Examination of witnesses (Questions 581
- 599)
THURSDAY 18 JANUARY 2001
MR LEN
ALMOND, PROFESSOR
STUART BIDDLE,
MR BOB
LAVENTURE and MR
ANDY WORTHINGTON
Chairman
581. Colleagues, can I welcome you to this morning's
meeting of the Committee, and particularly welcome our witnesses.
Can I begin by thanking you all for your willingness to come along
this morning, and in particular for your very helpful written
evidence, which is a useful basis for our discussions today. Could
I begin by asking you each to introduce yourselves briefly to
the Committee; Professor Biddle, would you like to start?
(Professor Biddle) Yes; good morning. I am Stuart
Biddle, from Loughborough University, where I am Professor of
Exercise and Sport Psychology, and associated with the British
Heart Foundation National Centre for Physical Activity and Health.
(Mr Almond) I am Len Almond, at Loughborough University,
and I am Director of the British Heart Foundation National Centre
for Physical Activity and Health.
(Mr Laventure) I am Bob Laventure and I am an associate
consultant to the British Heart Foundation National Centre at
Loughborough University.
(Mr Worthington) I am Andy Worthington. I am representing
Sport England. I am a member of Sport England, but my main job
is Director of Leisure Services and Tourism in the Metropolitan
Borough of Wirral.
582. Thank you. Can I begin with a broad, general
question. I have a wider concern that in Britain we tend to separate
our policy issues into segments and often do not think in a holistic
way, and I see this very much in relation to the links between
sporting activity and health. Would you agree that we have not
made these links, and, if you do agree, why is that the situation,
and what do we do about trying to address the problem?
(Mr Almond) That is a very important question. It
is only over the last few years that research evidence has now
come to light that demonstrates quite clearly that physical activity
has an important role to play in health; until then the evidence
was very unclear, but now the evidence is extremely strong. I
think that is why physical activity has not had a very high profile,
and it is very important that the National Centre enables us to
demonstrate that exercise has a very significant role to play
in the health agenda. I think it is important for a number of
reasons. In terms of coronary heart disease, diabetes, bowel cancer,
osteoporosis and mental health, there is a very important role
that we can play. For example, the British Heart Foundation, and
I am happy to provide the evidence on this, have shown quite clearly
that, in terms of the attributable risk, in terms of heart disease,
inactivity represents 37 per cent of attributable risk, which
is twice as much as smoking, which is only 19 per cent, and yet
we put smoking very high on the agenda. And if you ask GPs they
will say, "Smoking, that's the most important," yet
the British Heart Foundation have demonstrated quite clearly that
we are talking about, in terms of population and prevalence, 37
per cent, that is quite significant. I think it is only recently
that evidence has been made available. What we have got to do
is publicise and demonstrate the significance of these findings
and then demonstrate how we can go about making the change from
inactivity to active behaviour.
583. Right. Mr Worthington?
(Mr Worthington) I think, at a local level, there
has been increasingly a tendency to join things together, particularly
in the joint working between health authorities and local authorities,
I do not think the practice is perhaps as good around the country
as it is in some particular parts of the country; but I think
clearly that is the future direction, bringing together the two
sides at the local level. And I think, ultimately, there will
be a greater drive to do that, as we go forward with community
strategies and local strategic partnerships; if not, I think we
are going to end up with a plethora of initiatives which are not
actually interlinked and related. I think Sport England has done
a lot in trying to promote, for example, the whole process of
`exercise on prescription' schemes, which tends to be a joint
initiative between the local authority's leisure department and
the health authority through the PCGs and the GP practices.
584. If I can press you further on the kind
of practical aspects of this. I take a fairly close interest in
sport, in my own area. I have seen, in my area and elsewhere,
no relationship whatsoever between organised sporting activity
and formal structures of health. For example, I have certainly
pushed two Rugby League clubs in my area to look seriously at
the Healthy Living Centre concept, but there does not appear to
me to be any real connection, policy-wise, between what the Culture,
Media and Sport Ministry are doing and what the Department of
Health are doing, in making meaningful connections of that kind
at local level. Is it that I am looking at an area that perhaps
we are not as far forward in, in respect of this, as some other
areas, and are you saying that there are some concrete examples
of where these connections are being made? If that is the case,
why is it that this example is not spreading throughout the UK?
