Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260
- 271)
TUESDAY 27 JANUARY 2004
SPORT ENGLAND
Q260 Charles Hendry: They should
put that money into sporting facilities when they win it?
Mr Carter: Absolutely. If there
is a big win we would like to see people give more of that money
to sport. Also, one has to be realistic about where people will
put money and who will put it in. I think that probably the biggest
seam to be mined is corporate Britain.
Q261 Charles Hendry: Mr Draper, you
were talking about the 20% who are inclined to take part in sport
anyway and the 20% who are very difficult to get involved. If
we look at the 60% who are in the middle there, are they more
likely to be motivated to get involved in sport because of a good
facility on their doorstep, or because they see Britain doing
particularly well in something so they are motivated to get involved
with, say, the Rugby World Cup? Which is the more important inference?
Mr Draper: I think it is the local
issues. There is no clear evidence anywhere around the world.
Whilst there is the feel good factor and the inspirational factor,
most of it is locally having access to local facilities. Also,
a lot of investment has gone into facilities and people love cutting
ribbons and popping champagne corks but it is people who make
things happen. Whoever you talk to in sport, who inspired them?
It was their parents, their PE teacher, their coach. It is an
area that we have neglected in this country. If you look at every
successful sporting nation, France is an excellent example. They
did not just do best in their facilities; they also stacked those
facilities with excellent coaches who were going into the schools,
excellent professional management structures and volunteer structures.
One of the things we are looking at is getting that balance much
better. We are still behind the French. The investment in French
sport is about five times the investment that goes into English
sport. If we have any aspirations about our vision to make England
an active and successful sporting nation, it is not just the investment;
we have to get the people and infrastructure in place as well.
I think a big emphasis is on local people, local infrastructure,
and getting the balance right. Then, hopefully, we can get a few
more talented people through to inspire the youngsters of this
generation.
Q262 Charles Hendry: Are you satisfied
that the sports projects which have been backed through the lottery
have been appropriate facilities? The reason I ask that is that
at one particular rugby club which asked for a new club house
they put in for what they thought was the right size. They were
told by Sport England that they had to build it 50% larger. They
went along with that because they wanted the money, even though
they now have a financial crisis because they cannot get the funds
in to cover the running costs. Do you feel that if you look across
the board the facilities which have been built have been the appropriate
ones?
Mr Draper: Again, it is about
getting the balance right. It is also a dilemma because it is
not an easy job being a lottery distributor, getting the balance
between processes, controls and outcomes at the other extreme.
I know one of the concerns that we had coming in was how much
of lottery money went to people who were good at filling in forms
and being process driven and how much was going to coaches on
the ground who were getting more people involved in sport. Getting
that balance is all about well managed risk taking across the
board. It is difficult, but we were pleased recently that, at
the Local Government Association who are obviously one of our
core customers, Sport England came out as the top ranked lottery
distributor in terms of customer satisfaction. You are not going
to get every scheme right but on the whole we have made a big
impact and we have some quality facilities out there.
Q263 Mr Flook: Chris Bryant earlier
referred to our most excellent report on swimming. One of the
facts that always sticks in my mind about that is that there are
more 50 metre swimming pools in the Paris area than there are
in the whole of the United Kingdom. Why would anyone come and
do their training in Britain, particularly if they are a swimming
team of some repute—say, the Australians—when they
probably could not get enough training? Frank Doran made an excellent,
thinly veiled request for a large, Olympic team to go to Aberdeen.
They will not go there; they will go to France or Germany, will
they not, in the run up to the games?
Mr Draper: Again, that comes down
to the investment issue, because it is not just swimming. If you
look at indoor tennis courts in Paris, I think there are more
indoor tennis courts in Paris than the whole of Great Britain.
It simply boils down to investment. Ten years ago the French government
decided to invest heavily into local community sports facilities,
got the balance right with elite sport and then got the people
involved. We have a joint strategy now with swimming. I think
we are making a lot of progress. Fifty metre pools are going to
open in the next few years in places like Liverpool, Leeds and
Portsmouth and there will be the aquatic centre in east London
as well. Progress is being made. Also, swimming elements are working
very closely with the commercial sector as well in terms of public/private
partnerships. There are more 25 metre pools now being developed
by centres like David Lloyd Leisure, Invicta and so on that during
offpeak hours are not being used. Swimming elements are doing
a fantastic job brokering deals and looking at usage rates. It
really is about working smarter rather than harder. It is a similar
issue we are faced with on the whole playing fields debate. We
have done a lot of research. What we must not do is live in the
past. People these days do not particularly want to be playing
on dog fouled, muddy pitches. They would rather go and play on
the fantastic developments that have been made on synthetic turf
pitches and in JJB soccer domes which are now open 24 hours a
day. It is about usage and getting more people involved in the
local communities 24 hours a day as opposed to maybe three hours
a week.
