BUSINESS UPDATE

To LTA Councillors From Scott Lloyd Purpose of paper To provide a business update Date 2 December 2020 Confidentiality Can be shared with County / Association Committee

Participation (OS)

 The upward trend in once-a-year participation has continued through the autumn months; the end of October reporting that nearly 4m people across GB have played at least once in the last year – this is versus an original target of 3.6m and a revised target for 2020 of 3.8m. The growth in once a month participation flattened in October and given lockdown in November we will now not hit our target of 1.4m. The target for once a week kid’s participation will report in December as part of Sport England’s Active Lives Kids Survey (Appendix 1 – Business Dashboard).

 The team have done a good job in continuing to drive adoption of Rally and Gate Access systems as part of the cross business approach to the accessibility strategy. There is a further opportunity to drive adoption of Rally with the planned ‘Weather the Court’ winter player retention campaign, which will go live once tennis can be played post lockdown.

 Furthermore, good progress has been made against a number of key strategic deliverables including; venue adoption of gate access systems, the new competition management system, the integration of and growth plan for Local Tennis Leagues, the new venue registration proposition, further development of the club support toolkit which is at the forefront of the autumn forums, as well as the re-launch of our important SERVES and Open Court programmes.

Sport England

 Our relationship with Sport England continues to be strong. This was going to be the final year of their funding cycle but, as a result of COVID, they have agreed to roll-forward the same funding amount as this year for 2021-22. We will shortly be agreeing with them how this money will be spent and what objectives we will need to report against in return for the funding. Our delayed end-year performance review went well and, on the back of that meeting and discussion around driving good governance down through County & Island Associations, they agreed to provide extra funding of £15k to support the consultation process and governance framework development with Counties (see further update below).

 They are in the process of finishing the consultation process around their new 10-year strategy, which will be published early in the new year. We have already engaged extensively on the development of the strategy so far, but will also be inputting into this final stage in the next couple of weeks. This strategy is expected to focus significantly on addressing stubborn inequalities in participation in sport and physical activity. It will drive funding from 2022-23 onwards and our “bid” into the next funding cycle will be a key focus for next year.

Regional delivery

 Since the last report, the Regional Teams have been focussing on delivering the revised post-COVID dashboard measures as well as continuing to provide key club and venue support services. However, since the beginning of November we have been operating at reduced capacity with nearly half the teams on furlough. In this context, the teams have done an excellent job to:

o deliver a wide range of club forums with over 50 webinars covering 14 different topics ranging from Governance, to Court Utilisation and Programming, to Social Media and Marketing, and with over 1,400 attendees currently booked to attend so far; o continue to drive venues to adopt Rally – with 900 venues adopting Rally versus a target of 650; o increase the rate of Gate Access approvals in each of the months since the last Board report – in spite of the challenges faced as a result of local authorities being understandably focussed on other things – with a strong pipeline of potential sites being built for Q1 and further into 2021; o find innovative ways of delivering services to clubs, coaches and players – including working very quickly with the COO Directorate to be able to shift all coach training in LTA Youth on line; innovating delivery in the provision of She Rallies courses in order to hit the target for the year; and, until the lockdown started, being on track to get at least 75% of Open Court and SERVES venues back up and running on the programme.

The focus through to the end of the year will be primarily on:

o ensuring as many of the remaining dashboard targets which are able to be delivered in spite of lockdown are fully achieved – including supporting venues and coaches during the Venue Registration (and associated Safeguarding standards) process; o planning for 2021 delivery in as flexible and cost-efficient a way as possible, including bottom-up target generation; o reviewing delivery performance in 2020 and using the outputs to plan and implement a continuous improvement plan for the regional teams addressing identified skills gaps; o ensuring there is an effective pipeline of activity with local authorities for 2021 in order to achieve continued growth with the accessibility strategy.

Clubs, Counties and Volunteering

 We continue to focus on delivering Venue Registration and our calendar of Club Forum Webinars, as well as kick starting the new County Governance Reform Project. All of these projects are supported by TDC work streams, which have been very helpful in terms of ongoing engagement.

 Venue Registration has been developed with careful consideration to complement both the new LTA Membership and Wimbledon Ticketing Review projects to drive towards our strategic objectives. An obvious example of this is the new Volunteer ballot which spans all three projects, from nominating volunteers through Registration to volunteers opting in via the new Membership portal, to the balloting and allocation of volunteer tickets. The launch of the new LTA Venue Registration proposition was slightly delayed, meaning it was agreed to push timelines out to tolerable limits to cater for the overrun. An aligned communications plan has been deployed to mitigate the risks associated with the delay and as of the 23 November over 600 venues have successfully registered and a further circa 1,000 are in progress, with a further launch to LA’s and new park and education sites planned for 26th November.

 The club support toolkit is complete, offering guidance, practical resources and wherever relevant, partners who can support clubs across the areas of; governance & management, membership growth, membership retention, programming & court utilisation and financial sustainability. All of this support is being brought to life through a calendar of club webinars that are running throughout October and November. As well as our own content, some sessions have been delivered by our Digital partner, Deloitte, to support clubs improve their digital skills and capabilities. A handful of Counties have also delivered their own webinars to discuss local issues and reinforce some of the support available. We’ve had over 1,400 bookings to date and initial feedback tells us that 99% of attendees thought the content was relevant and 87% would likely recommend the content to another club. We’ll continue to deliver the remaining sessions and then review ahead of developing our programme of support for 2021.

