TALKBACK
Everybody’s Talking About …
The future of sport in the Big Society
public and voluntary sectors in sport. The power shift from government
T
ployees have shown themselves to be responsive and resilient in interpreting and responding to government ini- tiatives. Since 1988 they have met the challenges of Compulsive Competitive Tendering, Best Value, Comprehensive Perfor- mance Assessments and Local Area Agreements by the dozen. Staff have been excellent at reworking programmes to meet key requirements of new legislation. We start from a position of strength with many exceptional
A
programmes and skilled managers. We have the continuing support of the County Sports Partnerships and operational ex- periences from a wide range of mass participation/volunteer driven sports events. The sports trusts too are making an impact in the sector with their support of sports development. The gov- ernment is doing its bit by introducing more grants, some yet to be defined. So far so good. But I have concerns about the ability of sport and recreation staff to meet Big Society requirements. First, sports staff now work in small teams often in a corner of
a larger department without a specialised senior officer who has ‘clout’ where it matters. Second, direct grant aid and resources to advise on funding applications have been reduced. Councils have less resources to directly support Big Society programmes. Finally, the Active People Surveys show that sports volunteering
is static or decreasing slightly. Capacity and increased commit- ment in this sector remains a major issue for local government to resolve. Reliable volunteers are hard to find and retain. Hard eco- nomic times result in an understandable ‘job first’ attitude. Solution? Money and political commitment again – councils
need to show commitment to programmes and in-house staff if the Big Society programmes are to be delivered.
22 Read Sports Management online
sportsmanagement.co.uk/digital
to community will bring opportunities for society to have a greater say on the design, development and delivery of
he coalition government’s Big Society agenda will have a significant impact on both the
key services. However, with this comes shared responsibilities to meet the needs of communities, develop a more creative way of thinking and work through the bureaucratic barriers. Karen Maxwell talks to key industry
experts to ask what needs to be done to make it work.
Ian Cooper, director, Ian Cooper Associates
new government – a new challenge to local government sport and recreation departments. Sport and recreation em-
Justin Davis Smith, Chief Executive of Volunteering England
I
n many ways, community sport is ahead of the Big Society agenda. The vast major- ity of opportunities to participate in sport
are delivered by grassroots sports clubs who are almost wholly reliant upon a voluntary workforce of up to two million adults. There is also much evidence to suggest that sport delivers wider benefits such as improved health, reduced crime and greater social cohesion. The Big Society will highlight the great work that is already
happening in community sport and encourage others to get involved by removing the bureaucracy that can get in the way. But this won’t happen on its own; there is a need for greater recognition of the importance of investment in volunteer man- agement and support services to enable volunteering to flourish. To keep people engaged in sport, clubs must provide a high
quality, enjoyable sporting experience. At the same time, they are faced with complex issues around club management, such as community asset transfer, facility management and safe- guarding, increasing the need to recruit skilled volunteers from outside of sport. High quality volunteer management will be crucial both in helping clubs to retain existing volunteers and in attracting new ones. National governing bodies will have an important role to play here, but so too will volunteer centres, which can advise on the best ways to recruit and support vol- unteers from non-sporting backgrounds. In recognition of this, Volunteering England is recruiting a number of volunteer centre sporting champions to provide clubs with the support they need. The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games offer a unique op-
portunity to showcase the value of sport and volunteering to our communities, so it is vital that we continue to make the case for long-term investment in the people and organisations that will drive volunteering in sport forward.
Issue 2 2011 © cybertrek 2011
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