Major spectator sports in England will receive a combined £300 million cash injection to protect their immediate futures over the winter period, the Government has announced.

The Sports Winter Survival Package will support sports – from national governing bodies through to clubs – impacted by coronavirus restrictions.

The funding, which will be largely composed of loans, is the most generous of any Government for its domestic sport sector in the world, and will focus on sports severely impacted over the winter.

Support will be provided to rugby union, horse racing, women’s football and the lower tiers of the National League. Rugby League, motorsport, tennis, netball, basketball, ice hockey, badminton and greyhound racing are also in line to benefit.

Preliminary allocations have been made on a needs based assessment process and reflect the submissions made from the individual sports, and the funding process will be overseen by an independent decision-making board and supported by Sport England.

Today’s announcement builds on support the government has already given the sport sector to help it stay afloat during this difficult time. Earlier this year the Government stepped in to protect rugby league with £16 million in emergency loans, and in October announced that £100 million would be provided to support council-run leisure centres most in need. Sport England announced a £220 million emergency fund for grassroots clubs in April.

These interventions were on top of the multi-billion pound package of business support from the Treasury that have enabled many sports clubs and leisure businesses to survive, including the furlough scheme and business interruption loan scheme. Sports have accessed many hundreds of millions of pounds of support through this.

Oliver Dowden, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, said:

Sports clubs are the beating hearts of their communities, and this £300 million boost will help them survive this difficult winter period.

We promised to stand by sports when we had to postpone fans returning. We are doing just that by delivering another £300 million on top of existing business support schemes.

Britain is a sports powerhouse, and this Government will do everything we can to help our precious sports and clubs make it through covid.

Nigel Huddleston, Sports Minister, said:

Over the past few weeks we have worked tirelessly with sport governing bodies and clubs across the country to fully assess what support is needed, as a result of the decision to postpone the return of fans.

We know the vast majority of sports – many of which operate on tight financial margins – have been making serious cost reductions, such as locking down grounds, taking up the furlough scheme for many staff and halting excess payments.

Whilst the Government’s overall economic package has provided a significant buffer, it is absolutely right that we now intervene to protect entire sports, and the communities they support, as we navigate this pandemic.

Steve Barclay, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said:

Sport is a key part of our national life, an important contributor to our economy and a key hub within many communities.

Protecting that sporting heritage and supporting as many jobs within the sports sector as possible is an important step in ensuring that our economy can bounce back from the impacts of the covid pandemic. Alongside this financial support, we now need to ensure that fans can return to sports events as soon as it is safe to do so.

Tim Hollingsworth, Chief Executive of Sport England, said:

These are unprecedented times for our sector, and those sports and leagues that rely so heavily on spectators for their income that have been especially impacted by the pandemic. The role they play in their local communities is vital and this package of support from Government will be hugely welcomed.

Alongside our wider support for grassroots and community sport, Sport England is working very closely with Government colleagues on the design of this fund and we look forward to playing a key role in its successful and swift delivery.

Full details on the Sports Winter Survival Package, including when it will open, eligibility and how to apply, will be announced by Sport England in due course. It is expected that the first tranche of funding will be distributed in the coming weeks.

ENDS

Notes to editor

Preliminary breakdown of funding by sport, based on needs assessment:

Rugby Union: £135 million

• Rugby Football Union: £44 million
• Premiership Rugby clubs: £59 million
• Championship Rugby clubs: £9 million
• Rugby clubs below Championship: £23 million

Horseracing: £40 million

• Racecourses: £40 million

Rugby League: £12 million

Motorsport: £6 million

• Owners/operators of major circuits (Silverstone, Goodwood, The British Automobile Racing Club, MotorSport Vision): £6 million

Tennis: £5 million

• Lawn Tennis Association: £5 million

Netball: £4 million

• England Netball: £2 million
• Super League Netball: £2 million

Basketball: £4 million

• Basketball England: £1 million
• British Basketball League clubs (including Women’s British Basketball League clubs): £3 million

Ice Hockey: £4 million

• Elite League: £4 million

Badminton: £2 million

• Badminton England: £2 million

Greyhound racing: £1 million

• Greyhound Board of Great Britain: £1 million

Please note these are all indicative figures based upon provisional returns provided to DCMS to produce an initial assessment of need. Each sport will need to go through an application process to access the support they are eligible for under the final design of the scheme. The final amount received by each sport/organisation may differ from the amounts set out above when final decisions are made by an independent decision-making board, and supported by Sport England.

The devolved administrations have been provided with an upfront guarantee this year of £16 billion above their Spring Budget 2020 funding to support their response to Covid-19. It is for the devolved administrations to decide how to use this funding irrespective of how UK government provides support in England.

Christopher Michael Hutcheson (72) of Wrotham Heath, Kent, received a four-year Bankruptcy Restrictions Order (BRO) from the High Court.

He is now banned from running limited companies and must disclose his status when he attempts to secure £500 or more in credit.

The Official Receiver found that Christopher Hutcheson had transferred his share of the sale proceeds of his family home in September 2017 amounting to more than £328,000.

Christopher Hutcheson transferred the money five months before applying for his own bankruptcy in February 2018 despite having promised the proceeds of the sale to the tax authorities, the court heard.

The Judge found that some of the evidence put forward by Christopher Hutcheson to explain these transactions were disingenuous.

A Bankruptcy Restrictions Order was made at the High Court by Chief Insolvency and Companies Judge Briggs on 5 November.

Fiona Cushley, Deputy Official Receiver at the Insolvency Service, said:

Christopher Hutcheson disposed of his only tangible asset to his wife knowing that this money should be shared amongst all of his creditors.

Christopher Hutcheson was in business for many years and knew how the tax regime works. This transfer only happened after the tax authorities started asking for payment.