(Mr Worthington) I think the answer to your question,
basically, is yes; perhaps your authority has not gone quite as
far along this line as others have. Places like Harrogate, I know
in my own authority, Wirral, we have done an awful lot in this
area, but many authorities have moved in this direction. I think
the message has not been evangelised to the point whereby it is
universal. But, again, Sport England joined together with the
Health Development Agency in promoting the conference just before
Christmas, when there were a number of examples of good practice.
I think it needs more of that kind of activity around the country
to make sure the gospel is spread.
585. Do you think the connections are there
at central government level, in an effective way? Obviously, one
of the issues that we will be raising with the Minister is about
the location of her own role, just as we are raising the location
of the Public Health Minister's role, whether it is appropriate
to be within Health. Do you feel that the responsible Departments
are connecting in a way that is meaningful at grass-roots level,
we are seeing some movement in linking up sport with Health, in
a way we have not done, up to Press?
(Mr Worthington) I think, in the past, I would probably
have to say, no, I do not think there have been good links.
586. What do you see; do you see some positives?
What are those positives?
(Mr Worthington) One of the things that will emerge
from the Government's new Sport Strategy is a recommendation,
for example, that they should perhaps take on board another adviser,
in the way they have done to link the DCMS with the DfEE, in education,
a similar post, actually to link together sport and the DCMS with
the Department of Health. So that is a recommendation I think
that will emerge from the Strategy. So clearly there is a drive
in that direction, and I think that is a move to the good; but,
hitherto, I think there have been disparate approaches. I am conscious
of the fact that, even within my own authority, and working with
the health authority, PCGs and GPs and consultants are not as
concerned about prevention as they are about cure; there is a
vested interest, in some respects, perhaps, within that side of
the equation, to continue with the curative side rather than investing
in prevention. And I think what we are about is prevention.
587. The emphasis of Government policies is
very much in relation to primary care. Do you see that that emphasis
might enable stronger and more important links locally with sports
functioning and facilities than we have had up to Press?
(Mr Worthington) Indeed. If I could give one example,
and it is from my own authority. We have actually got all the
health promotion in our authority, a metropolitan borough of 330,000
people, is actually done on a joint basis, it is jointly commissioned
and it is jointly purchased. The unit that actually undertakes
it is currently based in a Trust, but under the new NHS restructuring
arrangements, the indications are and the proposal is that the
unit should actually come back within the local authority, into
the leisure department, but still managed jointly by a group which
represents all the interests, the PCGs, the health authority and
the local authority. That is just one example, but it is an example
that I think will be mirrored perhaps round the country, in time
to come.
Dr Stoate
588. Mr Worthington, if I can start off with
you. Sport embraces a very wide range of disciplines; my own fetish,
for example, is marathon running, which is practically at the
extreme end of physical activity, but then it goes right down
to snooker. Can you tell us how you would define sport, in relation
to physical activity, and what you perceive the benefit of that
to be? Can you give us some broad idea of which sports you think
are the most appropriate?
(Mr Worthington) I think Sport England recognises
probably over 60 sports, and as you say it is a great range. I
think the benefit of sport is clearly, in the main, in those which
have an active element to them, a physical benefit, but the tremendous
mental benefits as well from perhaps even chess and darts. And
so I think it would be difficult to home in and say that one was
more important than another, although, clearly, from my perspective,
if you are a marathon runner, I am a fell runner and a marathon
runner too, so I tend to err towards the end of the spectrum that
you would. But I think that it would be quite interesting to hear
my colleagues' views on the question about the amount of exercise
that produces a physical and a physiological benefit, and I think
that that would be an interesting view to have.
589. I do agree. I will come on to that in a
minute. But, just to go back, you said that GPs perhaps are more
interested in cure than in prevention. As a GP myself, I spend
a lot of time trying to encourage people to take up sport, but
they do say to me, "Well, what sport is the most appropriate?".
Now I am very pleased that you mentioned the effect on mental
health, and in fact the effect on psychological well-being and
social well-being, from things such as even chess; but, as we
are talking at the moment about public health, could you explain
what GPs should be doing, and how is it they can actually encourage
people to take up more physical activity?
(Mr Worthington) It is not just GPs, is it, as well
it is the health authorities; an authority with an expenditure
on health of about £300 million often will have a health
promotional budget of perhaps £200,000 or £300,000.