 Our plans for volunteer engagement were been put on hold this year due to COVID-19, however we have kicked off a new project around County & Island Association Governance Reform, which will look at the role of the Counties, implementing a new County Governance Framework, putting in place a County Registration process as well as reviewing and overhauling the current county funding model. We’ve appointed Counsel, an independent party to support with a consultation exercise, as we want to ensure all Counties are given the opportunity to feed into the process and ultimately the co-creation of a new County Governance Framework. We expect the consultation to kick off during December and into January. We have also started the LTA Awards process for 2021, with nominations closing on the 15th November.

 Finally, the club health and volunteer engagement surveys are back up and running and we’ve seen some strong results in the last three months. Our year-end target is an average across the year, and we hope to keep the positive momentum going through the club webinars and ongoing engagement through the regional delivery team and targeted communications.

Parks and Community Tennis

 Continuing work on the Gate Access Project has seen the number of venues receiving an installation increase. Excellent cross functional work has continued to ‘unlock’ some key Local Authorities, with Bedford and Birmingham being of particular note as LA’s who were previously not engaging with this opportunity but are now bought in, and working on applications.

 The number of venues making courts or coaching sessions available to book on Rally has increased to over 900, which is broken down in to 720 venues offering courts on a ‘Pay and Play’ or ‘Free to Play’ basis to members of the public, and 193 venues offering coaching sessions. There are also a further 279 coaching organisations making sessions available to the general public on Rally. Encouragingly these numbers have continued to rise steadily over the autumn and winter period, following a sharper increase in the summer months. Involvement in the ‘Weather the Court’ campaign will encourage venues continued engagement with LTA Rally, with players who re-connected with tennis in the summer continuing to book courts throughout the winter months via the Rally platform.

 Tennis For Free relaunched 31 sites, with another 7 scheduled and a small number of immediate potential opportunities identified, when their progress was halted by the second lockdown, tracking slightly below target of 35 for end of Oct. TFF sessions did however manage to attract 1,105 unique players, which was ahead of their end of Oct target of 700.

 The re-launch plan for SERVES was progressing well, with 48% (vs year-end target of 75%) of venues delivering the programme again. However, the programme has now ceased temporarily due to the second lockdown and we will look to commence again as soon as it’s permitted.

 The engagement with our income generation support package through Oaks Consulting continues, with £215k worth of bids submitted during Q3, with £11k granted so far and £134k pending a decision. Additionally, we are currently finalising plans with The Change Foundation to conduct a thorough evaluation of the impact the SERVES programme has had, in preparation for the next Sport England funding bid submission.

 Finally, we are also making early preparations to integrate SERVES into the LTA Youth brand architecture, as a key product within the 4-18yr old audience.

Education

 The delivery of tennis in schools continues to be permitted during the second lockdown, as was the case during the previous tiered structure, thanks to the ‘education exemption’.

 Development of the new secondary school strand of LTA Youth Schools continues to progress well, however two weeks of content testing and filming at a school in Birmingham had to be postponed until January due to COVID-19, which will impact our ability to launch with all content in February.

 In terms of the two elements of the programme we’re intending to pilot in 2021:

o A long list of secondary school sites has been identified for the community access element of the new programme, which will see a small number schools targeted to implement our gate access technology. A modified version of the feasibility and modelling tool has been developed, which will accompany a range of other collateral.

o 13 schools have also been identified to participate in the ‘playground installations’ pilot, which is being managed through The Youth Sport Trust. This small pilot will test and evaluate the concept of playground markings, semi- permanent nets and rebound walls being installed in school playgrounds and what impact they have on engagement and visibility of LTA Youth.

 A plan has been developed with the support of the Marketing Team and EVERFI EdComs to re-launch the primary and launch the secondary strands in February 2021, as well as beginning to look at other moments throughout the year to engage with teachers.

 The majority (there are some exemptions) of tennis delivery in universities has ceased due to the second lockdown, however we are hopeful that it will commence again when the tiered structure is introduced, as it was previously allowable at all previous tiered levels thanks to the ‘education exemption’.

 Despite fears during the summer that student admissions would be significantly down on previous years, universities have in fact mostly fared well and there has been an overall increase in admissions. This has been positive for our new funding framework, with 18 of the 20 universities moving ahead as planned with their investment into tennis.

 Initial meetings have now been completed with most of the 18 universities and all original targets have been maintained, or in some cases increased. Two specific ‘stories’ include: The University of Bath increasing its tennis club from 340 members to 500+ and The University of Nottingham selling out 152 tennis slots in three minutes.

 On the competition front, the start of the BUCS season was postponed for all sports until January and detailed plans are currently being made to see the 346 tennis teams begin their delayed season. However, working closely with BUCS, we were able to stage two qualifying tournaments for the BUCS individual championships, one of the few sports able to stage any national events in the Autumn term.

 There has been increased interest and desire to promote the continuing success of the sector to players coming through the pathway and the piloting of the new University Tennis Options Workshops for players and parents has continued virtually. The scaling of this workshop forms one of the three recommendations of a paper soon to be finalised on how we should better engage with US college recruitment companies.