The result of this case shows that further restrictions can be made if people do not follow the rules of bankruptcy and the Insolvency Service will not hesitate to take action where appropriate.

Christopher Michael Hutcheson is of Wrotham Heath in Kent and his date of birth is 14/05/1948.

He was the former Chief Executive of Gordon Ramsay Holdings Limited.

Bankruptcy restrictions are wide ranging. The effects are the same whether you are subject to a bankruptcy restrictions order or to an undertaking. Guidance on the main statutory consequences flowing from a bankruptcy restrictions order or undertaking.

Further information about the work of the Insolvency Service, and how to complain about financial misconduct.

You can also follow the Insolvency Service on:

On Wednesday the National Audit Office (NAO) published their report into government procurement during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the height of the crisis in April, health services around the world faced an unprecedented urgent situation where demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) far exceeded supply, and global production and supply chains were under severe pressure. The British Medical Association rightly warned at the time that “no doctor should ever have to be in harm’s way when they go to work”. The government pledged to do whatever it took to protect the people who protect us, deploying hundreds of officials to work night and day to source as much PPE as quickly as possible to protect the NHS and care sector and save lives.

We welcome the NAO report which recognises that the government ‘needed to procure with extreme urgency’ and ‘secured unprecedented volumes of essential supplies necessary to protect front-line workers’. So far we have delivered over 4.4 billion items of PPE to the frontline with over 32 billion items on order to ensure a continuous supply over the next few months. We are proud of our response and pay tribute to the hard work of officials who have secured these supplies.

We also note the NAO’s recent investigation of the government’s efforts to increase NHS ventilator capacity, which found that we put in place effective programme management, controlled costs where we could and recovered some costs where appropriate.

The government has rigorous due diligence and robust processes in place for contracts. These processes are led by impartial officials with commercial expertise and as the NAO acknowledged, they found no evidence ministers were involved in procurement decisions.

The vast majority of the PPE procured by the government during the coronavirus crisis met the required clinical safety standards, which is especially impressive given the supply chain issues, the urgency of the situation and the need to explore novel routes. So far only 0.5% of products bought have not met our high clinical standards. We note that governments and public authorities across the UK and around the world faced similar pressures and equivalent challenges.

We thank the NAO for their work, which was based on an analysis of just 20 out of 8,600 contracts. We have always accepted that there are lessons to be learned from how we responded to this unprecedented global pandemic and the government is fully committed to doing so. We will address the report’s recommendations in due course.

Claim: The government ‘ripped up’ procurement rules

Response: This is untrue. All procurement has been done under existing procurement regulations, which predate the pandemic and explicitly allow for emergency procedures, as set out under paragraph 32 2.c of the Public Contract Regulation 2015. Many other countries including Japan, New Zealand and Finland, allow similar approaches to procurement, using direct awards to speed up the process of sourcing PPE to protect frontline workers. Direct awards were made by public authorities across the UK, with the Welsh Government adopting central government guidance on emergency procurement, including direct awards. We make no apology for doing everything to secure as much PPE as quickly as possible.

The shortest amount of time possible to run a competition is 25 days. Therefore in situations of genuine crisis, and extreme urgency, as presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, it was important that we acted quickly and decisively to secure the necessary PPE for front line medical and other services.

The NAO report itself recognises the need for urgency. In their report they say that “in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, public bodies have needed to procure enormous volumes of goods, services and works with extreme urgency” (page 5), and our procurement activity “secured unprecedented volumes of essential supplies necessary to protect front line workers”.

Claim: There was a ‘secret referrals’ inbox

Response: This is untrue, the inbox was available across government and with MPs.

The government received over 15,000 offers of support from businesses to help with PPE, and MPs were inundated with offers of help from their constituents. MPs rightly were keen to pass on offers.

The government remains hugely grateful for the outpouring of offers of help and the high priority mailbox allowed officials to more quickly assess offers from more credible sources, such as large companies with established contacts and more capable of suppling at speed. The government also ensured that offers of support raised by Opposition MPs, including in the letter of the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster of 22 April, were dealt with expeditiously.

As the NAO report notes, all PPE offers, no matter from where they came, went through the same eight step official assurance process, including quality checks, price controls and other due diligence. This eight step process has been published in the NAO’s report.

Claim: There are ministerial conflicts of interest in the government’s procurement

Response: We completely reject this. As the NAO makes clear “we found that the ministers had properly declared their interests, and we found no evidence of their involvement in procurement decisions or contract management” (pg 10, para11).

Claim: There has been a lack of transparency in the government’s procurement efforts

Response: We publish all contracts as part our commitment to transparency. We regret that some contracts have not been uploaded in a timely fashion as a result of prioritising staff’s time on securing life saving PPE for the NHS. All will be published as soon as possible and significant information is already available online.

Claim: Work started before contracts were put in place

Response: In line with the rules for urgent procurement, and due to the urgency of the work required to respond to the unprecedented situation, in some cases work started before final contract details were put in place. All PPE procurement went through the same eight checks, including quality checks, price controls and other due diligence, and assessed against the same standards.

Claim: There was a lack of transparency on how contracts were awarded

Response: All offers were prioritised by officials based on volume, price, clinical acceptability and lead time. Suppliers were selected based on the product type, forecasted delivery dates, rigorous technical compliance and due diligence checks. These checks included company due diligence checks and systematic price benchmarking.

At the start of the pandemic, guidance was issued by Cabinet Office outlined that procuring with extreme urgency was permissible under the regulatory framework. The guidance referred to the need to keep proper records of decisions, transparency and publication requirements and the need to achieve value for money and use good commercial judgement during any direct award. This guidance is publicly available here