Memorandum submitted by the Institute
of Sport and Recreation Management
INTRODUCTION
The Institute is delighted to respond to the
invitation to make a submission to the Committee. ISRM was formed
in 1921 on the initiative of HMG, which was concerned to improve
the nation's health (many major concerns do not change!), and
felt that the public baths, indoor sports halls and swimming pools
needed proper management. Today in a very different landscape,
the Institute is concerned to train, educate and sustain standards
of professional management of a much wider range of environments,
facilities and programmes for sport and physical recreation.
Community recreation is essentially a local
phenomenon; a generation ago forecasts of a shorter working week
and year led to projections of a major boom in sport and leisure,
with a large health component. In recent decades there has in
practice been a growth in the sport and leisure sector as outlined
below:
— steady growth in leisure participation,
but some of it IT/TV-based and passive;
— working hours have shortened little,
and pressures to pay for a gadget-filled life and adequate pensions
are putting a brake on early retirement;
— after a growth in sports participation
in the1980s, the curve has flattened and even dipped a little
(ONS, 2004); young people indulge in adventure sports; committed
participants have become more intensive and discriminating, but
the inequality evident in society is reflected in sport with low
participation by excluded groups (poor people, older people, disabled
people, some ethnic minorities—Collins, 2003). That low
participation is most concentrated in a Gordian knot in communities
with poverty, poor housing, health and diet, and high crime; and
— concerns with obesity, CHD and other
ill health consequences, and proof of the benefits of activity
have lead to a new cross-departmental initiative Choosing Activity
(DoH/DCMS, 2005), matched in other parts of the UK.
These phenomena are common to the majority of
developed countries, but even allowing for DCMS, DFES, Lottery-funded
and Home Office programmes, Britain spends less than most of them
on sport and physical activity.
There is widespread belief among politicians
and professionals that there are other benefits to the cross-cutting
issues from sport, (such as reduced criminal behaviour among young
people, economic regeneration, reduction in social exclusion,
life-long learning, opportunities for engagement in community
life through voluntary work, development of the community and
the development of individuals [ref: Sport England, June 1999])
However, compared to the health issue of improved health for the
individual and less demands on the health service by those of
middle and older age, evidence is new, fragmentary and less conclusive.
Nevertheless, it is the view of the ISRM that the scale of that
physical and mental benefit alone should justify a major expansion
in community sport.
ISRM'S CASE
This is based on three simple propositions.
Proposition 1
The scale and nature of the benefit to communities
in feeling and functioning better at all ages is a communal and
national one and should be exchequer funded through local authorities,
which are the only agencies with the locus and range of competencies
to tackle the job. The voluntary and commercial sectors can help,
but both select their programmes and target groups; whilst the
NHS is still overwhelmed with being a sickness service and its
reach cannot extend to neighbourhood promotion of such programmes.
Proposition 2
Local authorities have a better understanding
of what is needed now—40 years of direct provision to sports
consumers has taught them something of marketing that now needs
to be applied (like condom use and anti-smoking) in a social framework.
Local Authorities are also now used to working in cross-sector
Local Strategic Partnerships and cross-boundary County Sport Partnerships,
against a system of Comprehensive Performance Assessment performance
indicators and quality assured standards.
Proposition 3
But LAs lack the policy priority, capital and
revenue to take a lead anywhere near the scale demanded by HMG's
target for 2020 (in Game Plan, DCMS, 2002) of increasing moderate
exercise at the level required to give the benefit (five times
a week for 30 minutes each time—CMO, 2004) from 30% to 70%
of the population.
3.1 Give community sport the policy priority
No government policy paper since 1990 has given
local authorities the credit or role needed to take the lead;
many countries have a specific ministry and law for sport with
a mandatory role for municipalities to provide. The Treasury will
argue against implementing such a system on spending grounds,
as will some civil servants on the grounds that local variations
in tradition, terrain and citizen choice make setting standards
difficult, but these are technical matters, not ones of principle.
ISRM believes that giving community sport the policy priority
should be a duty for England and Wales.
3.2 Give community sport the local capital
Despite increasing contributions by the club
system (mainly via the Lottery and a few richer Governing Bodies),
as well as from commercial operators (mainly in the rackets, fitness
and adventure sports businesses), and "wheezes" like
getting contractor, trust and PFI schemes to pay for renovation
or replacement in a minority of cases, it is clear that more sports
buildings will become obsolescent than can be built. Sport England's
(2003) review suggests that just for sports halls to stand, £500
million a year for five years was needed in England alone. Only
half of that is forthcoming from all sources for all sports facilities.
Yet when ISRM made a similar case for swimming pools to your Committee
(2001), the DCMS (2002B) replied that existing exchequer and lottery
sources were available.
3.3 Give community sport the local workforce
Sport has become a major subject of study at
A and HND levels, foundation, bachelors (13,700 students in 3,139
degrees in UK HE Institutions—Collins, 2003B) and masters
degrees; these courses often do not yet knit sports science and
management adequately with community health, and currently many
of these graduates cannot find rewarding jobs in the industry.
However, it is possible to remedy this, and Skillsactive's (the
sector skills council) development plan must surely see a major
expansion of the workforce to meet an increase in participation
of 233%, at an annual rate four times greater than so far experienced.
This extra money and staff are needed locally,
especially because such an increase needs to penetrate the hard-to-reach
groups and communities mentioned above, where all of 40 years'
experience shows that an awareness campaign and facility/programme
provision must be backed up by neighbourhood promotion of a skilled
and credible workforce. HMG's programmes via schools are admirable
and are succeeding in turning round an equally failing situation.
But what happens after school? Furthermore, the benefits of the
government's targets and the huge savings in health and care bills
must be reaped among adults, and especially among those over 40
where the savings from healthy independence increase with age.
Local authorities are surely the appropriate and accountable agents.
CONCLUSIONS
Much more could be said. But the historic and
current levels of investment in buildings and people have not
turned round participation rates because they are not commensurate
to the task or certainly not that which HMG has set the nation.
This task amounts to a social revolution that has taken the Finns
two generations to achieve and on which the Canadians and Australians
have embarked just a few years before Britain, but all with higher
policy priority and proportionately greater resources. Sport and
recreation services are universally popular and well-rated by
citizens even when they can benefit from efficiency savings such
as those suggested in the Gershon review. However, even if they
are "fit for purpose" (to use a favourite phrase of
the Minister for Sport), they need a major upgrading to face the
considerable social challenge the nation cannot afford not to
meet.
ABOUT ISRM
The Institute of Sport and Recreation Management
is the national professional body for sport and recreation management
in the UK. Founded in 1921, the institute has a membership of
2,500 qualified sport and recreation specialists employed at all
levels in the industry from front line managers to heads of companies,
organisations and local authority departments. Its key objective
is to provide opportunities for participation in sport and other
recreational activities to benefit public health.
4 April 2005
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