How we invest

High Performance Sport New Zealand is a Government-funded organisation with an annual budget of about $60 million a year. High Performance Sport NZ invests in the high performance programmes of national sports organisations and provides performance and support services to New Zealand’s elite athletes.

In the 2009/10 year, the Government announced a massive funding injection for high performance sport: an extra $10 million in 2010/11, increasing to $15 million in 2011/12, and $20 million annually after that. This means that in 2012/13, funding for high performance sport will be more than $60 million a year.

High Performance Sport NZ also invests in a network of world-class training and competition facilities. These include the National Training Centre in Auckland, high performance centres at Wellington and Dunedin, a national cycling centre of excellence based at Cambridge, the high performance centre for rowing at Lake Karapiro, and an ocean water sports centre in Auckland. The Government remains committed to providing high performance training facilities for Canterbury-based athletes as part of the earthquake recovery plan.

Approaches

High Performance Sport NZ invests in several targeted sports, including the six Olympic disciplines of athletics, bike, rowing, swimming, triathlon, and yachting, as well as the sports of rugby, cricket and netball.

We also run a contestable process for investing in projects involving other high performance sports. These sports are required to use this investment solely for achieving agreed objectives around results at pinnacle events. High Performance Sport NZ evaluates projects based on their ability to deliver the following outcomes:

  • creditable Olympic Games performances (ability to move beyond first round for team sports, top 16 placing for individual sports);
  • medal-winning world championship/world cup performances
  • medal-winning Paralympic Games performances
  • medal-winning Commonwealth Games performances.

Reviews of multi-year projects are used to assess how the contestable sports have performed against objectives and to assess the following year's investment, including any service credits. Service credits are allocated to some contestable sports (hockey, equestrian, Winter Performance Programme, canoe racing, Paralympics and women’s football) for performance services supplied by High Performance Sport NZ. Service credit levels in 2012 are expected to remain at 2011 levels for these sports. Any additional performance services identified in plans will need to be purchased out of the sport’s contestable high performance investment.

The reviews provide some opportunity for contestable sports to identify resource gaps that have arisen the previous year, and to demonstrate a genuine performance need for additional support.

Minimal additional investment will be available in 2012 as investment will be prioritised toward delivering 2012 outcomes. Additional investment will only be allocated where a sport can demonstrate a genuine resource gap. See the 2011 High Performance Contestable Investment Process for more information about applying for high performance investment for new projects and how existing multi-year projects will be reviewed.

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