Chair

The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport wishes to appoint an exceptional person to the Chair of Sport England, the government’s arms-length body which has responsibility for supporting and promoting grassroots sport and physical activity in England.

Applications are encouraged from all sections of the community to help ensure that the Sport England board is representative of the diverse society it serves.

Sport England is a government-funded Non-Departmental Public Body and National Lottery distributor. It is responsible for supporting, growing and advocating for grassroots sport and physical activity in England in line with its statutory objectives as set out in its Royal Charter. Its vision is to ensure that everyone, regardless of their age, background or level of ability feels able to engage in sport and physical activity and it takes its strategic lead from the government’s sport and physical activity strategy Sporting Future: A New Strategy for an Active Nation.

The Chair will be responsible for overseeing the final stages of implementation of Sport England’s current Towards an Active Nation strategy (2017-2021), and the final stages of development and roll-out of its new strategy for 2021-2025, in close collaboration with the Deputy Chair, Chief Executive, and Executive Team.

All candidates must have (and will need to demonstrate in their application) the following essential criteria:

• A proven track record of strategic leadership in sport, business or public service;
• Knowledge of and interest in sport, including a demonstrable involvement in its governance or delivery;
• Excellent communication and presentational skills, and an inclusive leadership style that commands respect through genuine collaboration and partnership;
• Strong external stakeholder management skills, able to build relationships at all levels;
• A passion for, and commitment to improving the life chances of those from more disadvantaged backgrounds through sport and activity;
• A commitment to the Prime Minister’s priority in helping adults and children to live healthier lives, following the publication of ‘Tackling obesity: government strategy’ and the launch of the ‘Better Health’ campaign;
• A commitment to evidence-based practice and the ability to take a critical view of innovations and provide informed challenge and drive value.

Desirable criteria:

•  Understanding of how to engage and partner with commercial organisations;
•  Experience of systems / transformative change programmes would be helpful.

Sport England as an organisation:

Sport England has a relatively new and well-regarded CEO, Tim Hollingsworth, who was previously CEO of the Paralympics Association. Sport England employs around 250 staff, who work across the UK, in two main office locations in London and Loughborough, although many are home/regionally based.

Sport England is regarded as a well performing organisation, with high levels of staff engagement, and strong cultural values which were developed with staff, and have high levels of staff buy in. These values are:

We are Collaborative: One team, committed to delivering together and working with others to make a difference to people’s lives.

We are Ambitious: Determined in pursuit of our goals, prioritising work and partnerships that will most advance our mission, help us succeed and make a positive impact on the nation.

We are Inclusive: Harnessing our collective strength and respecting difference to create the conditions for everyone to engage and to excel.

We are Innovative: Curious, optimistic and relentless, we question established ways of working and learn from each other and from our experiences.

The Sport England Board:

The Chair leads a main Board which will consist of a Deputy Chair and up to 10 other members appointed by the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The post-holder, in close collaboration with the Deputy Chair and Chief Executive, will be responsible for:

Overseeing delivery of Sport England’s objectives within the policy and resources framework agreed with DCMS Ministers. Specifically, this includes:

• Completing the delivery and implementation of Sport England’s 2017-21 Towards an Active Nation strategy to ensure that everyone regardless of their age, background or level of ability feels able to engage in sport and physical activity.
• Rolling out and successfully implementing a new 2021-25 strategy for the organisation, that builds on learning and insight from the 2017-21 strategy, and robust feedback from the sector, to focus on the strategic interventions that will drive the most significant impact on national physical activity levels and reduce long standing inequalities in the sector.
• Supporting the sport and physical activity sector to keep the nation active, and to ensure that it has the necessary resilience to continue to thrive, in response to, and during the recovery from, the Covid-19 outbreak. 
• Ensuring that the organisation develops and maintains a robust evaluation framework that allows it to understand the impact it is having on the nation’s physical activity levels as a direct result of its programmes of work and investments.
• Working alongside DCMS on delivery outcomes and forging partnerships and relationships with other government departments – notably, DfT, DHSC, DfE, MHCLG and Defra – to ensure that sport and physical activity is delivering across a range of government objectives.
• Proactively seeking out partnerships with new and innovative organisations that have the ability to bring new thinking and investment to drive up physical activity levels.
• Ensuring Sport England takes maximum advantage of the opportunity to partner with new and innovative organisations and start-ups that have the ability to support interventions that can deliver step-changes in national physical activity levels.
• Representing the organisation to a wide range of interested parties at a national and international level (assistance will be offered to ensure anyone with disabilities could attend meetings). This will include building an effective personal working relationship with DCMS Ministers and the Department.
• Ensuring that Sport England complies with statutory or administrative requirements accompanying the public funding it receives (currently, approximately £100 million of Exchequer funding and £200 million of Lottery funding each year).
• Ensuring that Sport England observes the highest standards of corporate governance at all times and operates within the limits of its delegated authority agreed with DCMS as per Sport England’s Management Agreement, and in line with standards set through, for example, HMT’s Managing Public Money.

Disability Confident

We guarantee to interview anyone with a disability whose application meets the minimum criteria for the role. By ‘minimum criteria,’ we mean that you must provide evidence in your application, which demonstrates that you meet the level of competence required under each of the essential criteria.

If you want to apply under this scheme, simply state this in the covering email or letter when submitting your application.

To apply, please send:

• a CV of not more than two sides of A4;
• a supporting statement of not more than three sides of A4, providing examples and setting out how you meet the criteria;
• the Diversity Monitoring Form concerning your personal information and political activity, and the Declaration of Interests Form.

Completed applications should be emailed to publicappointments@dcms.gov.uk. Please put ‘Sport England Chair’ in the Subject line. The deadline for applications is midday on Monday 21 December 2020.