Sport England invests a further £2.1 million to get more disabled people playing sport

Sport England has today provided a further boost to disability sport by awarding £2.1 million of National Lottery funding to help increase the number of disabled people playing sport.

The DSAuk see this initiative as a positive step forward and will give many more people the opportunity to participate in sport at a grass root level. Making a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of disabled people in England.

Sport England will be directly funding seven national disability sports organisations (NDSOs), between October 2014 and 2017, to advise, support and guide other sports bodies as they create opportunities for disabled people to take part in sport. The funding will provide impairment-specific support to National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and deliver engagement programmes.

The investment over three years will work to strengthen the delivery of sport for disabled people, engagement and partnership creation with the purpose of educating and supporting specific groups, and working with NGBs and other organisations.

In addition, the English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS) has been awarded a further one year investment of £204,153 of National Lottery funding to provide support in both marketing and communications and research and insight.

Currently, non-disabled people are twice as likely to play sport as disabled people (39.2 per cent play compared to 17.8 per cent) and as a result, Sport England is continuing to focus its attention and investment in this area to address the imbalance.

Sport England Chairman, Nick Bitel, said: “The number of disabled people playing sport increased over the last investment period, however, there is still an imbalance that we are keen to rectify.