Long-term funding of Active8 still uncertain

Tuesday 06 February 2024

Uncertainty continues to surround long-term funding of the Active8 sports plan.

Education, Sport & Culture pulled an amendment from the last States debate that if successful would have guaranteed six years worth of money for the projects under the plan.

Instead it has found money for 2024 with a pledge of trying to find a more permanent solution.

“I am pleased that the funding for Active 8 in 2024 has been found within our existing 2024 budget so the Health Improvement Commission and the Guernsey Sports Commission can receive funding to deliver workstreams this year,” said Education President Deputy Andrea Dudley Owen.

“The amendment to the Government Work Plan that Deputy [Andy] Cameron and I originally submitted would have secured this funding for six more years after 2024, until the end of the original 10 years of the Active 8 plan. 

“However, with funding becoming available from within Committee budget it felt wrong to ask the States to approve funding from the General Reserve account when we had funds to use, for this reason there was a real risk that it would not approved and the work being de-funded. 

“We do not want a future Committee to find itself in the position we find ourselves now, where the long-term activities under the Active 8 plan are once again un-funded. 

“It is on that basis that we have decided to look for a way to fund the Plan through future budgets, thereby giving the Commissions the long-term funding surety they need to plan into the future. We will do this in close collaboration with both parties, and we know that we can achieve great value for taxpayers by delivering some services and initiatives by partnering with Commissions in this way.”

There is no guarantee which aspects of the wide-ranging Active8 strategy will be able to continue beyond this year.

The Guernsey Sports Commission has previously made it clear that it wants certainty over what funding it will receive so that it does not have to stop and restart work, incurring additional costs and administration.

Both it and the Health Improvement Commission receive other sources of funding for different elements of their work, which remain unaffected by this.

Education announced in the summer that it wanted to reduce the amount of funding going towards Active 8 initiatives from around £250,000 a year to £124,000 in 2024 and down to £84,000 from 2025. 

Among the things it has funded are the sports vouchers scheme that ensures children that might not be able to afford to play a sport can, improving governance and safeguarding in sports clubs with a recognised standard and broadening the range of sports offered to secondary school pupils.

Education recently dropped plans for a new sports hall from the first phase of Les Ozouets campus build. It is keen to re-assess what Beau Sejour can offer.