Competition

 We were pleased to complete the majority of the September and October competition programme before the second National Lockdown. The programme included rotations of the National, Regional and County Tours. We did have some challenges enforcing the COVID-19 guidelines with some coaches and parents at the National Tour competitions in October half-term which led to stronger messaging and additional interventions such as a wrist band for your plus one.

 The integration of LTL into the LTA has been successful, with only a few financial formalities to be completed. In addition, Local Tennis Leagues has continued to perform well, with over 6,800 unique players this year, which compares favourably with 2019 (7,300) especially when you consider the key spring and early summer months were missed due to COVID-19. We have been working on a growth plan for LTL from 2021-2023 and will also complete a review on the integration of LTL into the LTA in early 2020.

 As mentioned in previous reports we are still hoping to launch the World Tennis Number (WTN) in early 2021, however legal discussions at the time of writing are still ongoing principal to principal. These discussions are proving very frustrating given the counterparties reluctance to engage in reasonable negotiations, with the resulting delays impacting the movement of player and match data into a production environment in order to test the WTN and plan the go live.

 In the meantime, progress has been made on the communication and training plans to support ‘go live.’ This project has key interdependencies with LTA membership and the retirement of Siebel.

 The new Competitions Management System has now taken nearly 27k checkouts and over £600k of entry fee income. The majority of early technology related issues have now been resolved, and further feature developments will take place in Phase 2 to improve the user experience for parents and organisers.

 We would also like to congratulate the following British Officials who worked at the recent French Open: Robert Balmforth, Alison Hughes, James Keothavong, Jacob Miles, Scott Noble, Freya Pock, Kelly Thomson, Clare Wood.

 The 2021 Officiating Conference will be a series of virtual workshops this year during the week commencing 30th November. Key note speakers include Scott Lloyd, Dr Duncan Mascarenhas an Associate Professor from Edinburgh Napier University and top Football Referee Sam Allison. We will also present the final Officiating Strategy for 2021-23 with ABTO during this week.

 We are working closely with our colleagues in LTA Performance to plan the Junior International and National Domestic Calendar for 2021. We hope to increase the amount of GB competition for our juniors to pick up international ranking points due to missed opportunities this year due to COVID-19. We are also planning our County Cup, National League and Disability Calendars for 2021.

TENNIS WALES

 Tennis Wales continues to navigate the Covid-19 pandemic in partnership with the LTA, Welsh Government, Sport Wales and Welsh Sport Association. Local lockdowns followed by the Welsh ‘firebreak’ national lockdown had an impact on participation rates across Wales, significantly affecting six Community Indoor Tennis Centre’s (CITCs) and our tennis coaching providers, as well as stopping all competitive play and travel for training. Wales is now open with Covid-19 guidance in place although we expect further lockdowns in the not too distant future. Additional funding to navigate the pandemic has been secured from Sport Wales, enabling us to continue to invest in our ‘tennis opened up across Wales’ strategy through to the end of 2020 and ensure the sport remains in as healthy a position as possible.

 Work is underway on planning for 2021 by aligning tactics and objectives with the LTA and Sport Wales. Whilst there are numerous growth opportunities, there is a large amount of risk and uncertainty and the organisation will remain agile and disciplined when investing. Ensuring that tennis courts remain open throughout Wales and are safe for participants and for the people working and volunteering in tennis will remain our priority, whilst also progressing with our strategic development of the game as restrictions and revenue allow.

 The key tactical areas for 2021 include:

 Expanding our Tennis Wales in the Park initiative, with Tennis Wales investing into the management of identified parks across Wales. The initiative will target up to five additional park sites next year, all operated online using Clubspark and available on LTA Rally.

 Launching our new Coach Development Centre to increase the number of qualified and accredited tennis coaches in Wales. The CDC will deliver all LTA qualifications and CPD across Wales, as well as offer bursaries for underrepresented audiences in our coaching workforce such as women and participants from BAME communities in Wales as part of our strive for equality, diversity and inclusion.

 Embedding and integrating the new LTA Youth programme across registered places to play, coaches, schools and competition programmes. LTA Youth will not only provide a superb tennis journey for young people in Wales, but we will aim to tailor LTA Youth to be available in the Welsh language (legally required in Wales) and fully embedded into the new school curriculum coming into effect in 2022.

 Investing into talented Welsh tennis players in an inclusive way. Our improved County Performance Programme will be expanded to support 180-200 juniors aged U8 – U18 across North & South Wales, whilst we also aim to introduce a National Performance Programme for Wales’ top players with funding, trips, international travel and regular national coaching for junior, senior and wheelchair players from 2021, all aligned with the LTA Player Pathway.

