Sport England funding should be rebalanced in favour of locally-led organisations and away from national governing bodies (NGBs), according to the Local Government Association (LGA).

In its submission to the quango’s consultation on the government’s Sporting Future sport strategy, the LGA said that councils and their local partners were “well placed to lead a step-change in sports participation rates that will improve the nation’s physical and mental wellbeing”.

“Not only are councils the biggest public sector investor in sport and physical activity, spending £1.4bn (US$2bn, €1.7bn) per year, but their understanding of communities enables them to target opportunities and encourage mass participation,” said the submission.

“The LGA would like to see a rebalancing of funding from national interventions to a more local one, with councils of all types able to access as many funding programmes as possible with the flexibility to develop locally led solutions to tackle inactivity.”

According to the body – which is recognised as the voice of local government – councils were able to bring schools, voluntary sports clubs, NGBs, health and the private sector together to create partnerships which could achieve some of the objectives of Sporting Future.

In addition, the LGA said that councils and County Sports Partnerships (CSPs) were “best placed” to coordinate locally-led sport and physical activity delivery, but recognised the need to review the system.

“There are a number of CSPs that are hosted by councils and these arrangements have generally worked well,” said the LGA. “However, in some areas CSPs and councils do not appear to be working as well as they could do and the review provides an opportunity to examine where CSPs and councils work well together and the reasons for this and where they do not.

“The review also provides an opportunity to examine the working relationships between CSPs, Sport England and councils who do not have sport or physical activity development officers.”

Former Loughborough MP Andy Reed has been appointed by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to carry out the review.

To read the LGA’s full submission click here.