England Netball is the National Governing Body and is responsible for all aspects of Netball in England. The Head Office, situated in Hitchin, Hertfordshire deals with the day-to-day administration of the Association through its full and part time employees. In addition, various aspects of the work are dealt with by a network of full and part time people working for the Association in the Counties and Regions, carrying out specific roles to ensure continued growth and development of the sport.
For provision for Elite athletes, they are identified at an average age of between 13 and 15 and put into a developmental programme which takes between two and four years to prepare them for the national / development squads. The talent squad itself is a two-tiered programme that takes in approximately 60 talented performers in year one; and move approximately 50% of those performers to phase two. Performance standards for each tier of development determine this movement.
Teachers in schools and coaches in clubs will be able to recommend athletes for selection into Satellite Academies within Active Sports (see attached Active Sports section). These recommendations must be in accordance with the England Netball Performance Standards. Sport England has also come up with proposals for a number of governing bodies, as well as regional consortiums, in order to provide a new tier of events. All this will be under the working title of Active Sports Talent Camps. These will all eventually give the young sportspeople the opportunity to easily break into the professional game, either through scouting or youth academies.
Sport England funds the All England Netball Association (AENA) with Exchequer and Lottery cash. Netball has been named as one of the 10 England priority sports. In the immediate future, Sport England will be working closely with the Association to produce a business plan for the sport, which includes funding.Sport England’s target is to be number one in the world at Netball, which currently they are 4th.
The policy of England Netball regarding men’s and boy’s participation in netball is as follow: England Netball and International Federation of Netball Association (IFNA) rules state that single sex competition only is permitted, but England Netball has issued the following guidelines which should apply to all netball activities for young people aged eleven and under (school years 6 and below) and in curriculum time.
England Netball is committed to providing and promoting equal opportunities in Netball and its first fully co-ordinated National Disability Development Plan was launched in 1996. The plan now addresses the issues of accessibility for disabled people, not only to the Netball court, but also to opportunities and courses for coaches, umpires, other officials and administrators. In addition, it focuses on awareness training for coaches, umpires and volunteers, to ensure that people with disabilities may enjoy the highest quality experiences through the game of Netball. Wheelchair netball consists of a 7-a-side game which maintains all the characteristics of Netball, but with modifications to the rules covering travelling and playing the ball. There are no disabled netball teams in the Nottinghamshire area reasons being there are not many people with disability who would join in but people who have disabilities are able to go to clubs and join in practices and games.