 Tennis Wales remains on track to deliver a deficit budget for 2020, recognising the unprecedented year with COVID-19 impacting all areas of the sport whilst aligning plans, budget and tactics with the LTA for 2021 and beyond

TENNIS

 Tennis continues to be played in Scotland despite the current lockdown affecting England, despite Level 4 being the most restricted level in terms of lockdown measures, tennis is still able to be played outdoors and across local authority boundaries. This in an important factor which was negotiated with sportscotland support as it allows tennis club members who live in one Level to travel to another Level to play. Additionally, performance tennis has had special dispensation so that the National Academy and also the National Player Programme players can continue to train indoors in Level 4 at the University of Stirling. In addition GB National Academy players at Stirling can travel abroad to train and compete and are currently in Gran Canaria training and competing in an ITF event. Tennis Scotland continues to be very well supported by the LTA Communications Team which is hugely valuable in terms of the constant updates and changes in line with the multi-level restrictions in Scotland.

 The recent LTA tracker participation statistics for Scotland demonstrate growth of 6% over a rolling 12 month period. It is also hoped that once club registration is complete club membership will be another growth outcome thanks to all the activity during the summer and the high profile Play Your Way campaign by the LTA. As discussed above, participation has seen continued growth and one of the key priorities within this area is to provide more all year round play for Scotland. Working closely with the LTA and sportscotland within the Transforming Scottish Indoor Tennis Fund, projects are being worked on by the team to secure the desired target of ten new indoor tennis centres in key locations. As an addition to this, a meeting was held with Scottish Government representatives, sportscotland and the LTA regarding the Judy Murray proposed indoor tennis facility, which Tennis Scotland is feeding into and supporting.

 A Community Engagement Plan has been progressed in Scotland aligned to the excellent content within the LTA webinars but also with National Forums for clubs and coaches with key updates and topics. Work also continues to progress in terms of partnership with the Judy Murray Foundation and Tennis Scotland which the LTA has helped to support and develop. It is envisaged that this will see workforce developed in key locations including two new indoor centre locations next year. In addition the proposal includes JMF assisting TS to increase the number of females entering the coaching pathway. TS and LTA are waiting for final sign off from JMF before the programme starts in 2021.

 Competitions provision in Scotland has seen a number of events adapted and delivered through various forms of restrictions. This has been an important feature for tennis in Scotland with the feedback very positive in terms of the events and competitions delivered to help maintain player development and performance tennis as well as recreational competition.

 Padel Tennis has now been accepted by sportscotland and UK Sport and as such Tennis Scotland will be the governing body for Padel in Scotland to align with the position in England. Tennis Scotland will be updating their Articles to formally adopt Padel at the AGM next year.

 The performance strategy aligned to the LTA has seen continued progression. The RPDC Head Coach has recently been recruited and will see a former Australian Tennis Federation employee added to the team in January 2021. In addition two new Academy Coach roles have been recruited for the GB National Academy at Stirling and will start as soon as possible following one vacancy and one planned new role.

 Tennis Scotland has carried vacancies throughout the year versus the original LTA funding agreement in order to help facilitate and contribute to efficiency savings for the LTA and in turn aid funding of the Covid-19 support packages which Scottish based coaches and clubs benefited from. There is a plan to progress towards the original staffing structure committed to in 2021.

 Following four years with Tennis Scotland, Scott Martin the current Chair will be stepping down at the end of the year. The recruitment for the new Chair, in conjunction with the LTA, is on-going following recent interviews.

TENNIS DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

 The fifth TDC meeting of 2020 took place in November with the focus on; updating on progress made against the workstream objectives, as well as presentations on a variety of topics including; County Governance Reform project plan, County Dashboards, 2021 TDC Workstream objectives and the planned winter campaign, weather-the-court. A separate TDC update paper is included in the Board pack.

Central Operations (JP)

Strategy and Innovation

Digital Transformation Programme  The Digital Transformation Programme is progressing well – the current focus is on the new membership digital product launch which will be delivered in January, and ongoing work to complete the Digital Core. This work includes upgrading the Content Management System from Episerver version 7 to version 11 and migrating data from Two Circles into the LTA environment.  Following the ClubSpark update in the Digital Strategy presentation at the October Board meeting, negotiations on a new 3-year agreement have progressed well. The contract moves the focus to a partnership, with better mutually aligned objectives and outcomes, resulting in increased investment in the product roadmap by ClubSpark and a share of revenue for the LTA from its planned investments in accelerating digital adoption across the tennis network.

LTA Youth  Coach work stream: The second lockdown in England resulted in the implementation of a planned contingency training plan for coaches, with webinars replacing the face-to-face training originally planned. The training team of tutors, Workforce Development Partners, supported by the LTA Youth team, have received great feedback, and despite the impacts of COVID19 remain on track to exceed the target of training over 1,900 coaches. A series of videos to provide parents with clear information on the content & benefits of LTA Youth (including what they should expect to see within sessions at each stage) is currently being developed prior to the launch in March 2021.  Activator work stream: following on from the partnership announced earlier in the year with girl guiding, we are close to concluding another partnership with the Scouts that will provide a tennis offer to over 120,000 Beavers (6-8 year olds), who will earn their Activity badge on completion of a LTA Start (Tennis for Kids ) course.  Schools work stream: The new LTA Youth secondary schools programme is in development and on track to launch in February 2021, alongside a re-launch of primary schools. More detail can be found within the Participation Director’s report.  Adult Programme – (female focus) (see Appendix 2 for imagery) The adult programme refresh work has been completed and new video and lesson plan content is now available to coaches on the LTA website. The She Rallies end of year target for the number of females completing the “Intro to Level 1” course has been met. An end of year webinar with Judy and the She Rallies Ambassadors is planned for 1st December.

