SkillsActive

 6/2/12

Yorkshire and Humberside has more than 500 newly qualified staff in swimming and football thanks to a range of successful partnerships created by SkillsActive, the sector skills council for the active leisure sector, and part-funded by the Skills Enhancement Fund.

As a timely boost to raising sports participation in the region ahead of London 2012, the Football League Trust (FLT) and the Amateur Swimming Association (ASA) grasped the opportunities presented by SkillsActive in June last year, to benefit from the Skills Enhancement Fund.

SkillsActive is funded by Sport England to support national governing bodies of sport to deliver the workforce development commitments in their current plans, and the news represents one of the biggest regional success stories to kick start 2012.

The £50m Skills Enhancement Fund, available until June 2012, aims to engage employers in Yorkshire and Humber in skills development and increase the region’s skills base. It is co-financed through the Skills Funding Agency through the European Social Fund and Yorkshire Forward and managed by Calderdale College.  

Steve Mitchell, Head of National Partnerships at SkillsActive says: “We are delighted that the funding has had such a terrific impact and developed new skills of so many individuals within the sports industry. We worked in partnership with Calderdale College to develop Coaching Tenders under the Framework Activity Route, which provides funding for qualifications that will have a direct and very significant impact in the sector.”

The FLT has now delivered almost 1,000 level one and two qualifications to approximately 500 staff in areas such as coaching, dance, disability awareness, and mental health awareness. 15 ASA staff have also gained their UKCC Level 1 Teaching Aquatics qualification and additional disability CPD modules, providing the participants with disability specific knowledge.

Angus Martin, The Football Leisure Trust’s Regional Community Manager for Yorkshire & the North East explains:  “There was, and still is, a gap for our staff and volunteers to pick up new and additional qualifications due to the growing variety of work that our 72 community schemes get involved with across health, education, sports participation, social inclusion and the environment.

“The funding allowed us to offer an excellent range of CPD to our staff that wouldn’t otherwise have been possible. We would probably only have been able to deliver a tenth of the CPD on our own, so the funding has been a huge boost for us.”

Vicky Norman, ASA Aquatic Officer for the North East says: “Disability specific knowledge is crucial in learn-to-swim programmes to help integrate disabled children into mainstream schemes. These teachers will now have some insight into the needs and requirements of disabled people within a learn to swim setting.”

Clive Howarth, Head of Relationships at the Skills Funding Agency in Yorkshire and Humber, says: “This unique initiative, not available in any other English region, is designed to support skills training that isn’t usually funded, and to allow more individuals who wouldn’t normally get the chance to learn new skills and to achieve recognised qualifications. In the UK’s Olympic year the level of interest in sport has increased significantly and the Skills Funding Agency is delighted to have been able to help turn this interest into qualifications.”

13/1/12

SkillsActive, the Sector Skills Council for Sport and Active Leisure, has welcomed the new five year Youth and Community Sport Strategy announced by Sport England and the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt.

The organisation hopes to sit at the heart of the delivery, helping to ensure a skilled, competent and motivated workforce is available to implement grassroots programmes.

Steve Mitchell, Head of National Partnerships at SkillsActive, explains:

“We are fully behind the new focus on sports participation for 14-25 year olds, and driving a step change in the sporting behaviour of a generation, never seen before in the UK. We also recognise the huge part SkillsActive can play in upskilling the existing workforce and training the next generation of sporting administrators, coaches and activators.

“We plan to build on our existing relationships with NGBs and the CSP network, to continue to develop a talented pool of young, dynamic and work ready individuals. Moving forward, sports clubs will need to reach further into local communities to flush out new talent. SkillsActive has already demonstrated success in this area through its involvement in programmes such as Personal Best and the World Skills London 2011 Volunteer Development Programme.

“SkillsActive would welcome the opportunity to work across Government departments to target the huge unemployment challenge the country is facing, by getting people off benefits and into work. Sport and physical activity is the perfect catalyst for radical changes in behaviour for life and building the aspirations of our young people.

“We know from our experience that working in partnership we can meet the challenges laid down by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Department for Work and Pensions, by offering a fit for purpose qualification framework, apprenticeship programmes and job creation scheme the industry will require to sustain increases in sports participation.”

Reflecting on two of the partners named in the strategy, Steve Mitchell adds: “We are really pleased to see two of our closest partners, StreetGames and the Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust (DKHLT) recognised as key partners to deliver the strategy over the next five years.”