Q264 Mr Flook: You are sounding like
a Liberal Democrat who is trying to promise that everything will
come out of one small, magic penny. The £750 million for
the Olympic Games is going to be spent in the run up to that but,
Mr Draper, you seem to give the impression that all will be milk
and honey as Olympic teams arrive at Heathrow. They will all be
going to various parts of the country like Aberdeen and Cumbernauld,
to see the Rhondda Rebels, down to Sittingbourne and Sheppey,
into the Weald of Kent and even to Somerset. It is not going to
happen like that, is it? Let us be realistic. You are going to
have quite a few specific areas but you will not be attracting
the Australian Olympic team to Aberdeen three or four months in
advance of the Olympics in 2012.
Mr Carter: We certainly think
they could go to Leeds to swim in the 50 metre pool we are financing
or the one we are financing at Liverpool.
Q265 Mr Flook: I would be a bit miffed
if I was a Leeds City council tax payer and I found that I could
not use my pool for three months in the run up to the Olympics.
Mr Carter: That is the wonderful
thing about local democracy. That is going to be up to Leeds City
Council to decide. If Leeds wants to play a part in it and forego
the use of the pool for some weeks, that is their choice. Nobody
is going to enforce that upon them.
Q266 Mr Flook: Have you looked at
how Olympic teams travel to their destination in the months beforehand
and what they are likely to look for? How much of that will need
to come from the £750 million to fund those teams' travel?
Mr Draper: It is really looking
at the training venues and obviously some countries will choose
not to come over here. In fact, in preparation for Athens, the
British team are preparing largely in Cyprus or Australia in warm
weather climates. At the moment, we are still too far away and
it is a big part of our job to make sure that the training plan
is in place.
Q267 Mr Flook: The Government apparently
is trying to propose that those people who will be looking at
spending the £750 million that will come into the Olympic
lottery game should be an Olympic distributor. Does that make
sense: another one on top after all you have gone through, all
the ugly ones like Pickets Lock and Wembley and to some extent
with the good stuff of Manchester? Does it make sense to find
somebody else without that experience?
Mr Carter: Probably to us there
are two issues. One is, on the one hand I suppose, to make sure
this money is ring fenced for the Olympics if that is what it
is for, so you could see the need to identify that. Whether you
need the further balkanisation of lottery distributors is something
we are very thoughtful about. The expertise that Sport England
has has been demonstrated in things like the Commonwealth Games.
Our contention would be that we could undertake a lot of that
work, but I do appreciate the need to keep the money separately.
It is how those two things work out really that is going to be
very important.
Q268 Mr Flook: You said you were
very thoughtful and gave us one sentence on your thoughts. Could
you expand a little?
Mr Carter: Yes. We are thoughtful
because the whole drive and everything we have done in the last
12 months has been to get as much money as we can into the hands
of sport. If a separate distributor meant more cost, more bureaucracy,
that is something we would feel we had to challenge because it
is not getting money out there to sport. It would be very hard
to see how you could meet all the statutory accounting officer
requirements without some infrastructure to oversee the spending
of such a large amount of money so there has to be a question
about needing two structures.
Q269 Mr Flook: Is it not just a cost
element but also the experience element of the lessons you have
learned and the pitfalls that you can fall into?
Mr Carter: Absolutely. We would
like to feel there would be some benefit from the difficult journey
that Sport England has made and that we have that expertise. I
think we feel we could and would like to deploy it.
Q270 Mr Flook: How are you taking
that case to the Government?
Mr Carter: We are in dialogue.
Q271 Chairman: Mr Draper gave a remarkable
figure of 16% increase in participation in swimming. Could that
have been a factor in the restoration vote for Victoria Baths?
Mr Draper: The good news is clear,
that swimming is on the up.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
It was a very bouncy session.
| 
