sport and are statutory consultees if a potential new development threatens community playing fields. They maintain the Active Places database - a comprehensive map of sports facilities throughout England that helps local authorities plan their facility investment more strategically.

They also work with the governing bodies we fund and major asset owners to provide an overall view of facilities across the country. We work to ensure they meet the needs of the users, and provide a sustainable investment for the owners and operators.

The team also manages our national sport centres, including Bisham Abbey and Lilleshall. These centres provide national and international standard training and competition in a range of priority sports.

Finally, the team is working closely with Locog and the Olympic Development Agency to manage our investment in the Aquatic Centre, the VeloPark and the canoing centre in Broxbourne to ensure these facilities are suitable for community use after the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The team's executive director is Charles Johnston.

Read more about our investment in London 2012 venues

Find out more about our national sport centres

Download our design guidance notes

Find out more about our facilities and planning services.

Finance and Corporate Services

Our finance and corporate services directorate is responsible for all our back-office functions including finance, ICT and legal services. They ensure the organisation has the systems, processes and technology it needs to operate smoothly.

Our chief operating officer is Rona Chester

NGB and Sport

Our NGB and Sport directorate's job is to help sport's national governing bodies achieve their participation, satisfaction and talent development targets.

Relationship managers work closely with the governing bodies to ensure our £480 million investment in them delivers a good return. While our experts in areas such as  equality and diversity, coaching, and volunteering help them tackle specific issues.

The directorate funds national partners, such as Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation, Sports coach UK and Streetgames to deliver specific services that underpin the the work of the governing bodies.

It helps to run Playground to Podium, a programme that identifies and supports potential Paralympians.

Finally, it oversees two of our funding programmes - the Innovation Fund and Themed Rounds. And it is responsible for working with the other sports councils to recognise sports and national governing bodies that are then eligible for Lottery funding.

The directorate is run by our two executive directors of sport Lisa O'Keefe and Phil Smith.

Find out more about how and why we fund NGBs

See which sports and governing bodies we recognise.

Research and Strategy

Our research directorate provides the evidence community sport needs to make the case for sport, monitor our progress against our target and learn about what works and why.  Our Active People Survey measure participation amongst adults, whilst the satisfaction survey analyses how happy people who play sport are with their sporting experience.

We don't just generate statistics, however, we use this data to help us understand what motivate people to play sport - and what puts them off.

The executive director for research and strategy is Rona Chester 
View the latest Active People Survey results

See how satisfied people are with the sports they play

Find out more about what motivates people to play sport

Get an overview of all the research tools we have available.

Youth and Communities

Our Youth and Communities directorate helps get more children and adults doing sport, and more sport, in local places, through local partners and local programmes.

We provide impartial and expert advice to local authorities and other community groups, and work closely with the county sports partnerships to connect national and local priorities.

The directorate leads the Sportivate and Active Universities programmes, provides National Lottery funding to the School Games, works with national governing bodies to increase the number of teenage participants and volunteers within sport, and carries out broader work to transition young people into community sport.

The team's Executive Director is Mike Diaper.

Find out more about work with youth

Find out more about higher and further education

Find out more about county sports partnerships

Find out more about our work with local government

Find out the address of our local offices

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