Coach Core’s £20 million difference

In 2012, The Royal Foundation granted the Greenhouse Charity the funds required to support 20 young people into a Coach Core apprenticeship, which set in motion two things that continue to this day:
a) A recognition that developing young people who require additional support and training demands additional resources and capacity from employers. In the sport for change sector, those funds are hard to come by.
b) By us supporting some of these costs, we are able to help open more doors to young people to realise their talent and become an asset to business and their local community.

In 2024 we achieved the milestone of 1000 apprentices, and we have now partnered directly with over 250 employers – from national governing bodies right through to micro, local businesses and charities – all working towards the same goals; to provide the right young talent the opportunity to thrive and bring new energy and possibilities to their business.

Most of these organisations have received a Coach Core grant, typically £3,500, across the term of the apprenticeship. Whilst there are Government grants of £1,000 available to ‘Small Medium Employers’ (SME’s) to take on an 16-18 year old, this is simply not enough when their ambition is to support learners who present additional challenges. This is where our additional grant can make all the difference. Employers are able to access this regardless of apprentice age and are free to use that grant for the purposes of supporting their apprentice, both personally and professionally. Some use this grant to ‘top up’ the salary of their apprentice, whilst others use it to pay for additional training, qualifications, travel costs or other expenses linked to employing a young apprentice. Regardless of how they use it, this financial support is hugely valuable to employers, at a time when budgets are increasingly stretched.

We also provide a number of benefits, in addition to this financial aid including:

• Unlocking national apprenticeship funding – via our training provider – to support the education costs, alongside any Government grants available to employers too.
• Memberships to key bodies and services, such as UK Coaching and CIMSPA, that we have leveraged at no cost to our employers or young people.
• Additional events, training and development opportunities for apprentices that grow their skills, experiences and competencies in the workplace, again, with no cost to employers or our apprentices.

To date, we have granted over £3.5 million to our employer partners that has in turn unlocked a direct value of another £17.5 million. We are extremely proud of this economic and social impact, but as per our bold new strategy – Project 1500 – we want to do so much more. We know that young people entering the workplace feel less prepared than ever (Youth Voice Census 2024) and we are committed to increasing our fundraising efforts, and reviewing our employer grants, to address these challenges and equip more employers and young people to join the Coach Core family.

We will also be conducting further academic research to better understand the current recruitment climate and the barriers facing employers who want to employ a young apprentice but perhaps struggle to do so. We would also like to understand the wider socioeconomic impact Coach Core is having by placing a marginalised young person into employment across a 15-18 month term, versus the consequences of them staying economically inactive and at potential risk. After commissioning work with the Sport and Recreation Alliance in 2022-23, we also know that our apprentices enable a powerful, positive ripple effect in their local community through the sport and physical activity they are bringing to their local area. Indeed, these 1,000 apprentices have provided 1,042,865 coaching sessions to 14,600,115 participants, all in the areas that need it most and which in turn has a higher significance on the health and happiness in that given community.

For example, Claire is a current apprentice with Hattrick, a community SME based Newcastle and Gateshead. She not only provides much needed sports coaching in a deprived area but also leverages her personal journey with mental health challenges to support others. Claire’s ‘W Group’ programme creates a safe, empathetic space for women to address mental health issues, while her Active Mums initiative offers tailored postnatal fitness sessions to help new mothers regain their health and confidence. Claire’s lived experience allows her to connect deeply with participants, demonstrating how our apprentices use their skills and experiences to foster wellbeing and build supportive communities.

Whilst we’re extremely proud to have supported employers in this way – via the grant and the additional ‘value add’ we provide each programme – we also wish this didn’t have to be the case. According to City and Guilds, only an astonishing 4% of employers fully utilise their Apprenticeship Levy funding. The ‘use it or lose it’ policy has led to over £3 billion returned to the Treasury in the past three years. With employers facing real recruitment challenges amid rising costs, or simply using the funds to retrain existing staff members through higher level apprenticeships, it’s clear that the current system is flawed. This has ultimately resulted in a notable decline in entry-level apprenticeships, with a reported 41% drop in starts for those under 19 between 2015/16 and 2022/23 (FE News).

We certainly are not campaigning for Apprenticeship Levy to be used to cover salary costs, as that would set up entirely the wrong motivations for businesses to want to bring in apprentices to their organisations. However, we do want to see those existing funds repurposed to help businesses bring more young talent back into their organisations. We feel by simply means testing the profile of a young person and ensuring they are being given a Level 2 or Level 3 apprenticeship, excess levy funds could be granted to employers to support the additional costs this usually incurs.

As we have shown above, the wider impact this has locally, and to the wider economy, would be transformational. If free from having to raise funds for employer grants, Coach Core could then enhance its offer to provide even greater depth of additional training, mentoring and support to our employers and apprentices. We are extremely enthused by Labour’s pledge to support the skills and health agenda and obviously feel we can play our part in achieving those ambitions as we have done for the last 13 years. We would welcome dialogue with ministers on this and will also continue to build a bigger platform on which our young people can have their voice heard too. In the meantime, we will work with dedicated supporters to raise funds and create opportunities that will change lives. If you can support us in our goals over the next three years, we would be thrilled to hear from you. Coach Core’s achievements have always been built on partnerships and collaboration, and as we bring more organisations on this journey, we can further improve the long-term prospects for young people. It really is as simple as that.