Examination of Witnesses (Questions 30-39)
MR FRANCIS
BARON, MR
BRIAN BARWICK,
MR DAVID
COLLIER AND
MR JOHN
CROWTHER
5 APRIL 2005
Q30 Chairman: Good morning, gentlemen.
I believe you have a piece of evidence you wish to produce before
the Committee and I think it would be very welcome if perhaps
the piece of evidence could be introduced with the witnesses.
Mr Baron: Chairman, this is the
William Webb Ellis Trophy. We were delighted to bring it back
to England, it seems a long time ago, in November 2003, but it
shows what sport can do and how it can enliven the whole of our
community and our country with success on the field of play.
Q31 Chairman: Well, thank you very much
indeed for letting us see this; it is a real treat.
Mr Baron: Could I just say a few
words. We are wearing two hats today in a way and I just have
a couple of introductory comments to make, if I may. Everybody
knows my colleagues, John Crowther, next to me, Chief Executive
of the LTA, Brian Barwick, Chief Executive of the Football Association,
David Collier, Chief Executive of the EWCB and I am Francis Baron,
Chief Executive of the RFU. As I said, we are here today wearing
two hats really; each of us primarily is here to present evidence
in respect of our own sports, but, secondly, we are here as members
of what we call the "four sports". It is an informal
association that we have formed to interface with government and
to assist in the creation and implementation of government policy.
I think collectively we feel we have got a significant impact
on the delivery of sport in the country. We account for 49,000
community clubs between us. We have 9.4 million regular participants
in our sports collectively each week. Sport, as we all know, is
a very important economic contributor. There are 400,000 directly
employed in sporting activities, which is 2% of the workforce,
more than agriculture, for example, and in terms of gross added
value we account for 1.5% of the economy, again a significant
figure. We are also a big net contributor to the Exchequer. It
is not a fact that is often quoted, but the Cambridge Econometrics
Survey showed that sport actually contributes, after government
expenditure on sport, almost £5 billion a year to the Exchequer,
so it is a very, very significant figure. We all believe that
sport is much more than that. We believe we uniquely have the
potential to enable and assist implementation of a wide range
of government policies, particularly in the key areas of health,
of crime, anti-social behaviour and social inclusion, and we will
present evidence for that hopefully during the questions that
will come shortly. I use the word "potential" for a
particular reason and it was covered a little bit by one of Nick's
questions in the earlier session. We applaud the Government for
very much moving sport in the right direction. I think we all
feel that there have been a number of important improvements in
the Government's approach to sport, but we really are only scratching
the surface of what can be done and I think we have to be rational
and realistic about that. As to the investment in sport in England,
and Lord Carter's report issued the other day confirms this, we
are way, way, way behind our peer group of countries in terms
of our investment in sport. My cursory calculation based on Lord
Carter's report is that we are under-investing against the average
of our peer group by between £1-1.5 billion a year, so it
is a very, very significant under-investment in sport compared
to our peer group of countries. We are delighted to be here today.
You are going to grill us, I know, but there are certainly four
issues which we will want to take the opportunity of raising:
firstly, that critical issue of the need to make a quantum change
in the level of investment in sport if collectively we are going
to deliver on the Government's ambitions; secondly, we have serious
concerns about the whole sport process, the Whole Sport Plan process,
and in our submissions you will have recent documentation on that;
we agree entirely with what the previous contributors said in
respect of bureaucracy and we believe that the Government has
got to mount a major assault on bureaucracy, and again Lord Carter's
report yesterday has a wonderful chart on page 15 which shows
how unbelievably complex the delivery of government funding in
sport is, and that has to radically change; and, finally, we are
pressing for what the Deloittes report terms the "unfair
and illogical taxation of grassroots investment in sport",
where we are being taxed as sports on our investment in grassroots
and community sport. The RFU and the LTA in particular, if we
just broke even in a year, we would still be paying corporate
taxation at the rate of £2-3 million a year. That is ludicrous.
Chairman, I have said a few words and can I now hand back to you.
Chairman: Thank you, Mr Baron. Could
I make it absolutely clear that we have no intention of grilling
you. This Committee has a record of only picking on people weaker
than itself!
