Knight Kavanagh & Page (KKP) has been appointed to assess the feasibility of West Yorkshire Sport becoming an organisation with independent legal status. The process will include consultation with key partners to develop and test recommendations plus an assessment of the suitability of various legal structures relative to its current situation.

It is one of 49 CSPs in England. Originally founded by the five West Yorkshire local authorities to implement Active Sports, it has grown into an extensive sub-regional partnership and network of organisations and groups delivering a wide range of programmes and activities.

It is currently hosted by Kirklees Council (KC) and financial and human resource related risk is shared by the five local authority partners. Due to the change in the emphasis and nature of funding from Sport England the Partnership Board is keen to ascertain whether it could operate as a more sustainable structure offering services to a broader range of providers.

There are other examples of CSPs set up as independent legal organisations; Greater (Manchester) Sport, WesSport, Lincolnshire and Sussex; but is a similar approach right for West Yorkshire Sport? KKP will be evaluating the following options:

• A re-enforced hosted arrangement, within which services both purchased and received in kind from the host organisation are valued and audited (current position).
• A company limited by guarantee (CLG) - with or without charitable status.
• A community interest company (CIC).
• Becoming part of an already established independent organisation.

We shall weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of each against the current arrangement covering both technical aspects of a potential change of status: the implications for finance, human resources and governance arrangements and the potential benefits in the context of other funding and contractual partner perceptions.

KKP is ideally placed to deliver this: it is the pre-eminent UK consultancy in sports development and a leading practice in partnership and procurement work. We prepare (and implement) major reviews and reorganisations of corporate management structures and have conducted management options appraisals for CSPs, local authorities and NGBs throughout the UK.

We undertook the earlier Sport England commissioned ‘fitness for purpose' evaluation of West Yorkshire Sport (along with its eight counterparts in Yorkshire and the North West). More recently, we evaluated the effectiveness of Lincolnshire Sport. We deliver work of this type for CSPs across England and in Ireland where all such partnerships are limited companies.

For more information, contact John Eady, Chief Executive - john.eady@kkp.co.uk