sporting - Leisure Opportunities

Creating that
sporting habit
The new Youth and Community Sport
Strategy aims to increase the number of
people doing regular sport, but does it
go far enough, asks Mark Allman
January is always a favourite
time for government
announcements, so there
was little surprise that,
after a lengthy consultation
process, the new fi ve-year Youth
and Community Sport Strategy was
launched in the first weeks of 2012.
The Sport England and culture secretary,
Jeremy Hunt, has done much
to try and ensure that investment into
sport (£1bn over five years) continues
in times of severe austerity. This is
especially evident in the financial support
for the School Games, funding
from health and education, and the fact
that he secured an extra 20 per cent of
funding for sport from the Lottery.
Over the period of the strategy,
£450m will go into NGB Whole Sport
Plans, £150m into School Games,
£250m into facilities and £250m into
local investment. At first glance, one
could be misled into thinking that this
is simply a strategy for young people
and sport. It is not, but it does underline
an expectation that funding is
targeted at this group if long-term habits
are to be affected.
So what are the key aspects of the
strategy Sport England has indicated
that the strategy should:
■ See more people taking on and
keeping a sporting habit for life.
■ Create more sporting
opportunities for young people.
■ Nurture and develop talent.
■ Provide the right facilities
in the right places.
■ Support local authorities
and unlock local funding.
■ Ensure real opportunities
for communities.
By focusing on these points, Sport
England hopes to see a year-on-year
increase in the numbers of people who
play sport once a week for at least 30
minutes (1x30). In particular, Sport
England wants to see increases in the
number of young people aged 14 to
25 playing weekly sport, as well as a
reduction in the numbers of people
dropping out of regular sports participation.
The focus on 1x30 presents a
clear opportunity to focus efforts on
getting the inactive active and potentially
opens the door to more productive
discussions with health commissioners.
As part of its strategy preparation,
Sport England carried out a consultation
which highlighted areas the
organisation needs to do better in.
These included the need for:
■ A greater recognition that NGB
investment should be more
conditional on results.
■ A clear acknowledgement of the
role County Sports Partnerships
play in co-ordinating community
sport at the sub-regional level, as
well as a recognition of the need
for greater consistency from them.
The Youth and Community Sports
Strategy will see more than £1bn
of National Lottery and Exchequer
funding invested in sport
■ Access to school sports facilities.
■ Better connectivity of work across
stakeholders at the local level,
connecting NGBs at the local level
and building strong local clubs.
■ A local funding pot.
■ A clearer understanding of the
changing landscape locally.
The strategy has made clear commitments
to try and tackle all of these
issues. The detail is being fl eshed out,
but significantly CLOA, local authorities
and operators are being better
engaged in the process.
An estimated £1.4bn was spent on
sport and leisure services across local
authorities in 2010/11, well in excess
of the £1bn invested over the life of
the new Youth Sport Strategy. The
challenge for the sports sector at a
time when year-on-year local funding is
likely to be squeezed is to work as one
– public, private, volunteer and third
sector – to maximise the funding available
and join it all up on the ground.
68 Read Leisure Management online leisuremanagement.co.uk/digital ISSUE 2 2012 © cybertrek 2011