UK Sport has been presented with the Institute for Government’s Inspiration for Government award.
The Institute for Government’s core mission is to promote the efficiency and effectiveness of government. The Inspiration for Government award recognises “excellent examples of inspirational thinking and practice”.
The award was given to UK Sport in recognition its work to develop ‘Mission 2012’, a reporting process used to support British Olympic and Paralympic sports’ and athletes’ performance programmes in preparation for London 2012.
‘Mission 2012’ tracked the performance and progress of Olympic and Paralympic sports in the run-up to the Games, helping sports to identify the issues and challenges they faced in hitting their respective performance ambitions and finding ways of dealing with them quickly and effectively. This process has now been adopted by winter sports in preparation for Sochi 2014, and will be continued by summer sports in preparation for Rio 2016.
The Award was presented to UK Sport Chair Baroness Sue Campbell this week, at an event hosted by the Institute for Government designed to explore the lessons that can be learned throughout Government by the successful delivery of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
On presenting the Inspiration for Government Award to UK Sport, Director of the Institute for Government Peter Riddell said: “The Institute for Government gave UK Sport an ‘Inspiration for Government’ award to recognise their role in helping UK elite athletes compete to their fullest potential in the 2012 Games and bring in an impressive medal tally of 65 Olympic medals and 120 Paralympic medals.
“In particular we wanted to celebrate their work on ‘Mission 2012’ - a reporting process that tracked the performance and progress of Olympic and Paralympic sports in the run-up to the Games. This information enabled UK Sport to set medal targets in cooperation with the sports themselves. They did this with a high level of transparency, regularly inviting the press to look at progress and publishing the final Olympic and Paralympic targets ahead of London 2012.
“IfG has championed the more systematic use of management information to drive performance in government departments. On ‘Mission 2012’ UK Sport stands out.”
The Institure for Government has also released a report this week called ‘Making the Games’, which examines the key factors that made the London 2012 Games successful.