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• Our history

Our history

Sport Cheshire was established by Cheshire County Council as an independent charity in 1989. In its early years, funded by the County Council and commercial sponsorship, the Trustees awarded small grants to groups and individuals that were able to demonstrate a unique and valuable contribution to meeting the needs of the Cheshire community for access to improved opportunities for sport and active recreation.

The second phase of the Trust's development began in 1995 when it absorbed the County Council's sports development function. This phase involved the permanent transfer of staff and budgets and was a period of significant growth that culminated in the appointment of a new Chief Executive with a significantly expanded role and responsibilities. The strategic, sub-regional role of the Trust as a sports development agency grew with this appointment. The Cheshire district councils and Sport England were instrumental in supporting these changes and the Trust's reputation as an innovative and progressive organisation grew. This phase also saw an increase in the number of Trustees and an expansion in the range of their skills and experience.

In 2001 the Trust assumed lead role in the Cheshire and Warrington County Sports Partnership (CSP), a quasi-corporate mechanism developed by Sport England to link the national agenda to local areas. Acting as the CSP for Cheshire & Warrington, this ensured the Trust became an important national player as one of a 49-strong CSP network across England, an important element of Sport England's ambition to create a world-leading community sport system. In late 2008, the importance of the Partnership was acknowledged by a change to the charity's name to Cheshire & Warrington Sports Partnership Trust Ltd, with additional changes proposed to its structure and membership. At this stage the 'core team' was the term fashioned by Sport England to define the central body of the Partnership in co-coordinating the work of, and provide support and services to, our partners.

In 2009 the Trust employed a new Chief Executive who wished to give greater clarity on the work of the 'Core Team' in serving the wider Partnership and the ability of the Trust to act as a sustainable business entity. This resulted in the decision by the Board to:

• trade under the name of 'Sport Cheshire' (not 'Cheshire and Warrington Sports Partnership), who will service the wider Partnership, targeting resources to achieve greatest impart
• reaffirm the role of the Board in the governance of the charity (and not the wider Partnership)
• redefine the remit of the CEO (from CEO of Cheshire & Warrington Sports Partnership to CEO of Sport Cheshire), removing confusion over responsibility and accountability in terms of delivery to the wider Partnership
• adopt the term Directors (as opposed to Trustees) and refer to the company (as opposed to Trust) unless the charitable nature of the Trust merited acknowledgement.

The focus from 2009 has been to build a sustainable business against a backdrop of reducing local authority funding, increased pressures to perform against Sport England contracted work and a rapidly changing sporting landscape. The result has been a steady increase in credibility amongst a wide range of stakeholders, improvements to company performance (for example, being the top performing CSP nationally in terms of retention figures for Sport England's 3 year Sport Unlimited programme), a diversification of funding streams and review and then growth in staffing numbers.

Closer working has been sought between the 4 neighboring CSPs in the North West (Cumbria, Lancashire, Merseyside and Manchester) as well as key local stakeholders (in particular the 3 unitary authorities of Cheshire West and Chester, Cheshire East and Warrington). Greater organisational confidence and capacity resulted in the transference of Cheshire West and Chester's sport development function in October 2011, secured via a competitive tending process, the first out-sourcing nationally of a council's entire sport development function to an independent CSP. This coincided with the drafting of a new 2012-2015 strategy for the company, which clearly signaled its intention to embrace both 'sport development' and 'sport for development' in its commitment to the delivery of a wide range of public benefit through the medium of sport on behalf of a range of partners and clients - its founding charitable object. This documents our desire to not only add value, demonstrate impact and evidence benefit but do so by adopting an enterprising approach to ensure the company remains a viable business entity.