DD2404 Sport Unites: Football Unites pilot

Sport Unites

‘Sport Unites’ is the Mayor’s multi-million-pound community sport investment programme, authorised in March 2018 by MD2244. It focuses on delivering Social Integration outcomes – in line with ‘All of us’, the Mayor’s Strategy for Social Integration published in March 2018. This marks a shift away from focusing primarily on funding participation-centric community sport initiatives, towards using sport to deliver more complex social outcomes.

As part of the Mayor’s manifesto ‘A City for all Londoners’ – a commitment was made to “work with football clubs and other major sports clubs to support and expand their vast capacity for making a positive impact in the community, especially with young people”.

‘Sport for all of us’ – The Mayor’s Strategy for Sport and Physical Activity published in December 2018 sets out investment plans for working with Football Clubs. This will be delivered through the Sport Unites programme’s Sport for Social Integration theme.

Football Unites

The Football Unites pilot will be delivered between September 2019 and September 2020 and will engage young players from up to four Premier League football academies to design and deliver community projects that tackle a self-identified social issue in their local areas. Each club will recruit young academy members to develop and participate in community contribution projects, with Player Voice CIC (community interest company) managing delivery.

Young academy players from each participating club will form a steering group and identify a social issue they want to tackle in their local area. With the support of Player Voice and academy staff, they will partner with a relevant community organisation to deliver a community sport project or other community contribution. Community partners will receive a grant of £3,000 to meet project costs, aid engagement with the project, add to capacity-building and incentivise future collaboration.

Due to the football academy structure, the Football Unites pilot will formally engage with young male players, who will comprise the respective Player Leadership Groups within their clubs. However, there will be discussion with female team leads throughout the project to explore potential links and opportunities; and women and girls will be involved in the community projects selected by the players. Learning from the pilot will consider how the model may be replicated or adapted to female participation.

The pilot aims to create a framework for how professional football academies can expand their community offer. To achieve this, the pilot will be independently evaluated and will culminate in a thought leadership event with relevant partners and stakeholders.

The pilot will be managed by Player Voice CIC with Crystal Palace F.C. as the lead club. Participating clubs are anticipated to include Arsenal F.C. Tottenham Hotspur F.C. and West Ham United F.C. The project will also have involvement from the Premier League. Player Voice CIC is a new organisation and as the only organisation in the sector that focuses on developing the voice of young players within the academy system are uniquely positioned to deliver the project. As an established organisation, Crystal Palace will be the lead organisation, including acting as the recipient of GLA funding. During the development process discussions took place with multiple Premier League clubs, with the above- mentioned four expressing interest in participating.

GLA funding of up to £70,000 will be provided to Crystal Palace F.C. by way of a grant agreement. They will use the funding as follows:

• entering into up to 4 x £3,000 grants agreements (£12,000 in total) for community organisations to co-deliver projects with academy players;
• expenditure of up to £24,000 to fund facilitation and development of workshops, training, and project delivery support across academies and community partner organisations, for up to four community organisations;
• expenditure of up to £10,000 towards Thought Leadership events (including a launch event and celebration event for young players) and delivering communications and engagement across the project;
• completion of a mini competitive procurement exercise and expenditure of up to £10,000 to commission independent monitoring and evaluation; and
• entering into a grant agreement for up to £14,000 – (20% of total funding) with Player Voice CIC for management costs including project coordination.

Should four Premier League Clubs not commit to the project, then the same amount of funding will be pro-rated to the number of clubs involved.

It is expected that the participating clubs will provide match funding/value in kind, for example through provision of academy staff support and/or venue/location support but this value has yet to be determined. This will not be paid through the GLA.

After assessing the success of the pilot, a decision to fund a second phase or project expansion may be sought.

The aim of the Football Unites pilot is to develop a framework for London’s elite football clubs to unlock the potential of their young academy players in co-designing and delivering community-based projects.