So it is not just GPs, it is across the whole health authority
spectrum. But I think GPs can get involved in the exercise on
prescription schemes, I think it is a very fruitful way of encouraging
involvement. I think there are ways in which they can actually
promote physical activity by evangelising the subject within their
own surgeries. But I think, in essence, it is about getting on
board and working together with partners in the local authority,
utilising the facilities there and encouraging people to take
advantage of them.
590. To move on to the British Heart Foundation,
how do you see the physical side of sport, because, clearly, from
your point of view, I would imagine you are going to promote the
more active sports; perhaps you can give us some thoughts on that?
(Mr Almond) I think, first and foremost, sport is
a contributor to health, it is one aspect of physical activity,
and I am sure my colleague, Stuart Biddle, will be able to reinforce
this in a moment. As far as I am concerned, sport is one feature
that we ought to promote, including a great deal of other things,
particularly walking. Walking is the most realistic and feasible
way of increasing the number of people who are active. So I would
want primary care teams and GPs to recognise the value of physical
activity for health. If I may interject here and say that the
Health Education Authority did a survey of GPs, and only 11 per
cent of GPs could actually recognise what the public health message
was for physical activity. When I say that leisure centre staff
couldn't recall the message, then it is quite significant that
we have a long way to go in convincing primary care that exercise
should be increased, in terms of priority. I think that the role
of the British Heart Foundation National Centre, through the new
Tool-Kit we are producing, will raise that profile, but, at the
same time, demonstrate how we can reduce the burden on primary
care and introduce practical and realistic ways of promoting more
physical activity for more people. Professor Biddle may want to
add a word to that.
(Professor Biddle) Yes, certainly. I think, if I could
just say, given my background in psychology, we need to see physical
activity as a behaviour that people choose or do not choose to
do; one aspect of which is sport, and that could be done at various
levels, and levels of seriousness. One could be more structured
exercise, which is not sport, because it is not competitive or
rule-bound, or whatever, and one could be much more what we call
active living, which is really walking to work or climbing the
stairs, whatever, and you generate the necessary amount of physical
activity that is beneficial for health through day-to-day activities
that really you would not call exercise or sport. And I find that
a helpful way of packaging this whole thing. So to go back to
your question about how much is enough, current recommendations
are that you should accumulate about 30 minutes a day, on most
days of the week, so five days of the week, 30 minutes, of so-called
moderate physical activity, and that can be done in any one of
those forms; so you could walk 15 minutes to work and walk back
again, or you could choose to play a sport which has the same
amount of activity. That is the way we tend to package it.
591. Are you saying then that that type of exercise
would be a reasonable target for everybody, or is that the optimum
target? What I am trying to get at is, is that a realistic optimum?
(Professor Biddle) That is a public health target,
in the sense that public health is about maximising the health
benefits across the population, rather than affecting one or two
individuals, and to maximise public health benefits I think we
need to find amounts and types of physical activity that people
are likely to do, so it is not necessarily going to be very vigorous.
I admire you for your marathon running, but, regrettably, not
that many people will finish marathons, in the big scheme of things.
And so this five times 30 minutes is both physiologically and,
if you like, behaviourally, I think, a very good target for optimising
public health.
592. If that is the case, how wide then is that
message? It is like the sort of eat five bits of fruit and veg.
a day. How widely is that message known, particularly amongst
teachers, the medical profession and the public?
(Professor Biddle) I do not know whether Bob Laventure
might like to come in on that, having had some feel; but if not,
Bob, I can take it.
(Mr Laventure) I think, in terms of public awareness,
there are two or three things, one is public awareness of the
half an hour a day moderate activity message, and also professional
awareness, which has already been referred to. The Health Education
Authority's former campaign `Active for Life' was set up to disseminate
that work, and there is three or four years' research, which we
can make available to the Committee, which evidenced the level
and the increasing level of awareness of that moderate message
as a public health message. In respect to teachers, and more particularly
young people in schools, there is also an additional message,
because the research evidence around young people's activity levels
gives obviously great cause for concern, is of national importance.
The evidence in relation to young people suggests to us that most
young people are fulfilling the half an hour a day moderate activity
message, and yet we can still see increasing levels of weight
and obesity, and so forth. So the recommendation that the Department
of Health and Government have accepted in relation to young people
is an hour a day of physical activity, for young people in school.
So there is a distinction there.
593. How many schools therefore are achieving
it, because your report makes very sobering reading, and clearly
the message is not getting across somewhere?