Padel  Last month, we received confirmation that the LTA has been officially recognised as the National Governing Body for Padel, with approval from Sport England, Sport Scotland and Sport Wales, with all three home country sports councils now recognising the sport as a discipline of tennis. The public announcement was aligned with a padel match between and Peter Crouch that featured on the BBC Children in Need’s 2020 Appeal Night . The LTA also released its blueprint for the growth of the sport – the Padel Development Plan – which collectively helped drive an uplift of 440% in padel web searches over the launch weekend.

Insight  Yearly participation continued to grow over the last quarter, now 8% ahead of the same time in 2019 (up to 3,992,597). A strong September (4.29% individual month score, +32% YoY) saw monthly participation stabilise compared to the past year, although the re-introduction of restrictions has impacted this slightly (-1% YoY to 1,348,217). The overall growth of participation can be seen across most age groups but similar to the last quarter, 16-34s are the main contributors.

 For the fourth month in a row, LTA’s reputation has remained constant at +40 net positive in October.

Marketing and Commercial

Performance vs Business Targets  Target of 750,000 fans on our database has been achieved.  We have exceeded our target of 2 million social interactions two months ahead of schedule (current total 2.28m)  We now have 346,000 social followers across our platforms and are on track for target of 360,000 by year end.

Progress  It’s early days for the customer engagement strategy, with much of our work focussed on developing the foundations, but we are seeing early signs of success with improved retention rates for Adult Team +1% (vs LY), and for Team Affiliate +19% (vs LY) in a year where the main benefits of membership were largely redundant.  Content plans continuing to improve awareness of tennis on social media with an increase of 34% in October 2020 vs 2019.  Launched TikTok in lockdown with repurposed Tennis at Home content, objective to attract and engage younger audiences in time to build a following ahead of LTA Youth launch.

Upcoming  Winter Campaign #Weatherthecourt developed to retain new players over the winter months. Humorous and creative take on using the bad weather as a reason to play!  Tennis in lockdown - dedicated content around health and fitness and keeping tennis going off the court and at home  Davis Cup 5th Anniversary Win content stream, featuring Andy Murray, with accounts from players and fans

Commercial  Market conditions / COVID- 19: The second lockdown has resulted in a more cautious approach to sponsorship activity. Brands are being extremely cautious on spend for 2021 with so much economic uncertainty in the market. Tennis is being presented as a secure sport to invest in, with participation on a new high.

Coach Development & Support

 Qualification operations and curriculum: The new Coach Development Centre network is on track for launching in January 2020. The roll out of LTA Assistant and LTA Instructor have been now scheduled for March and May respectively, to give existing companies time to finish an existing course back log, due to COVID-19 lockdown 2 restrictions. CDC status and the decommissioning of the old network, will be complete and in place by January.  Coach engagement: A ‘current landscape’ analysis of coach communications and engagement is being undertaken to develop a coach engagement and communications plan for workforce/coaches. This will lead to improvement recommendations to roll out from 2021 to better engage coaches across web, email, social and content.

Operations

NTC  The NTC continues to be a safe, covid-secure environment and is fast becoming a destination of choice for our professional athletes to train. Pre-season training is starting on 16th November and numbers of athletes is expected to be high.  The operations team have set a goal to achieve ITF Gold Star status and plans are progressing well.  The padel courts are now busy in the evenings and weekends (pre lockdown). Revenue circa £2k a week on activity.  The Junior Programme has been capped at around 200 participants and takes place on the external courts to help protect the player CV-19 bubble.  The clay is getting excellent feedback and is being used by players, as well as coach education.

CITCs  44 out of 54 CITCs remained open during October. 10 remained closed 4 in England, 2 in Wales and 4 in Scotland.  Most CITCs resumed core coaching programmes at the beginning of September. Based on feedback received from operators, capacity on programmes has been reported between 70 – 80%. Although more positive than expected, it should be noted that total programme capacity is reduced in many cases because of restrictions. Nevertheless this is a positive indication of returning consumer confidence.  Viability remains a concern with revenue significantly impacted. The majority of facilities are operating on circa 40% staffing levels in order to mitigate losses. Although the furlough scheme has been extended there is a high risk of redundancies when it ends.  On a slightly more positive note CITCs will at least be eligible for the latest round of business grants which will reduce deficits during closure (previously excluded because eligibility was capped at a rateable value of £51k). CITCs should be eligible for £3k per month. The average CITC is likely to incur £7-£10k of fixed costs during closure.  The operations team continue to liaise closely with CITC operators to identify threats/risks following the latest forced closure.

Property

Transforming Scottish Indoor Tennis (TSIT)  As previously reported Covid-19 has severely impacted the approved projects and Sport Scotland have been working with applicants to understand what projects can be progressed.  In relation to other potential CITC schemes there has been progress at Banbury and Bridgend. At Banbury we have provided the council with further information in which they are now considering to enable the development at Hanwell fields to take place. A planning application has been submitted for Bridgend and a revised funding proposal has been received with the aim of presenting a proposal to the Board in February 2021.

Quick Access Loans  25 applications approved.