Q32 Derek Wyatt: Speaking on behalf of
the whole Committee, we shall sure miss you! I do not know what
the collective noun is for a posse of chief executives of sports,
but this is the first time, I think, in history that we have had
the four major sports here. I know that some of you had to move
meetings, so can I say thank you for coming and thank you for
moving your meetings. It seems to me, from reading your evidence,
that you are increasingly frustrated that after eight years you
have really still got nowhere. Is that really your collective
feeling?
Mr Barwick: I think the issue
here, and I think Francis has already touched on it, is the ability
and the power of sport and what we are looking for collectively
is for government to further recognise it, and it has recognised
it, but to further recognise just what it has as a vehicle for
issues like health, social inclusion and education. My own sport,
football, 12 million people play it in some capacity, in some
way, shape or form, and there are 431,000 volunteers and those
volunteers, and I believe it is the year of the volunteer in 2005,
are the highest volunteer number in any genre. There are 38,000
clubs, there are 30,000 qualified coaches and there are 27,000
referees. The FA Cup Final goes to 160 countries, four out of
the top five audiences on television last year were for England
football matches, a total of 13 million people went to football
matches in England last season, and in fact last week 16 England
teams of different ages and gender played representative matches
with 13 wins, two draws and only one defeat, which is pretty good
actually. Therefore, what we are dealing with here, certainly
in football and in other sports on my left and right, is the ability
to get a message across, that it is a powerful medium to get a
message across, and I think what we are looking for is just more
recognition of that and just more fundamental support. As a new
boy on the block, one of the things I have found is the number
of acronyms I come across in terms of just trying to understand
how government does fund sport and it is really quite difficult
to track.
Q33 Derek Wyatt: But in a sense are you
not really trying to tell us that you could do it better than
we can and that we ought to trust you more? That is the essence
of your complaints in your papers.
Mr Baron: Well, partly, but what
we are seeking, and in a way our frustration with the Whole Sport
Plan process really revolves around this, is that we want to work
in partnership with government. If Government sets a policy, we
want to assist in implementing it. We bought into the Whole Sport
Plan process because we felt it was a new approach and a new start
which would actually deliver that. What we now fear is that it
is not going to deliver that, we are not getting one-stop-shop
funding, we are not getting devolved authority to invest according
to government policy directives, the whole issue of bureaucracy
is not being addressed, and we will no doubt talk about the National
Sports Foundation shortly, but again our concerns are that it
was a welcome initiative, but is that going to be another quango
that we have to deal with, so we have a number of legitimate concerns
about how best, working in partnership with government, we can
help deliver the government agenda and what we all want to do
in terms tackling the health issues, the street issues, the crime
issues and all the rest of it. Therefore, it is a frustration
of the partnership not developing in the way we thought and hoped
that it would.
Mr Crowther: Can I add from tennis's
point of view that we started the process when Kate Hoey was Sports
Minister and we started this one-stop-shop idea where we would
go to a single form of funding, but I am still having to go to
Sport England, we go to Sport Scotland, we go to the Sports Council
for Wales and we have now got all the regional boards to go to.
It is an absolute myriad and it is actually extremely difficult,
coupled with the fact that we were promised funding for four years
for the Whole Sport Plan and we are actually now only getting
a commitment for one year and not only that, but they are actually
demanding the contractual right to withdraw the money or get the
money back from us, so actually the situation is very frustrating.
Mr Collier: If I may add to that,
Chairman, and give you some specifics from the sport of cricket,
we echo exactly what Francis said about totally welcoming the
Whole Sport Plan. In February of this year we are informed that
our Community Cricket Development programme would be cut from
£3.31 million in 2005-06 to £2.375 million in the following
season, in the following year it would stay the same and in 2008-09
it would go to zero. Now, that 40% funding cut is replicated amongst
all the sports here today. On top of that, the Safer Sportsground
programme and active sports have gone, so the funding for the
ECB programmes by Sport England is projected at £6.4 million
in 2005-06, £4.9 million in 2006-07, £4.7 million in
2007-08 and £2.3 million in 2008-09. Effectively that information
means that we would need to rewrite our strategic plan. What we
are really looking for is help on a number of practical issues.
