§ Lord Moynihanasked Her Majesty's Government:
What level of funding UK Sport will allocate to the British Olympic Association for programmes related to élite performance. [HL3620]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord McIntosh of Haringey)UK Sport provides both lottery and Exchequer funding support to the British Olympic Association (BOA) for programmes related to élite sport. It has recently agreed a lottery funding award of £800,000 (less VAT payable by BOA) to support the preparation camps that the BOA has established in Barcelona and Cyprus. This is a natural extension to the WCPP investment already made by UK Sport.
In addition, UK Sport also provides Exchequer support to the BOA towards the Olympic Sports Development fund to help pay for travel and training costs of lower priority Olympic sports. For 2004–05, a grant for £27,333 has been provided.
UK Sport also provides Exchequer funding to the BOA to manage the Athlete Medical Scheme (AMS) as a contracted out service and the OPEN (Olympic Paralympic Employment Network) programme. A budget of around £430,000 has been set aside by UK Sport for 2004–05 for these two progammes.
§ Lord Moynihanasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the funding allocated to the British Olympic Association by UK Sport will be subject to the same level of scrutiny with regard to corporate governance and financial accountability as that body applies to sports national governing bodies. [HL3621]
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§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyUK Sport will scrutinise the exchequer funding provided to the British Olympic Association (BOA) in the same manner as it would any other organisation that it funds. In addition the lottery funding support for the BOA is subject to the same terms and conditions that UK Sport applies across all its lottery awards.
§ Lord Moynihanasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether there is any intention to reduce the number of élite athletes in receipt of UK Sport world class performance funding over the next four-year Olympic cycle; and what level of financial support for Olympic performance comes directly from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's budget for sport. [HL3622]
§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyThe number of athletes on the World Class Performance Programme is determined by the relevant national governing bodies of sport using performance and selection criteria agreed with UK Sport.
After the Athens Olympiad, UK Sport will begin its work with the national governing bodies to identify the optimum number of athletes to be supported in each sport.
For the financial year 2003–04, DCMS made available £27.525 million in Exchequer funding to UK Sport, of which £9.6 million was invested to support athletes on the WCPP.
§ Lord Moynihanasked Her Majesty's Government:
Which budgets at UK Sport are being targeted to deliver funds to world-class performance funding; what total funding has been diverted to date; and what plans they have to divert funds over the next four-year Olympic cycle. [HL3623]
§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyThe Department for Culture, Media and Sport has provided UK Sport with the flexibility to manage the prioritisation and targeting of the total amount of lottery and Exchequer funding it receives to deliver its goals. UK Sport has therefore used a combination of its Exchequer funding and lottery funding to provide the necessary funding to their World Class Performance Programme (WCPP). In addition to the lottery funding UK Sport invests into the WCPP. It has also invested Exchequer funding of £3.3 million and £3.5 million of the financial years 2003–04 and 2004–05 respectively.