§ Lord Moynihanasked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the Written Answer by the Lord McIntosh of Haringey on 28 October 2003 (WA 34), what progress has been made in the preparation of the action plan on Elite Sport Funding. [HL1676]
§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyUK Sport has been provided with a ring-fenced allocation of £4.7 million for 2004–05 and 2005–06 to enable them to take forward some of the recommendations of the Cunningham Review of Elite Sport with the focus upon personal development for elite coaches.
32WAUK Sport has used its experience and hindsight of the past five years of lottery funding to assess the current position of our high performance system and the impact it is having on the UK/GB athletes and sports. As a result of an extensive consultation process UK Sport has now designed a people development strategy that will offer educational and training opportunities for high performance specialists working within high performance sports and who provide world-class support to current and future elite athletes.
UK Sport will deliver programmes of support in a number of areas. This will include provision of specific people development opportunities for specialists in our high performance system, including performance directors, coaches, sports scientists, sports medics and research and innovation experts.
In addition, UK Sport is developing a new approach to deliver discrete and integrated professional and personal development opportunities to develop the skills and deliver the experience coaches need to work with elite performers. The formal programme will consist of five key elements including a World Class Coaching Conference, the purpose of which is to raise the standard of British elite coaches and to improve performance; an Elite Coach Programme targeted at the very best coaches who demonstrate the talent dedication and determination to succeed and produce outstanding performances; "Winning Coaches" which is a series of workshops designed for the coaches selected to attend multi-sport or major events such as Winter/Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, World Championships, Commonwealth Games etc; -Coaching The Plan"—a special series of workshops combining the art and science of coaching in a performance and applied environment and a new Coaching Focus Group especially appointed to provide leadership and support and add value to coaches, athletes and support staff working in performance.
Finally, a programme of support has been designed in the area of sports science and sports medicine to provide professional development opportunities including, elite sport studentship, elite sport scholarship and elite sport internship.