For a start, we need a four-year commitment to funding which is
aligned to our growth targets for community sport. Secondly, I
think, as we have all said here today, we need a one-stop funding
process. We need to get rid of the bureaucracy. We need to keep
the performance indicators that do not require the 25-page manual
we have got or the 50-page contract that has been sent to us.
We need more delivery and action, more playing fields, more bats
and balls, not more reviews, more consultants and over-complicated
legal agreements. We are encouraged, however, by Lord Carter's
present report and we agree that the funding process is confused.
We agree that the sport needs a single-stop funding system, we
agree that there should be a cabinet of government departments
to improve co-ordination across all of our sports throughout Whitehall
and we agree that investment is too low in sport. Now, the four
of us here want to add value to that, we want to work with government
and we want to make that Whole Sport Plan process a real success.
We are prepared to act on that. What we want in order to deliver
our mutual goals is less bureaucracy to allow us to focus on getting
more people to play sport. That is our role.
Q34 Derek Wyatt: In your contracts with
your international sportsmen and women, what percentage of hours
a month do they have to do for community sport?
Mr Collier: Again I can give you
a very good example which is that this weekend we have had 664
clubs engaged throughout the country, we have had 50,000 volunteers
and, just to give you an example, there were 10,000 volunteers
at the Commonwealth Games, so it is five times the amount of volunteers
were engaged in cricket last weekend.
Q35 Derek Wyatt: How many of the England
team?
Mr Collier: The England team,
I was with Ashley Giles myself at Harbourne, there was Matthew
Hoggard, James Anderson, Vikram Solanki, the whole of the Worcestershire
team was out, and we were at clubs throughout the country. There
was a tremendous amount of goodwill. We not only engaged with
those local clubs and local schools, but Ashley was bowling at
children, batting against children, we had cricket roadshows,
and it was absolutely fantastic. It really enthused people, but,
above all, it acted as a substitute for some of the lack of funding
that we have had in recent years. That £15 million value
to club sport is absolutely incredible. Those clubs certainly
thoroughly enjoyed the weekend.
Mr Barwick: All professional footballers
have it written into their contracts as an obligation to contribute
to the local community. For example, some of the England international
players this week have launched a testicular cancer awareness
campaign and there was a literacy campaign last week. Footballers
have a significant role to play in terms of being good role models.
Sometimes that type of news does not make the headlines like other
types of news does.
Chairman: I would like to place on record,
as a Manchester Member of Parliament, my gratitude to our football
clubs, who I name very carefully in alphabetical order, Manchester
City Football Club and Manchester United Football Club, for the
work they do in my constituency and I am sure my colleagues will
echo that from their own experience.
Q36 Michael Fabricant: I was very interested
in what you were saying regarding bureaucracy and the lack of
one-stop shops. You were saying that recently you were led to
believe this would not be the case when you were talking to Kate
Hoey. I was wondering to what degree you have had discussions
similar to the ones that you have just been describing, rather
forcibly, to us with either Dick Caborn, Estelle Morris or Tessa
Jowell. Do they know your views?
Mr Crowther: Yes, they do. We
are very pleased that Lord Carter has invited us to go and see
him on 14 April. The four of us will be going to see him and we
will be expressing quite formally the views that we have expressed
here today.
Mr Baron: I think the whole sport
plan process started off a couple of years ago. We were emphasising
to the DCMS the fact that we needed to tidy up the bureaucracy,
we needed a one-stop shop approach and we bought into the Whole
Sport Plan process because we thought and believed it was going
to deliver that and I think Sport England also felt it was going
to deliver that, but sadly it has not.
Q37 Michael Fabricant: One of the examples
you gave, if I can play devil's advocate, was the complications
of dealing with Sport England and Wales and Scotland. You accept,
of course, that whilst we are a nation of different kingdoms,
we are a United Kingdom. How do you get round that problem? Is
it not only fair that Wales should have some influence on how
their money is spent and Scotland and so on and so forth?
Mr Baron: You have got a mixture
of English, Welsh and British represented here. The RFU is England
only and we only deal with Sport England. It exemplifies some
of the difficulties that sport in the UK has because there are
so many different bodies now involved and some of us have coverage
outside of England. John, you have got particular issues.
