Recommendation 21

National Audit Office (NAO) analysis of the grants issued at local level showed the share received by the most deprived quintile of local authorities fell from 40% in the five years before the 2016 strategy to 34% in the five years afterwards. We therefore asked Sport England how it can claim to be directing its spending towards the least active when the share of local grants going to the most deprived local authorities had fallen. Sport England told us that 27% of its investment in the last year had gone to the most deprived areas of the country. It also noted that its £40 million Together Fund had reached 6,000 local clubs and community groups in the most deprived areas of the country, 80% of which had not received public funding before.34