(Professor Biddle) One thing we ought to recognise
is, if we go back historically, on messages, on physical activity,
and how much is enough, this has been bandied about for many years.
The old message was three times a week, vigorous, for 20 minutes,
get the heart rate up, aerobics, sweating, etc., and that is still
beneficial, absolutely beneficial, physiologists would agree 100
per cent on that, but, from a public health point of view, it
was only tapping about 10 to 15 per cent of the population. Fortunately,
the evidence is now, and it is much newer evidence, that these
five times 30 of more moderate activity is very beneficial, and,
as such, I think that is a much more optimistic message, for me.
Now, of course, it is relatively new, and so we are still in the
process, I think, of getting this message through, and it is fair
to say it still is not through to everybody.
Dr Stoate: No. My point is though that if the
target now is one hour of active exercise for kids each day, and
your report is really very worrying indeed about what is happening
to our kids, then clearly that message is not getting across,
because clearly they are not achieving that level, because we
are seeing a very large increase in obesity, a very large increase
in kids stuck in front of the television for several hours a day,
and most adolescents getting nowhere near the targets that we
should be achieving. So what is going wrong?
Chairman
594. Can I just broaden this out a bit, to look
at how this balances with the wider pressures on schools, in terms
of academic achievement, because this is, to me, a fundamentally
important area. Can I just quote from evidence that we have had
submitted to the Committee. The Yorkshire Post, a newspaper in
my area, has done a major campaign, which Mr Worthington may be
familiar with, called `A Sporting Chance', where they did a survey
of some 400 Yorkshire teachers on the issue of involvement in
PE in schools, and it said some 55 per cent were either pessimistic
or very pessimistic about the future of their subject, i.e. PE,
88 per cent said pressure on curriculum time, because of the emphasis
on maths and English, was a major factor in the subject's decline,
and 76 per cent said the current time allowed was not enough to
give children a proper grounding in sport and PE. And, from your
point of view, Mr Worthington, 39 per cent had not heard of the
Government's Sport Strategy, 41 per cent of those who had heard
about it thought it would have only a minor impact. And what they
are saying is, clearly, there is a huge problem in schools, and,
following on from Howard's point, how do we get a grip on it,
because, clearly, at the moment, and your report indicates this,
things are getting worse and worse, and we are going to store
up a major health problem in years to come unless we address it
seriously?
(Professor Biddle) If I can make a quick comment on
that, and then I will pass to Len Almond, who has got vast experience
of the relationship there with schools. I think one point we ought
to recognise is that there are many factors affecting the behaviours
that we choose to take part in, and whether a message gets through
or not can sometimes not necessarily be related to whether that
behaviour is enacted. And, to put it very succinctly, physical
activity will be influenced by a whole range of different environments,
one that starts in our own head, as to what we like and dislike,
through to physical environments of convenience, attractiveness,
and so on. So I would just like to preface those remarks, because
we study the determinants of physical activity, why people do
or do not, and it is an incredibly complex area, and physical
education is one part of that bigger jigsaw. Now maybe Len might
like to add to that.
(Mr Almond) Before I do that, can I just refer back
to one point. Only 27 per cent of the general public recognise
the five times 30 minutes a week message, and, as I said earlier,
11 per cent of GPs, so we have a long way to go yet of getting
over this message. If I refer back to schools, I think the important
thing is that the British Heart Foundation and the National Centre
would welcome the news, last Friday, that the Government is supporting
two hours of physical education in every school in the country
as soon as possible. I think that is admirable and we would welcome
that. The problem is, if you look at 1999, only 21 per cent of
primary schools were actually able to achieve this target; so
there is a long way to go in terms of promoting that, and we must
help the Government by making very concrete suggestions about
what could be done. As far as we are concerned, we need to promote
more activity outside of the school, the school can only do so
much; that means we must encourage activity in the playgrounds.
The playground is an unproductive time at the moment, when there
is bullying, anti-social behaviour and a lack of physical activity;
what we have got to do is demonstrate to schools that playgrounds
can be a productive use of time and can contribute as much as
30 minutes of additional physical activity. But the problem is,
most young people do not know what games to play or how to play.
