Sunil Malkani, Head of Digital Business at NSA, explains, "As an employer-led organization, we exist to help employers in our sector achieve their goals relating to training and skills development. These employers include not only the national governing bodies for sports, such as the England and Wales Cricket Board and the Amateur Swimming Association among many others but also private-sector employers such as health-and-fitness complexes."

While some skills are specific to the sport and active-leisure sector, NSA also acknowledges that some skills needs are more generic - especially when it comes to continuing professional development (CPD) in soft-skills areas such as management and leadership. Sunil and his team joined forces with Paul Higgins and his team at CLS, who have years of experience both as a learning-management system (LMS) provider and as partner channels for the leading eLearning libraries.

Paul Higgins comments, "As a Chairman of a Sports Club, it was evident to me that, working with the Academy, we could make a difference to enhance core skills. Working with our supplier network, we've created 'common units' aimed at specific job roles and mass participation for members. In targeting the heart of sport at the national level, we're able to improve skills at the grassroots of sport - which is my main focus, working in the community."

NSA currently makes over 200 eLearning courses available via the CLS LMS. This number is rising constantly, at a rate of around 20 to 25 courses a month - chiefly covering soft skills.

At present, "management and leadership", "outdoors", and "health and fitness" are the areas in which there are the most eLearning materials. Other areas include "event management", "community sport enterprise", "leisure operations", "mandatory training", "customer service/ sales", "sports development", "coaching" and "first aid".

At any one time, the platform plays host to over 2,000 learners.