To ask the Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure for a breakdown of the Sports Matters Monitoring Group by (i) age; and (ii) gender.

Membership of the Sport Matters Monitoring Group is set out in the Terms of Reference for the Group. The Terms of Reference states that the Group will be chaired by the Minister and members will include: -

Senior officials from Government Departments - DCAL, DHSSPS, DE, DSD, DEL and DARD;

Senior representatives from Sport NI, the NI Sports Forum and the NI Environment Agency; and

a representative of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives.

The Terms of Reference outlines the role of the Sport Matters Monitoring Group and does not impose age or gender criteria on the membership of that Group. In addition, organisations can choose, with agreement of the Chair, to send a different representative to meetings if required.

As DCAL does not ask members to declare their age, this information is not held by the Department. As such, I am unable to provide you with the information you seek in this regard.

In addition, while the gender make up of the Group does vary between meetings there is no requirement to formally record this. You may wish to refer to the Terms of Reference for, and minutes of meetings held by, the Sport Matters Monitoring Group which are publically available on the DCAL website and can be accessed via the following link:

http://www.dcalni.gov.uk/index/sport/sport_matters/sport_matters_monitoring_group.htm