Playgrounds are not designed in a way which encourages activity,
and, therefore, one of the first steps will be to increase the
amount of play in playgrounds. The second thing we ought to do
is use the out-of-hours learning, which is really underused as
yet, and develop strategies for increasing the number who voluntarily
want to take part in sport and physical activity after school;
but I think the real increase has got to be in communities. At
the present moment, many young people will go out to play, but
there is nowhere to play, or, in my case and my daughters', they
were refused access to play on grounds which were available to
play on, on green space, because people complained, "Children
are playing on the grass," and the council stopped them from
playing. I think what we have to look at is the whole notion of
youth forums, where young people provide their advice, consultation
and their thoughts on how we can increase more play spaces, how
they can have activity which is more amenable to them, and provide
facilities that they actually want; the vast majority of facilities
are not what young people want.
595. Can I just press you on one point. You
said that sometimes children do not know what to do; are you telling
me that we have got a generation of kids coming up who cannot
work out that a round ball if for kicking and an oval ball is
for throwing around? I am not quite sure what you mean by that?
(Mr Almond) No, I do not mean that. I think that is
a fair question. If you think of the traditional games and activities
you can play in the playground, hop-scotch, skipping, for example,
the vast majority of boys cannot skip, for example, it is seen
as a girl's activity, and yet this is a most superb activity for
promoting aerobic capacity but also improving bone strength, it
is probably the best sort of activity, but very few people do
it. It is only the British Heart Foundation's campaign that actually
tries to raise the level of skipping, hop-scotch, playing with
balls against walls. Many schools do not have walls to play against
any more, and many areas do not designate new games they can devise
themselves. In successful schools they have produced books of
playground games, devised by the children and played by the children;
some schools have even provided books on what kind of games you
can play. But the link must be with the curriculum, so young people
are exposed to activities they can play in the playground, but,
more important, they can take them home and play at home. What
we have got to do is provide individual activities that are amenable
in your local environment, your local community, your locality,
that are simple, easy and cheap, rather than going for very expensive
activities. In this way we will increase the population who are
at the present moment sedentary, and I am afraid that there is
a vast amount of sedentary behaviour amongst young people that
is really causing us problems; we have to address that problem.
There is strong evidence to suggest, for example, if you reward
the reduction of sedentary behaviour, that is far more powerful
and reinforcing that rewarding, increased activity; so there is
a lesson to be learned from that idea. What we have got to do
is provide them with ideas, both through the curriculum but through
using young people as a resource, showing them what they could
do, and I think we would definitely improve physical activity
levels.
(Mr Worthington) I would like to look at some of the
practical implications of what Len is talking about now, because
there have been many reasons as to why physical education and
sport in schools have reduced. They have touched on the squeezing
of the curriculum, there has been a lack of an involvement within
primary school teachers' training programmes in sport and physical
education, perhaps the loss of some school playing-fields as well,
that has helped to push it along that way, and the couch potato
culture, which I think one of your own members has raised in the
past, has exacerbated that problem, this is why kids perhaps do
not know how to get involved in activity, they are too concerned
with computers, or whatever it is at the moment. But, to redress
that, and I think we have got to look positively, a number of
initiatives are now coming forward from the Government, together
with Sport England, which I think will have a massive impact.
The whole business of School Sports Co-ordinators, there are 140
in post now, ultimately there will be a thousand in place, and
these will be the people, as Len is suggesting, that we have got
to encourage and help youngsters to know what to do and how actually
to get involved, and to link with sports clubs in the community
as well; so there are going to be a thousand of those in schools
up and down the country eventually. There is £750 million
going to go into the building of sports facilities in secondary
schools. That is going to have a massive impact; that is almost
as much as actually is given out as part of the National Lottery
over three years. So a huge amount just going into schools. The
`Space for Sport and the Arts' programme, as well, is another
one, in primary schools, which is going to bring in almost £150
million. So I think they are all positive issues which cannot
help but skew the priority back towards sport, having had it possibly
skewed in the other direction for the last, say, eight, nine or
ten years.
Siobhain McDonagh
596. I just want to look at areas of social
inclusion, because a lot of these messages get through to the
people who need them less, quickest, do they not? Significant
barriers prevent certain groups from participating in sport or
exercise, e.g. mothers of pre-school children. What policies could
be implemented to help such groups?
(Mr Worthington) Again, looking at it from Sport England's
point of view, the way in which the Lottery grants are being applied
at the moment, and in the future, will require certain conditions
for applicants to satisfy, that will address many of these issues.
There are 5,000 grants going to be dispensed that will actually
require an improvement in social inclusion elements, particularly
for disabled people; there are going to be 350 capital schemes
that are actually put forward that will ask for improvements in
ethnic minority participation because of their geographical location.
