Just before last week’s Budget, the Government announced the latest round of funding in the newly named Community Sports Facilities Fund Scheme, previously known as the Sports Capital Grants Scheme.
Over a quarter of a billion has been allocated to community sports clubs and facilities in the round, for a total investment of €256m, the largest single investment the state has ever made in sport.
We have been looking at the funding in detail with Sport for Business members 2Into3 through several different lenses.
We kicked off with the absolute amounts distributed to each of the 40 different sports that succeeded in an application, as well as the multi-sport category combining two or more sports, together with the average amounts in each sport, ranging from €32,734 up to €475,188.
Then we considered the success rate of applications and the grant amount received by each of the sports compared to what they had applied for.
Today we switch the focus using the same metrics but applying them to the counties and the success that each of the 26 counties was able to score.
All valid applications, with some exceptions, were awarded funds. Therefore, the average success rate for valid applications was 91.52% nationwide.
The success rate of grant applications by county ranged from 83.15% (Wicklow) to 96.43% (Longford).
The tables above show the success percentage by county and the total grant amount awarded within each county per head of population.
The latter figure ranged vastly from €23.80 in Dublin to €154.09 in Waterford.
Longford, despite being largely successful in receiving close to the maximum grant amount possible available, saw a relatively low grant amount per capita.
The second and third lowest performing counties by this metric were Wicklow (€40.48) and Kildare (€33.66), both of which are part of the Greater Dublin Area within the capital commuter zone.
Waterford had the highest grant amount per capita (€154.09), which was 547.44% higher than the lowest amount of €23.80 in Dublin and 67.2% higher than the second highest amount of €92.16 (Sligo).
There has to be a balance between the amount of money going to where it can have the greatest impact, and the ability of the most highly populated areas to find the land to develop facilities.
With pressures on land for housing making that even harder in urban areas in particular it is a difficult circle to square.
The fact that Dublin had a 92.9 % success rate means there is no blame attached to the process of distribution. It just refelects the difficulty of providing sporting facilities in the areas where they may perhapsd be the most needed.
Grant Amount Received Versus Applied For
One notable change this year is the reduction in the number of projects receiving 100 per cent of funding.
This could be a natural reaction towards some applications looking for more than is needed to factor in a reduction. Or, it could be a way of ensuring that everyone gets something instead of some getting everything and others missing out.
The impact of receiving less than requested will be different across different projects.
Ones in partnership with Local Authorities will find it possible in some cases to transfer money from other sports budgets to make projects viable.
Those backed up by local fundraising might find it more of a challenge, depending on the difference they will have to make up.
Construction inflation has been a real challenge, and if that impacts at the same time as less money being available than hoped from the Grant funding, then some of the projects will struggle to get off the ground.
There is an argument that if the club and the community feel that their project is of real importance, other ways will be found, and there is the adage that the harder you work for money, the more valuable it is.
Fundraising events and activities fell off a cliff during the pandemic, and in many cases, it has been harder to rev the engines and get it back than had been expected.
Looking at the numbers above, there seems to be a bias towards sports that might be deemed more capable of self-fundraising than others, whether that is the truth or not.
Hockey, Sailing, and Tennis have all averaged below 75 per cent of what was requested, a significant delta.
Conversely, boxing, martial arts, and community games all scored close to or just over 90 percent.
There has been a significant step up in the Sporting Bodies’ support for clubs through information and, in some cases, review of applications. This is an obvious area where there can be a real difference, as the Grant application process requires an understanding of legal and financial requirements that is not universal.
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