Two recent emails dropped in my inbox over the last week or so which provided a contrasting view on sport development. Firstly a link to Richard Caborn’s key note on the investment in Governing Bodies that is the cornerstone to the current Sport England Strategy, was failing after only two years http://bbc.in/nNTC12 and in contrast an email from the England Under 16’s Basketball coach, Simon Fisher.
They were contrasting because Simon’s email to Graham Jones (now with Sport England) http://linkd.in/oivUMw and Steve Nelson (Director – Wesport) http://linkd.in/nle5rd concerned Active Sports an investment programme. To give some background - when I was CEO of England Basketball (1998-2002) Graham and Steve led the implementation of Basketball’s element of the Sport England Active Sports Programme http://bit.ly/pgWUKd which has influenced a significant membership rise on the back of these actions. Simon thanked Graham and Steve for putting in place a sound system that developed better players that resulted in England’s best age group performance in European completion ever http://bit.ly/pFjWWc . To put this in perspective basketball is a true worldwide sport with over 50 countries taking part in age group competition in Europe in contrast to some British Commonwealth sports like Netball, Rugby (both codes) and Cricket who have less than 20 playing countries worldwide.
My reading of his email confirms what Steve and I said at the time – The Sport England Active Sports programme will take between five and ten years to mature and so it has. Here is the dilemma according to England Basketball they have seen a near doubling of membership, an increase in the number of national league teams and an increase in the results of age group teams as recorded in the latest annual report http://bit.ly/nRcRmF . However in contract Basketball’s Active People http://bit.ly/bg0d67 results have been dropping http://bit.ly/p9PIf6 ?
Is the question raised by the former Minister of Sport - have sports like Basketball built on this sound foundation from the Active Sports Programme through this funding round or are they unable to keep them in the sport. Clearly other factors influenced this downturn?
The key question for me is - Has the current investment, barely two years old, had time to mature? It is the largest ever in sport (five-fold larger than when I was CEO of Basketball) and was based on the Sport England strategy http://bit.ly/vgXue which was secured on the basis of the fundamental change to the sporting landscape and funding routes and have other influences come into play...
The investment routes are different - Local Authorities are no longer directly funded by Sport England for activity and NGBs have been given a clear role, responsibility and accountability to play in developing their sport not leaving it to others to decide how their sport should be structured and/or delivered. Local Authority sport development teams appear to be concentrating on physical activity and not sport for sport sake.
Many governing bodies are being measured on factors which are out of their control i.e. they have to buy facility time from local authorities and schools which are under financial pressure themselves and have either raised prices or closed facilities http://bit.ly/hkGmqU . Swimming, whom I am chair of the West Midlands, have been further affected by the withdrawal of Free Swimming http://bbc.in/b5Hfg and surprisingly participation figure are down!
Governing bodies both large and small have taken a year or so to appoint staff and start to implement their interventions and a number have re-structured since. So with all change in delivery methods it is maybe inevitable that a drop in outputs may happen in the short term but by keeping faith with the strategies and interventions is imperative.
Many of the interventions were based on making sure the sports infrastructure could respond to the potential increase in the short period after the Olympics and Paralympics. This has been the real challenge for the smaller sports such as Handball who we provide coach education services http://bit.ly/puLhqd as they need an infrastructure of coaches. We have through effective marketing doubled the number of level one courses in the last year giving the sport an opportunity to respond the expected upsurge in interest. However this could not be applied to the larger team sports who have control of facilities and actions.
So were the interventions right? The sports that are doing well are those that have implemented simple short term action and had the infrastructure to respond quickly and made sure newly appointed development staff were focused, with a small remit and clear about their roles. Netball have kept it simple working on the “Baked Beans theory” of saying what it is on the tin with “Back to Netball” http://bit.ly/pavoqB and Athletics who have been unequivocal with the support of club networks alongside associating with anyone who runs! http://bit.ly/dV8R76
In conclusion - easy to say but I do think Government, Sport England and Governing bodies need to keep the faith with the plans however if they are not working be brave to change to something simple that will engage people who have an interest but the current structure of sport does not allow them to take part.