So there are going to be conditions attached to the grants, that
will ensure that these social inclusion objectives are being met.
Sport England are also going to introduce a new scheme, which
is the Active Communities Development Fund, which will concentrate
on relatively small grants, to encourage the involvement of people
from the socially excluded areas, and divisions of the community.
One thing I feel quite passionately about is, we have kind of
overcomplicated this, we are looking through all these programmes
for agencies, authorities, to bid for grants and special challenge
funding, for, it might be, Healthy Living Centres, or it might
be some of the programmes that we are offering through Sport England,
and yet there are some very simple things. I know within our own
authority we have been talking about free use, it was a GP that
raised it, he asked at a seminar that we were holding on the issues
of coronary heart disease and how we can jointly address it, he
asked the question, what would it cost to give free use of all
our facilities, because poverty is a real excluder for people,
what would it cost to give free use of our facilities. In fact,
in an authority like mine, to give free use to everybody would
be about £2 million to £3 million, that is the bottom
line on our leisure centre spending, but you would not want to
give it to the whole community; actually to address all those
people who are genuinely socially excluded, it might only require
say £500,000. Well, when one thinks we have actually just
landed a Healthy Living Centre bid, which is about £300,000
a year for three years, it is easy to see that, with a relatively
simple approach, providing the will is there, you could actually
genuinely encourage a great deal more use through those kinds
of initiatives, instead of maybe overcomplicating it with the
major bidding processes that we have got for sexy schemes.
(Mr Almond) I think the social inclusion agenda is
important. Sport England have done a great deal in terms of promoting
physical activity for disability; what we have not done is promote
activity for disabled people in terms of particular impairments.
So there is a great deal of work to be done there. I think that
there are barriers within the ethnic communities, maybe cultural,
religious barriers, that have stopped a great deal, particularly
women, from participating in activity. In Leicester, where we
are exploring this in greater detail, there are strategies about
to emerge which would help us a great deal. But, if I just go
back to the schools for a moment, as a kind of exemplar, we produced
`The Active School' for the British Heart Foundation and with
Sport England's support. The important thing about it is, that
provided people with resources, ideas and a map and compass through
the many ways of promoting physical activity in schools; what
we have got to do is do the same in communities. So, in other
words, local authorities are able to draw on a menu of possibilities,
like your example of young women, young married women with families,
who feel restricted in terms of the opportunity to take part in
physical activity; but we have got to show people ways in which
this can happen. That is a major task simply to make that available,
but we have to do it, because you cannot expect people to think
up new ideas all the time; so we must provide the resource, within
communities, and perhaps use the Sport England's notion of active
communities, to really generate ideas that are going to work.
We are going to see many of these in the next two years. If I
can just return to schools, because it is a very important one,
in schools there is a problem. Over the last three years, there
are something like 27 new initiatives emerging that people have
got to take into account. What we have not done is provide the
tools to help people through those initiatives and demonstrate
how they could be effective and appropriate in their school; we
have to do that for schools, we must also do it for communities,
so we can give them the tools to solve problems in their own community,
and I think that is possible.
597. Thank you. The next question is first to
yourself and then to the British Heart Foundation. Your agenda
is three-fold; more people participating in sport or exercise,
more places where it can take place, and more medals. To what
extent is there a tension between the first two of these objectives
and the third, and how do you encourage people to become involved
in all physical activity, rather than just recognised sports?
Because, just from a very personal point of view, it strikes me
that the less PE you have, formal PE you have in school, the more
you might make people participate, but actually it is PE that
puts people off. That is a woman's perspective on it.
(Mr Worthington) If I could address the first part
of your question. If one takes the conventional way in which we
look at sports development, we talk about a pyramid; the pyramid
has to have a very broad base, the more people you can actually
involve in sports activity then, inevitably, the higher up the
performance spectrum you will be able to take people, so that
at the top of the pyramid you should be able to produce more champions
if you have actually got far more people involved in the base.
So I do not think there is a major tension, because, if you look
at the resources that Sport England applies across the board,
the greater proportion of its resources are actually applied at
the base of that pyramid, through local authorities, through its
community programmes, and so on, and a relatively smaller proportion
is applied to the top end. So I think the balance is about right.
