Community Sports Coaches Scheme

What is it?

Work around the development and delivery of the Community Sport Coach Scheme started in September 2003. Working with key partners, such as schools, sports clubs and Specialist Sports Colleges, we began to discuss what, where and how we would best benefit from this very exciting initiative. 
As a sports partnership we were keen to develop a coaching workforce that was both reflective of the local community and reactive to the needs of sport, physical activity and social inclusion across Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire. This meant talking to as many partners, key agencies and of course our participants in order to find the best possible ‘fit’ for the coaches across our county. 

Overall Objective of CSCS:

The DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) have provided funding for Community Sports Coaches (CSC) in order to:

“Establish 3000 paid professional coaches working at local level to increase the number and range of high quality coaching opportunities by 2006, according to local and strategic need.”

The emphasis of the scheme is to help achieve regional priorities in the Regional Plan for Sport based on two main areas:

• ‘The increasing participation agenda’
• ‘Creating a step change in the career pathway for coaches’

Main Outcomes for the Community Sports Coaches:

The Community Sport Coach Scheme aim of creating a step change in the career pathway for coaches has lead to a variety of benefits for the coaches including:

• Guaranteed hours per week therefore creating stability for the coaches who are used to being paid by the hour.
• As part of the scheme each coach has to complete a Personal Development Plan on a 6 monthly basis.
• Sports coach UK Coach Development Officer & Coventry Solihull & Warwickshire Sport host 3 training days each year for the Community Sports Coaches development.
• Each CSCS application includes a training budget for the coaches to attend courses and advance their skills.
• The sustainability of the positions is currently being looked into by the Partnership and CSC Steering Groups, so the coaches can continue their good work past the funding dates.

West Midlands Allocation of Funding:

Through hard work and commitment to the scheme from the 6 County Sports Partnerships (CSPs) in the region, the West Midlands reached its DCMS target of 51 full time and 285 part time positions.

Coventry Solihull & Warwickshire Sports Partnership has been awarded over half a million funding between 1st September 2004 and 1st May 2009 from DCMS for:

• 10 Full Time Positions
• 46 Part Time Positions

In total through all the partnership and DCMS funding for the CSCS there will be over £1 million investment into coaching over the length of the scheme. Examples of partners that have invested match funding for Community Sports Coach Scheme are as follows, Local Authorities, Sports Clubs, National Governing Bodies (NGB’s), School Sport Partnerships, individual schools, Coventry Solihull & Warwickshire Sport and other funding streams e.g. NOF Out of Hours funding.

You can view a full list of Community Sports Coaches by phases in which they were employed online. 

CSCS – Key Facts October 2005 - March 2006:

More information:

Please contact Alex Thompson on: 024 7657 4199.