New Tennis Floodlights New Padel Courts Indoor Clubhouse Court resurfacing Courts 41 17 9 11 4 40

Gate Access  156 approved with 74 installations YTD. This has led to LTA Trust committing spend of £1,175,959 across all approved venues.

Corporate Affairs

Coronavirus Restrictions  We continue to keep venues, coaches, players and officials updated on the latest Government restrictions, implementing a summary grid to simply convey what each local tier of restrictions meant for tennis in England, and similarly working with Tennis Scotland and Tennis Wales  We lobbied the Government on national restrictions, kept the public informed and encouraged the tennis community to write to their MP. We are currently collaborating with other indoor sports to lead on a proposal to DCMS as to how more indoor sport can take place safely under Tier 2 and Tier 3.

Coronavirus Impact  We arranged some significant media activity around the impact of coronavirus on the network of Community Indoor Tennis Centres. This was coupled with meetings and visits for a number of MPs, MSs and MSPs.  Alongside colleagues in the finance directorate, we pulled together two detailed submissions to DCMS on the impact of restrictions on spectators.  We have continued to engage with the UK, Welsh and Scottish Governments and Parliaments on the wider impact of coronavirus including on the need for a Sports Recovery Fund.  We briefed the media on the LTA’s current financial position and the challenges that are ahead in 2021.

LTA Youth  We arranged for Secretary of State for Education, Gavin Williamson, to visit Cheslyn Hay Tennis Club as part of his visit, we had a dedicated briefing session with him on LTA Youth, and outlined our key policy asks around school sport.  We also arranged for the Sports Minister, Nigel Huddlestone to visit the NTC, and as part of the visit receive an introduction to LTA Youth including taking part on court.

Performance  We placed pieces in the Telegraph on Louis Cayer’s role as a specialist doubles coach, and carried out podcasts with Don’t Tell me the Score (Scott) and Control the Controllables (Leon Smith, Iain Bates). We also placed an authored piece from Scott on Sky Sports that set out our approach to developing performance players.

Padel  We announced that padel has been officially recognised as a discipline of tennis in Britain, with the LTA confirmed as its national governing body and published the latest version of our padel development plan.  We also facilitated filming for a sketch featuring Sir Andy Murray and Peter Crouch for this year’s BBC Children in Need.

Inclusion & Diversity  We published a follow up Scott Lloyd’s Open Letter providing an update on progress made since June and outlining our next steps  For the first time, we marked Black History Month via LTA channels through a series of content throughout October

Awards  Stephen Clarke (former Chair of Tennis Wales) was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours with a British Empire Medal following a submission from the LTA

 We nominated the below individuals/teams for the following awards from September to November: - UK Coaching Awards (Young Coach of the Year): Alice Robson - ITF Brad Parks Award (Wheelchair Tennis): Mark Bullock - UNIQLO Spirit Award: Richard Edgley - Deaf Sports Personality of the Year: GB National Deaf Tennis Team - BBC Unsung Hero Award: Don Saul & Richard Edgley - BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year:

Performance (MB)

Senior Mens Tennis  Dan Evans’ impressive year culminated in reaching back-to-back semi-finals in Vienna and Antwerp. Kyle Edmund, Cam Norrie and Andy Murray all ended their seasons early with injuries and are now preparing for 2021. In Doubles, Joe Salisbury reached the quarter finals of the French Open and topped the leader board ahead of the ATP Tour Finals with partner Rajeev Ram. and Neal Skupski won the title in Sofia in November and just narrowly missed out on the tour finals by one spot.  GB Top 25 player Liam Broady, having qualified for the main draw at the French Open, went on to reach the final of the Parma ATP Challenger moving his ranking back inside the top 200

Senior Womens Tennis  Though results at the French Open were disappointing (with and losing in the first round) there have been some encouraging performances from PSP players in ITF Pro events across Europe, which were generally stronger than normal given the limited number of events that are on the schedule. reached the final of the 25K event in Reims; Fran Jones continued her encouraging form with wins against top 200 WTA players which included her reaching the SF of a 25K in Istanbul; and Jodie Burrage reached the SF of a 25K event in Cherbourg including two wins against players ranked WTA 146 and WTA 157.

Player Pathway (Junior National Pathway)  Jack Pinnington-Jones won another ITF Junior category one event in October (in Plovdiv, Bulgaria) and moves to an ITF Junior ranking of 35.  We have 5 GB boys and 4 GB girls competing at the prestigious Orange Bowl Junior Championships, which is currently still going ahead in December for the 18U category. The LTA are supporting this via travel grants for the players and personal coaches, as well as the attendance of National Coaches Martin Weston and Katie O’Brien to provide additional coaching support.  Despite the challenges caused by COVID a number of programmes on the Player Pathway have been able to continue in some capacity, including both National Academies. For those that haven’t been able to work with players on the court, virtual programmes that were rolled out over the summer have been reinstated to enable player development to continue.  Through October we delivered a number of 14U NAGP match play weekends in order to provide additional competitive opportunities for national-level junior players, with events taking place in Loughborough, Sheffield, Corby and Sutton.