We operate across the UK and engage with the sport sector within each of the four home nations. 

Our national committees and regional structure ensure that our UK-wide remit applies to all of the home nations. In addition to this, some key areas of country specific work are detailed below.

England

As part of our national partnership agreement with Sport England, we support national governing bodies of sport (NGBs) with their workforce development commitments laid out in their 09/13 plans.

Our team of relationship managers work directly with NGBs to embed more highly skilled and qualified people into their sporting infrastructure, ensuring they have the right people with the right skills developing their sport at a club, county and regional level.

Find out more about our partnership agreement with Sport England > 

Northern Ireland

Our Northern Ireland manager, Siobhan Weir, works with partners throughout Northern Ireland to address the skills needs of the sport workforce.

For more information click here>

Scotland

Our Scotland manager, Pam Scott, works with partners throughout Scotland to address the skills needs of the sport workforce.

Discover more about our work in Scotland here>

Wales

Our Wales team, lead by Richard Tobutt, works with partners throughout Wales to address the skills needs of the sport workforce.

Find out more on Wales here>

In 2009 we launched the Yorkshire and Humber Coaching Bursary, funded by Sport England. We are pleased to be able to offer active coaches and potential coaches the opportunity to part fund their first or next coaching qualification.

With 60% reimbursement of the course cost available to individuals, there has never been a better time to undertake your qualification.

Gain a Recognised Qualification

The Coaching Bursary is providing funding for UK Coaching Certificate (UKCC) endorsed sports. UKCC is an endorsement of coach education programmes across sports within the UK set against agreed criteria including:

• advance coach education programmes and practices
• support the development of coaching as a profession
• require a commitment to review and develop existing programmes and practices

SkillsActive has helped secure the English Lacrosse Association (ELA) more than £480,000 in funding for training to ready the sport for an explosion in player numbers.

ELA promotes lacrosse in schools and communities and provides training, support and advice to clubs and players. English Lacrosse Association (ELA) membership soared in 2010 and national education manager Paul Coups says this number is projected to reach 25,000 by 2012.

To help manage this increase, a SkillsActive account manager helped the ELA produce a national action plan, then began brokering funding and solutions for them. SkillsActive is funded by Sport England to support national governing bodies of sport to deliver the workforce development commitments in their current plans.

Growing the workforce

SkillsActive recommended ELA sign up for the National Skills Academy for Sport and Active Leisure’s Future Jobs Fund programme (which has now closed) to provide the extra workforce ELA needed to grow the sport and sustain participation. ELA took on three FJF employees in the first funding wave. It was so impressed by the quality of employees, it agreed to take on another 35, with £228,000 provided by the government in wage subsidies.

Upskilling the workforce

A Business Link review identified a lack of level 2 and higher level coaching skills, which are necessary to develop new and existing lacrosse volunteers in England. So ELA, in conjunction with SkillsActive and City and Guilds, developed nationally recognised qualifications at NVQ levels 2 and 3 in coaching, teaching and instructing lacrosse for students and volunteer workers.

SkillsActive helped broker £12,000 from Train to Gain funding, an English Government initiative, to train 12 paid coaches and volunteers to the new NVQ level 2 coaching certificate. SkillsActive also helped ELA successfully apply for £26,000 from the Academy’s Coaching Investment Programme funding, which provides coaches with bursaries to help them develop their skills, and £3000 in local bursaries in the North West, East and Greater Manchester.

Promoting excellence

Finally, SkillsActive recommended ELA sign up for the Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting excellence (AASE), a unique sporting qualification for young people with the potential to achieve in their sport at the highest level. Dian worked with ELA to develop an AASE portfolio. SkillsActive also formed relationships between ELA and local colleges, securing about £117,000 from the Skills Funding Agency towards training costs.

A relationship with impact

In 12 months, SkillsActive helped secure £482,000 in training and other initiatives for ELA. ELA national education manager Paul Coups says SkillsActive has been “an exceedingly good business partner”.

“We’ve worked on some phenomenal projects with SkillsActive in the past year and without their support, we would not have got this far. The next 12 months should be equally as fruitful as we capitalise on our successful hosting of the World Lacrosse Championships and work with SkillsActive to grow the sport domestically and internationally.”