03/04/2007
Council's Sport's Development wins Gold COSLA Award
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Sports Development recently won a Gold Award for Health Improvement at the COSLA Excellence Awards 2007 - the Scottish Local Government 'Oscars'.
The awards, which recognise outstanding quality of service to the public by councils across Scotland, attracted over 160 entries in its six categories. |
WDCs winning Community Regeneration Fund Sports Development Project, focuses on delivering a programme of pre-school age sport for 3-5 year olds and after-school sport for 8-12 year olds. It also targets local people aged 14 years and over as volunteers and sports coaches. In addition, a programme of multi-sports festivals for local 8-16 year olds is delivered on an annual basis.
The project's innovative approach has enabled the council's Sports Development Unit to become the first in Scotland to deliver sports programmes in 100% of local authority managed Early Education and Childcare Centres (EECC's).
All programmes delivered by the project are free to ensure activities are available to all young people. There are currently over 2,100 children participating in the programme every week, which highlights the cost effectiveness and the impact that it has had in the area.
Project co-ordinator Ian Crawford said: "The costs to deliver this project to 3 -12 year olds (only £0.33 per child per week) are minimal when compared to the benefits that have been received by our residents. This also highlights how successfully limited financial resources have been used to create maximum impact."