Wheelchair Tennis  Alfie Hewett continued his excellent form in winning the pre-Roland Garros event in Riviera, followed by his second Roland Garros wheelchair men's singles title. Hewett and Reid finished off a fantastic year as a doubles pair, winning the Roland Garros doubles title meaning they have won all three of the Grand Slams that were played this year. Jordanne Whiley reached the final of the women’s wheelchair doubles in Roland Garros and Andy Lapthorne reached the final of the quad singles and doubles.  The end of year Wheelchair Masters has been cancelled due to the impact of COVID and therefore there are no major events remaining in 2020.  Moving into 2020 the Wheelchair Podium programme will be renamed ‘Elite’ and Podium Potential will be called ‘PSP’. This is to align with the able-bodied Player Pathway.

2021 Season preparations  Preseason is in full swing at the NTC where access to players was extended to include Elite, Elite access, PSP, MWP and also the top 25 GB players and those with doubles rankings inside 350. The access list also includes our Wheelchair WC programme players. The atmosphere and culture being generated at the NTC is excellent, and something we want to develop further and protect beyond COVID times.  The wheelchair World Class Programme will run a ‘battle of the brits’ style event on the 15-17th Dec at the NTC in preparation for the Australian Open with all our Podium, Podium Potential and most promising NAGP players taking part. This will be live streamed, and we hope it can raise awareness of the sport and the profile of our players. The events team have been superb in working with performance in the planning and delivery of the event.

Performance Coach Development  24 coaches have been accepted onto the Female Performance Coach Engagement Programme to work with our 7 female mentors. The 24 coaches encompass 3 different groups – those already embedded in performance, those doing some work in performance with aspirations to work full-time in it, and some who are re-engaging with working in performance.  We have started an individual coach development programme for the Lead coaches in the 14 RPDCs. This will include all RPDC Lead coaches having Personal Development Plans to support their role and future aspirations.

International Events and Professional Game (SF)

 We have received confirmation from the ITF that the National Tennis Centre will be approved as the venue for February’s Billie Jean King Cup Play-off tie against Mexico. The tie was originally due to be played in Mexico, but the ITF Board decided to relocate it after the Mexicans failed to comply with a series of deadlines to confirm the venue for the tie. It is highly likely that the tie will be played behind closed doors, making the NTC an excellent venue, particularly given our recent experience of operating events at the NTC in compliance with the many COVID requirements, as well as providing another opportunity to showcase our recent investment in the NTC and the world class facility we now have.

 With regard to our traditional series of grass court events, discussions are ongoing regarding the practicalities of delivering each given the increased cost and operational challenges presented by COVID-19. Both the ATP and the WTA have lengthy COVID manuals with detailed medical and operational requirements, compliance with which will significantly increase our operational costs. Given recent positive developments with potential vaccines and plans developing for quick and effective testing, we remain hopeful that, by the summer, we may be able to accommodate reasonable numbers of spectators at our venues, and we continue to plan for scenarios from behind closed doors to as much as 50% of capacity being permitted, with it being key that we are as flexible as possible, to enable us to take advantage of any relaxation of restrictions when/if the situation with COVID improves. We are in close contact with all the relevant authorities, DCMS and other events taking place during the summer, as well as the AELTC, to ensure we are sharing knowhow and experience as we continue to plan amidst so much uncertainty.

 We are also continuing to plan for our overall events calendar for next year, but the uncertainty with regard to the Australian Open alongside the continued restrictions arising from COVID-19, making it challenging to commit to staging any international events during the first quarter of next year. That said, we are hoping to stage two international wheelchair events in Bolton in February in order to provide much needed competitive opportunities, and hopefully ranking points, to our potential Paralympians in the build-up to Tokyo. We are also working closely with our domestic Competitions team and the company behind the UK Pro-Series events which took place at St George’s Hill Lawn Tennis Club, Weybridge over the summer, to produce an integrated calendar which will provide opportunities for our players to compete and earn during this time in which international events and ranking points are difficult to come by other than for those players in the top 100 of the ATP/WTA rankings.

 From the perspective of the ATP/WTA Tours, both are looking to confirm calendars soon for at least the first part of next year. Huge question marks remain over the staging of many events, not just the Australian Open, but also Indian Wells and Miami with Indian Wells in particular at threat, given the high number of cases in California and an unwillingness to operate behind closed doors after they incurred huge losses this year from cancelling the event as qualifying was due to get underway. The ATP and WTA are both actively looking for other potential partners to stage events during the course of 2021 on the assumption that some tournaments will be able to operate, although at the time of writing only Rio (ATP 500) are said to be actively looking to relocate for 2021.

People (VW)

 Furlough: We were just about to bring the last of our furloughed colleagues back to work from tranche 1, when the lockdown and extension of the furlough scheme were announced. With effect from 9th November, there are 50 colleagues on furlough leave; initially until Monday 7th December but with the opportunity to extend if restrictions do not ease.

 Colleague Consultations: The need to reduce headcount, as well as the outcome of work completed during the year to review business operating efficiencies, has meant that we are currently completing or have already completed 27 redundancies. This has been delivered by a mixture of discrete collective consultations ie: taking the affected roles (more than one job holder with the same job title) through collective consultation and individual discussions with those colleagues who perform unique roles. The other headcount savings have occurred through non-replacement of vacancies.

