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:

Business Partnerships

The Business Partnerships directorate's role is to help existing and potential partners and the public understand what we do and how they can work with us - whether they want funding, advice or information.

It also incorporates thee commercial team who are responsible for finding and working with commercial partners to generate private sector investment into community sport. The team works collaboratively and innovatively to ensure partners derive real benefit from their investment.

The team's Executive Director is Tanya Joseph

Community Sport

Our Community Sport 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.

 

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 have worked 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 as part of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games legacy.

The team's executive director is Charles Johnston.

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.

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 

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