Working with governing bodies

We work with a wide range of partners and key to achieving our ambitions of 'A Nation of Champions' and 'Every Child Hooked on Sport for Life' are the National Governing Bodies of Sport (NGBs).

There are 77 sporting activities that operate as recognised NGBs in Wales and Great Britain with Sport Wales currently investing £10.9 million into 50 NGBs that vary in size from 100 to 100,000 members.

We believe that well run, efficient and effective NGBs are crucial to the success of sport at local, regional, national and international level.

National Governing Bodies

Sport in Wales needs successful governing bodies. We believe that a successful governing body has three essential characteristics with these being central to the support work undertaken by National Governing Body Services (NGBS) Officers.

  • Governance - This is the about the effective leadership, management and administration of the sport
  • Development - This is about creating a structure of strong and vibrant clubs that are well run and offer appropriate opportunities to everyone, whether for recreation or competition. It  is also about ensuring there are sufficient qualified coaches and volunteers to support the development of the clubs.
  • Performance - This is about how successful and consistently the National teams perform on the UK and world stage.

What we do

The NGBS Officers work to support governing bodies to achieve these three characteristics by:

  • Leading , advising and influencing the NGBs at board and senior staff level in the development, monitoring and implementation of long-term strategic plans
  • Supporting  and challenging NGBs to establish and maintain high quality systems and structures that can lead to systematic success in sport
  • Promoting the importance of evidence based planning and to be accountable for making investment recommendations aligned to the potential to deliver outcomes that are consistent with Sport Wales's strategic priorities

To achieve our Sport Wales objectives NGBS officers need to work with partners to ensure they:

  • increase club and governing body membership;
  • increase numbers of active volunteers;
  • increase numbers and support the improvement in coaching standards;
  • increase numbers of trained officials (e.g referee's);
  • increase numbers of administrators at all levels of sport;
  • improve access to the best facilities;
  • provide appropriate competition at all levels;
  • identify and develop talent ;

Many of these objectives will be supported by developing people and places and by increasing the number of people taking part in sport.  Others will be addressed through specific programmes to support  elite athletes in sport.

INTERNAL RESOURCES