 All consultations will be complete by the end of November and whilst never easy for the colleagues affected, we have been able to undertake this task without disruption for the remaining colleagues.

 Board Nominated Councillor positions: We advertised these roles on our “free” recruitment channels; LTA Careers, LinkedIn, Global Sports, Careers in Sports, Charity Jobs, UK Sport, Sport & Recreation Alliance and BAME2020, with a closing date of Sunday 8th November. We have been impressed by the quality and quantity of applications, of which we received 140. Scott and I reviewed the applications and have reduced it down to a long list of circa 30. Sandi and I have agreed to involve the Board Nominated Councillor Recruitment Group which comprises of Rachel Baillache, James Keothavong, Barry Horne and Chris Mansour to reduce the list further to circa 15 candidates, who will be invited to interview. Sandi, me, Rachel and one other from the Recruitment Group, will carry out short but robust interviews in December.

 Tennis Scotland Chair: The appointment of a new Chair for Tennis Scotland has commenced. Interviews have been held and further information on the successful candidate will be shared when known.

 Independent Non-Executive Director: A role description, advert and accompanying letter from Lord Davies has been approved. This will be advertised on our free channels week commencing 23rd November.

 Christmas: As many of you will know, we are proud of our reputation for celebrating Christmas with colleague activities and festivities. They will have to be scaled back this year but we are still intending to have an afternoon of celebration with a Christmas quiz and wearing of Christmas jumpers!

 Annual Colleague Values Awards: We delayed the ceremony of our Annual Colleague Awards this year to September, although the Executive agreed the winners in February. The worthy winners of the 2019 Annual Colleague Awards were:

Integrity: Sarah Ferrier, Participation Development Partner - Participation Passion: Nicola Duffy, Internal Communications Manager - People Team Excellence: Sam Foakes, Participation Development Partner - Participation Teamwork: James Fox, Event Manager – International Events & Professional Game

o The team of the year was awarded to the NTC Operations Team. This was awarded before COVID but all the more deserving for the work the team have done to get the NTC up and running in recent months.

o The Davis Cup Team was also highly commended.

o The awards are in their fourth year but they are still a much anticipated quarterly event, with over 185 nominations in 2020.

o We took feedback from colleagues working remotely to do more call outs and now our monthly All Colleague meeting includes Shout Outs to deserving colleagues.

Finance/Technology/Legal (SS)

 The current view for the full year 2020 figures shows the LTA broadly breaking even at EBITDA, with a loss of around £3m to £4m at net reserves. This includes the costs of the support packages delivered earlier in the year. Despite a projected fall in income of around 40% (over £30m), it has been possible to limit losses to these levels in part due to the AELTC’s insurance cover (final amounts are still to be confirmed), along with tight cost and cash management throughout the year. This included the proactive and early decision to cancel the LTA’s grass court events, along with The Championships, which minimised the upfront costs paid, as well as savings across other areas of the business amounting to over 20% of the budget.  Whilst this reflects a strong narrative and demonstrates the robust and sound LTA financial governance and planning in place, we need to be mindful that it may create an overly positive impression in terms of the financial health and security of tennis - with the biggest challenges ahead re 2021 and the uncertainty around the events.  Throughout the year the we have worked closely with the AELTC in managing the cash position, drawing down on cash reserves as well as putting in place a £15m overdraft, secured against the remaining reserves held in equity investments. This will help ensure the LTA is able to manage through the next few months to Q1 / Q2 2021, when there should be further clarity on the spectator capacity at the summer grass court events.  The 2021 Budget continues to very much be a live process, given all the uncertainty surrounding spectators at events. Again working closely with the AELTC, assumptions being modelled include no fans / behind closed doors through to a normal Championships, with a scenario of a reduced capacity deemed to be the most likely. The LTA is planning on the basis of a reduced capacity at both its own events and the Championships, with both the surplus and the LTA’s other income streams significantly reduced as a result. The budget approach has therefore been to identify a minimum or ‘fixed’ cost base with which the LTA can maintain key operations. The ‘variable’ cost base of planned but uncontracted activity has then been prioritised, to ensure the remaining expenditure is focused on areas that will do most to further progress the LTA’s 5YP and vision of “Tennis Opened Up”. Even with expenditure parred back to this level, losses are forecast – the intention being to ensure these are maintained within the reserves currently held by the LTA.  Project Odyssey has continued throughout this period with a number of key milestones reached. The key deployment was the implementation of the new Venue Registration process which was launched to venues in a phased approach from early November. Salesforce development on the Learning Management System for Colleagues, ‘LTA Learn’, has also completed and planned to roll out during December. Development of the New Membership product, along with a full Marketing Cloud Customer Engagement toolset is continuing with a planned launch date in January, as well as integration with the ITF’s World Tennis Number. The plan to complete all development in Salesforce prior to the full removal of Siebel from the LTA ecosystem remains on track for end of Q1 2021.  The work to update the LTA’s Disciplinary Code is progressing (including disciplinary, safeguarding, anti-corruption and anti-doping regulations) and other consequential changes required, as well as supporting on the update of the Competition Regulations to allow for the introduction of the World Tennis Number. A review and update of the LTA’s Rules and Articles is also being planned for Q1 2021.

Appendix 1 Business Dashboard Appendix 2 Brand imagery