Q38 Michael Fabricant: Before you make
your particular issue, I really just want to focus in on this
because while I have considerable natural sympathy with there
being too much bureaucracy and red tape in all sorts of different
areas, I do see the problem, how are you going to get round dealing
with these different sports councils which represent the different
parts of the United Kingdom?
Mr Crowther: We have to make the
same presentations to the different governing bodies, so again
this takes a lot of time and energy. From my perspective, good
practice, which was perhaps evidenced by Dan Bloxham a moment
ago, which is something that is being rolled out throughout the
country, is good practice whether it is in Wales, Scotland or
England. You do not necessarily have all the various governments
believing in funding it. From an LTA point of view, we have to
team and label our funding to make sure that we take an appropriate
approach across the country and this is why we are really saying
from a delivery point of view that we really do need a one-stop
shop when it comes to funding.
Q39 Alan Keen: It is great to see you
getting together at that top level. We have listened to the points
you have made and I am sure we all accept them. I am a great
believer, as I mentioned when Peter Baveystock was before us,
in our local sports forum and bringing clubs together. Are there
any initiatives that we can take and that you can help us with
to link clubs together? You might have a rugby club that has three
pitches and a space for something else there but they have not
really thought about using it because they were struggling to
manage the club in the best way they can. Are there any initiatives
you have got to try to bring multi-sports clubs together?
Mr Collier: Nottinghamshire Cricket
Club have been working with what used to be the old Boots sports
ground when the corporate body felt that they could not keep up
that facility and that is now soccer, hockey and cricket all working
together, it is a fabulous facility and I think that that club
and Nottinghamshire should be proud of that facility.
Mr Barwick: The Conyers School
in Yarm, with a £304,000 football foundation grant, were
able to build a floodlit, full-size, synthetic turf pitch which
is now open 12 hours a day and that has increased community provision
and usage by over 2,000 users every week and 350 girls are now
playing regularly on it. So there are initiatives out there.
Mr Baron: We are doing exactly
the same through the Rugby Football Foundation where we invest
in all-weather surfaces and these are multi-sport surfaces. I
was at the opening of the Macclesfield all-weather surface recently
and the reports have been fantastic since it opened. Kids playing
a whole variety of sports are now utilizing that. With these all-weather
surfaces we are seeing it generates increased participation and
usage of the club. It is an incredibly effective form of investment
and we have been able to do it partly because the Government introduced
the CCTB funding, we got our share of the £60 million Exchequer
funding, but it shows what return can be made by Government if
you do invest significant and appropriate sums of money in the
provision of modern facilities which attract youngsters and keep
them involved.
Mr Crowther: A good example we
have is in South Leeds where we have just introduced one of our
new city tennis clubs. We have got 27 city tennis clubs around
the country, many in your constituencies, for example in Manchester.
This is a great example where there has been a partnership between
basketball, football and tennis and actually we have developed
an attractive recreational area within the city environment which
gets kids to come and play. At the end of the day we are in the
business of attracting kids into our sport. Kids have got so many
other opportunities these days. They are not just going to play
sports unless they are introduced to them. Also, 48% of kids who
start tennis try tennis at their schools and that is why getting
this school club link is absolutely vital to the success of our
game. Once we get the kids into our clubs we have got to keep
them there because the drop-off rate is unacceptable. This is
why we have got to make the club facilities economic, but they
have got to be in places where kids want to hang out.
Mr Barwick: For example, there
have been three areas of growth in football. Since 2001 participation
in women's and girls' football has gone up by 53%. The Chairman
might be interested to know that the opening game of Euro 2005
is in Manchester City Football Club and the whole Tournament is
going to be held in the north-west of England. That is a real
landmark event for the women's game in this country. The FA has
spent £6 million on disability football. Disability football
participation has grown by 40% each year since 2001. Small sided
football has come in and increased by 25%, that is five, six and
seven-a-side football on the type of facilities my colleagues
have mentioned, artificial pitches, under flood lighting in the
evening. It has become a keen and central social activity for
a lot of people.
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