Objectives of the funding to Crystal Palace F.C:

• recruit 45 academy players aged between 10 and 23 years across a minimum of 2 professional football clubs;
• academy players to give a minimum of 30 hours each across sessions in the school holidays;
• develop understanding (amongst community organisations and academy players) of the issues and challenges of, and potential opportunities for, social integration; and
• build strong partnerships between professional football clubs and community organisations.

Expected outputs of the funding to Crystal Palace F.C:

• support up to four community organisations in London to co-deliver projects with the academy players, aid capacity-building, and incentivise future collaboration;
• each club’s academy players to take part in 7 x community-based sessions and deliver 1 x community contribution project during the pilot period (12 months);
• 45 academy players and community organisations to take part in 2 x workshops on sport and social integration facilitated by the GLA/Player Voice;
• 1 x thought leadership event upon completion of the pilot to present findings and proposed framework for sharing more widely across London’s football and major sports clubs;
• 6 x monitoring steering-group meetings with clubs, GLA and community partners to evaluate learnings from the pilot; and
• 1 x independently produced evaluation report and video.

Expected outcomes of the funding to Crystal Palace F.C:

• increased character-building and life skills, for example emotional resilience, and understanding of/opportunities for community engagement of the academy players.
• increased understanding amongst the young players and participating community organisations of social integration needs, challenges and potential opportunities both within their local communities, and within and amongst academy cohorts themselves.
• increased sports participation amongst community beneficiaries.

The public-sector equality duty requires the identification and evaluation of the likely potential impacts, both Under Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 (the “Equality Act”) as public authorities, the Mayor and the GLA must have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation, and to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. Protected characteristics under the Equality Act comprise age, disability, gender re-assignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, and marriage or civil partnership status. Due to the nature of this proposed decision, no particular effects, positive or negative, are foreseen on persons with a protected characteristic under the Equality Act.

Equal opportunities are enshrined with the Sport Unites programme and will be reflected in the Football Unites pilot. The programme will provide Londoners from all backgrounds with opportunities to access sport and physical activities which will contribute to improved social integration, reduce prejudice and enable isolated Londoners to feel better connected. Amongst other objectives, Sport Unites works towards the social integration of Londoners, contributing to efforts to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation towards persons who share a protected characteristic (race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment).

The Sport Unites programme is open to all, regardless of race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment. The Football Unites pilot will adhere to these values and will foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.

The GLA Sports Team has consulted stakeholders and partners to ensure that as many Londoners as possible, including those with protected characteristics, have been considered in the planning of the Sport Unites programme and that they will have the chance to be involved in some way, be that through participating, training, project delivery or volunteering.

Sport Unites embraces London’s diversity by connecting Londoners from a variety of demographic and geographic backgrounds in support of common causes and activities. The portfolio of academy players in the pilot will reflect London’s diversity, in particular those from disadvantaged backgrounds in order to advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.

The estimated cost of up to £56,000 in 2019/20 and up to £14,000 in 2020/21 will be funded from the Sport Unites Programme budget within the Team London and Community Sports Unit.

The foregoing sections of this report indicate that the decisions requested of the director fall within the statutory powers of the Authority to promote and/or to do anything which is facilitative of or conducive or incidental to the promotion of social development within Greater London and in formulating the proposals in respect of which a decision is sought officers have complied with the Authority’s related statutory duties to:

(a) pay due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people;
(b) consider how the proposals will promote the improvement of health of persons, health inequalities between persons and to contribute towards the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom; and
(c) consult with appropriate bodies.

In taking the decisions requested of him, the director must have due regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty; namely the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010, and to advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic (race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment) and persons who do not share it and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it (section 149 of the Equality Act 2010). To this end, the director should have particular regard to section 3 (above) of this report.

The funding the subject of this decision form amounts to a conditional gift rather than a contract for services. To that end, the officers must ensure that it be distributed in accordance with the requirements of section 12 of the Authority’s Contracts and Funding Code. Furthermore, the officers must ensure that a written funding agreement be executed by both the Authority and the recipient prior to the payment by the Authority of any of the funding.