An article in today’s Guardian by Matt Scott highlights the £200 million that has been held in reserve by Sport England for over four years. This is despite the fact that the overall surplus balance for all distributors has fallen by £1.2 billion over the same period.
When other distributors are making an effort to reduce their balance it is frustrating that Sport England have not explained their reason for not doing so.
The claim that all cash balances have been committed is not particularly helpful because by the time the surplus funds are spent on projects that have had money committed to them, a new surplus will have built up from ticket sales. The net effect will be that the surplus stays at the same level.
CAARE believes that grassroots sport would be better served by spending more of the reserve balance, which would help to lessen the negative effect of the diversion of funds to the Olympics. It seems absurd to hold so much money back (the amount of money Sport England spent on good causes in the 21 months between April 2006 and December 2007) when there are clearly plenty of good causes in need of funds, and Sport England has not provided a satisfactory explanation for doing so.