They were contrasting because Simon’s email to Graham Jones (now with Sport England) http://linkd.in/oivUMw and Steve Nelson (Director – Wesport) http://linkd.in/nle5rd concerned Active Sports an investment programme. To give some background - when I was CEO of England Basketball (1998-2002) Graham and Steve led the implementation of Basketball’s element of the Sport England Active Sports Programme http://bit.ly/pgWUKd which has influenced a significant membership rise on the back of these actions. Simon thanked Graham and Steve for putting in place a sound system that developed better players that resulted in England’s best age group performance in European completion ever http://bit.ly/pFjWWc . To put this in perspective basketball is a true worldwide sport with over 50 countries taking part in age group competition in Europe in contrast to some British Commonwealth sports like Netball, Rugby (both codes) and Cricket who have less than 20 playing countries worldwide.
My reading of his email confirms what Steve and I said at the time – The Sport England Active Sports programme will take between five and ten years to mature and so it has. Here is the dilemma according to England Basketball they have seen a near doubling of membership, an increase in the number of national league teams and an increase in the results of age group teams as recorded in the latest annual report http://bit.ly/nRcRmF . However in contract Basketball’s Active People http://bit.ly/bg0d67 results have been dropping http://bit.ly/p9PIf6 ?
Is the question raised by the former Minister of Sport - have sports like Basketball built on this sound foundation from the Active Sports Programme through this funding round or are they unable to keep them in the sport. Clearly other factors influenced this downturn?
The key question for me is - Has the current investment, barely two years old, had time to mature? It is the largest ever in sport (five-fold larger than when I was CEO of Basketball) and was based on the Sport England strategy http://bit.ly/vgXue which was secured on the basis of the fundamental change to the sporting landscape and funding routes and have other influences come into play...
The investment routes are different - Local Authorities are no longer directly funded by Sport England for activity and NGBs have been given a clear role, responsibility and accountability to play in developing their sport not leaving it to others to decide how their sport should be structured and/or delivered. Local Authority sport development teams appear to be concentrating on physical activity and not sport for sport sake.
Many governing bodies are being measured on factors which are out of their control i.e. they have to buy facility time from local authorities and schools which are under financial pressure themselves and have either raised prices or closed facilities http://bit.ly/hkGmqU . Swimming, whom I am chair of the West Midlands, have been further affected by the withdrawal of Free Swimming http://bbc.in/b5Hfg and surprisingly participation figure are down!
Governing bodies both large and small have taken a year or so to appoint staff and start to implement their interventions and a number have re-structured since. So with all change in delivery methods it is maybe inevitable that a drop in outputs may happen in the short term but by keeping faith with the strategies and interventions is imperative.
Many of the interventions were based on making sure the sports infrastructure could respond to the potential increase in the short period after the Olympics and Paralympics. This has been the real challenge for the smaller sports such as Handball who we provide coach education services http://bit.ly/puLhqd as they need an infrastructure of coaches. We have through effective marketing doubled the number of level one courses in the last year giving the sport an opportunity to respond the expected upsurge in interest. However this could not be applied to the larger team sports who have control of facilities and actions.
So were the interventions right? The sports that are doing well are those that have implemented simple short term action and had the infrastructure to respond quickly and made sure newly appointed development staff were focused, with a small remit and clear about their roles. Netball have kept it simple working on the “Baked Beans theory” of saying what it is on the tin with “Back to Netball” http://bit.ly/pavoqB and Athletics who have been unequivocal with the support of club networks alongside associating with anyone who runs! http://bit.ly/dV8R76
In conclusion - easy to say but I do think Government, Sport England and Governing bodies need to keep the faith with the plans however if they are not working be brave to change to something simple that will engage people who have an interest but the current structure of sport does not allow them to take part.
I look forward to other views – please comment...
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