I think the other thing, of course, is that you do have to look
at the whole process, because the impact of a Steven Redgrave
or a Tanni Grey-Thompson, the impact in terms of the Pied Piper
effect, of encouraging others to take part, and there are many,
many examples down the years of where people like Torvill and
Dean, when they had their success, generated a great deal of interest
in ice-skating, and so on, so I think it is important the two
are linked. Your other question, which is about how we actually
get the message over, I think, is very true. My own belief is
that sport should be the corner-stone within promotion in a local
authority, for example, of a holistic approach, because there
are different avenues through which people are attracted into
activity. If somebody wants actually to get themselves fit because
they want to lose weight and wear better clothes, that is a great
reason for getting involved in activity; but it is perhaps not
appropriate to sell the message of sport, per se, to that
individual, you might have to sell the message based around health
and perhaps about their diet and their nutrition. So I would prefer
to see programmes which are genuinely holistic and cover sport,
diet, nutrition, stress management, and a vast range of other
issues, of which sport is a corner-stone and sport is part of
it, so that there are many different ways people can approach
and get into activity.
Chairman
598. Could I press you further on this difficulty
between the `excellence' emphasis and participation, because,
as somebody who has been interested in sport all my life, I genuinely
worry that the emphasis on excellence and achievement and the
best is leading to a situation where a lot of people who would
have gained a great deal in terms of their own personal health
through sport are, to some extent, losing out and being put off.
I think the best example in recent years has been what has happened
in Rugby Union, where, since Union officially went professional,
in 1995, you have seen, certainly in areas like mine, a huge decline,
probably about a 25 per cent decline in the number of people participating
in the lower levels of involvement in that sport. Now I think
that is bad news from a health perspective, because those third,
fourth, fifth teams, who turned out, people who would never make
it anywhere, but they were engaged in some meaningful exercise,
which was of benefit to their health and to their community. And
what I have seen, certainly in my area, where clubs have gone,
as I say, officially pro., is that they are down to one or two
teams of excellent, top players and the average participant is
no longer around, they are no longer engaged in the game, and
that to me is a worry from a health point of view?
(Mr Worthington) I think one would have to be certain
of the causal relationship there though between the professionalisation
of Rugby Union and the reduction in people playing it. There are
so many other factors in the community at the moment, the couch
potato culture is one, the fact that people have far more opportunities,
a vast range of different activities, and, if we are saying generally
there is not as much sport being played in schools, you probably
have not got the same players coming through the school system
and coming into rugby. So I think we would have to be clear about
that. But I think you are right, generally, I think you have got
to get the balance right in the way you actually promote the message.
From a local authority point of view, it is quite simple, from
my perspective; our job is to provide opportunities for people
to participate, at whatever level they want to participate, and
to encourage them to come in, on a broad base, and if all they
want to do is do it at a very, very recreational, informal level,
terrific, fantastic. But we have to give them an opportunity,
if they want to join a club and take it more seriously, and if
ultimately they want to aspire to get into a regional and international
squad, we have to help them, along with partners, the governing
bodies and Sport England, and so on, to go in that direction.
There is no question that if you can actually get people at the
very top of the tree; Chris Boardman is a cyclist in our borough,
who has had tremendous success over the years, and for the population
that we have cycling is incredibly strong in Wirral purely and
simply because of Chris Boardman's involvement, and that has got
to be a benefit and a positive and a plus.
John Austin
599. Can I come in on that and ask whether you
feel that the professional end of sport is, therefore, doing enough,
and what can it do more to put stuff into the community and into
schools, into youth organisations, etc., and to what extent have
you supported initiatives of that kind?
(Mr Worthington) I think, again, it is like a lot
of these things; hitherto, I do not think it has been particularly
strong, but, again, in recent months and years there has been
a tremendous improvement in the involvement of professional sport
at the community level. If I can just pick up on football; particularly,
in the past, I think, football would have had a pretty poor record
at the professional level, but, of course, again, aided by grants
that are coming in from the Football Foundation now, but previously
Sport England, there has been a massive increase in the establishment
of sports academies and centres of excellence, many, many clubs
are now involved with community coaching schemes, with women's
football, and so on. In my own authority, again, we are very closely
involved with Tranmere Rovers, who do an awful lot, of going into
schools, helping to sell anti-smoking messages and anti-drugs
messages, and so on, and we are not unique, that is happening
in many other areas; and I think the more it happens and the more
others see it and other sports get involved in it, it will grow.
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