scottishathletics to protect key projects

Thursday 6th April 2017

Mark Munro – ‘Our priorities do not change’

New partnership for jogscotland with SAMH

scottishathletics are always seeking to maintain a strong level of transparency with our members in matters of governance and finance.

Now, following recent informed speculation in sections of the media over cuts to budgets in Scottish sport, chief executive Mark Munro is keen to advise our members of impending changes internally.

There will be a re-positioning of jogscotland, as well as other minor financial savings for the financial year 2017-18, with an overall reduction to our funding having been implemented.

But it is very important indeed to stress that all current key programmes for athletes, coaches, clubs and volunteers will be maintained at existing levels as we target further growth of the sport in Scotland in what are very exciting times.

‘Whilst making an extremely strong case for continuation at our existing funding levels, at a time when the sport is performing so well across all levels, we can confirm that Scottish Athletics Ltd has received a cut from sportscotland of £140,000,’ said Mark, in an email issued this week to our 12, 500 members.

‘This means that in 2017/18 our budget investment from sportscotland has reduced from £1,030,000 (2016/17) to £890,000. However, this does include the jogscotland reduction which we were already aware of, and that accounts for a very significant proportion of the cut.

‘Please be assured that our priorities do not change whatsoever and we are committed to ensuring our focus remains on supporting our membership and continuing to activate key programmes that help athletes, coaches, clubs and Offficials and volunteers to thrive and grow.

‘However, we have made some changes to jogscotland which, coupled with some efficiency savings around the business this year, will ensure we protect the delivery of those aspects of our core business out-lined above.

‘To elaborate further, the key area for change for the 2017/18 financial year involves the re-positioning of jogscotland towards a charitable partnership.

‘We have entered into an initial one-year equal partnership arrangement with the Scottish Association of Mental Health (SAMH) that will see the re-positioning of jogscotland allowing for a greater ability to raise charitable funds to support the ongoing delivery of the programme.

‘We are confident that the jogscotland programme will be enhanced further with the SAMH investment and programme resources.

‘We will continue to review other areas of potential cost savings through efficiencies and will update our members on this area in due course.

 

 

‘As a footnote, we are also aware of the Scottish Government’s announcement on April 4 stating that £2M will be invested into sport to cover some of the Lottery funding challenges.

‘The statement from the government is clear that this investment will focus specifically on inequalities (including getting women into sport and on boards, LGBT, disadvantaged communities and under-represented groups), and getting the inactive active.

‘We will certainly explore this one-off investment opportunity further to see where the sport can benefit in the short term.’

 

Tags: jogscotland, Mark Munro, SAMH, Scottish Government, sportscotland