Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 48)
TUESDAY 20 NOVEMBER 2007
MR PETER
KING, MR
CHRIS BOARDMAN
MBE, MR ED
WARNER, MR
DAVID SPARKES
AND MR
IAN MASON
OBE
Q40 Philip Davies:
You have talked a lot about the legacy and that was one of the
key parts of our bid for the Olympics, that there would be a massive
sporting legacy. I think, David, you touched on this and basically
said this has never happened before, that an Olympic Games has
led to a huge sporting legacy in other countries. Why can we be
confident that in London 2012 it is going to be different and
it will have a huge sporting legacy in your sports, rather than
the Wimbledon syndrome, where everybody plays tennis for three
weeks while Wimbledon is on and then everybody goes back to watching
football and playing football again afterwards? Why is it going
to be different this time?
Mr Sparkes: I was in Singapore
and I can tell you I sat down and listened to the bid team making
the presentation and the hairs on the back of my neck went up
and I really believed there was an opportunity here and it was
a once in a lifetime opportunity to really get legacy all round
the nation and get everybody excited about the Olympic Games.
I believe there is some fantastic work going on. The Chairman
referred to the work we are doing in terms of everyday swimming,
which is about changing the culture of swimming in this country,
and about inspiring more people, different markets, to go swimming
more often and to use the Olympics as part of that mix. We believe
that is a massive opportunity and we are already in discussions
with Sport England about everyday swimming too which is about
trying to get that rolled out so it gets into every corner of
the country. My concern, and this is just my personal concern,
is I do not believe yet there is anybody who has actually picked
up the legacy ball for sport. I say "sport". We are
doing our bit for swimming and I guess others, you will hear,
will be doing their bit for their sport; but I do not believe
there is anybody yet who is joining up the dots of all this work.
I ask the question: where is the driver that is knitting this
together? I do believe the promise we gave in Singapore was that
we would use this as an inspirational tool to inspire the young
people of this nation, and to inspire the young people of the
world, if my memory is correct, to actually re-engage with sport.
I think it is incumbent upon us to make sure that this Olympics
is an inspirational Olympics and does drive the participation
agenda. Make no bones about it—that is a really tough call.
That is as tough as getting on to the top of the podium and if
we are going to do that properly someone has to pick up that legacy
ball for sport.
Q41 Philip Davies:
Who should it be?
Mr Sparkes: I could throw that
back at you and say that is a decision for Government. In my view,
and I will be quite blunt about it, the ball should firmly sit
with Sport England because sport is a devolved responsibility;
whether I enjoy that is another matter; we could probably spend
an hour talking about that, but with a Scotsman next to me I will
be careful! Seriously, at the end of the day, someone has to be
the person shouting for sport, and that should be Sport England,
and they should be given the responsibility of using the Olympics
to drive forward the enthusiasm of the young people in this country
for sport, and there is no question about that.
Q42 Philip Davies:
It is not just a question of inspiring young people to take up
sport, because the Association of British Athletics Clubs have
been reporting that volunteers at club level are disappearing
at an alarming rate. In order to have a sporting legacy you cannot
just have the young people, you need the volunteers, so how are
you going to inspire the volunteers.
Mr Warner: If you have got time
for a 20 second anecdote. Early in my time at UK Athletics I addressed
a conference of 200 officials at the National Motorcycle Museum
and I gave the usual ra-ra speech thanking them for their volunteer
work etc etc, and in passing said that 2012 would be a great opportunity
for them because London 2012 was going to need people raking up
long-jump pits, measuring javelin throws etc etc. Over coffee
afterwards a chap came to me and said, "Thanks very much
for the speech, Ed. Thank for coming along. No-one ever does in
this organisation. We are very grateful to you. However, you have
got to understand that London 2012 is a major disincentive for
all of us in this room". I said, "Why is that?"
He said, "Because we've all worked out we're going to be
too old then to do the job that's required of us as officials".
If you looked across the room it was typically a pretty elderly
collection of people. We are convinced that 2012 can bring through
technical officials, coaches, volunteers at all levels but the
work for that has to be in the grass roots. As UK Athletics we
can set a strategic framework within which those things can happen,
but actually it is the money that comes from Sport England, Scotland,
the Welsh Sports Council and goes into the locality that must
be activated at club level. Clubs are at the fabric of our grass
root sport. They are entirely volunteer-based; and we need to
work hard to convert what are typically parents or retired athletes
to remain in the sport or get active in a sport to fulfil those
roles. You could be at the moment a teenager, in your early 20s
or whatever it might be, and there is an Olympic dream for you
and it might be raking the sandpit in the stadium, and that could
be a fantastic life experience for you. We need to work out a
way to connect with those people. As you know, hundreds of thousands
of people, maybe millions by now, have registered on the LOCOG
website to be volunteers at 2012. Those who deserve to be chosen
when it comes to the time should be those who have worked in grassroots
sports in the intervening five or six years. We will work with
Sport England to do that. We will work with England athletics;
Scottish athletics etc etc. You cannot dictate those things from
on high; they have to happen at a local level. You asked earlier
whose responsibility is it to ensure this legacy, I am not passing
the ball to Sport England; I want to work with Sport England for
them to have a participation agenda in the sport and not purely
a health and fitness regime. While I know that an active nation,
a sporting nation, makes for a lower health service budget, that
is not necessarily in the interests of UK Athletics and the future
of track and field. We need people participating in the sport,
and I am sure the same is true of the sports either side of me.
Q43 Philip Davies:
Chris, could I just bring in cycling because you seemed to have
mentioned earlier and I got the impression that you were partly
pinning your hopes on better facilities leading to more participation
in cycling. We have been round different places that have hosted
the Olympics and seen some fantastic facilities which are like
Dodge City, where nobody uses them and they have just become huge
financial white elephants. Why should it be any different in this
country providing great facilities where nobody uses them? Providing
facilities does not seem in itself to provide a legacy of participation
in sport.
Mr Boardman: There are a couple
of aspects to this. I actually reviewed our talent process in
2004 and one of the things I identified as part of the six-month
study was right at the bottom end, the people we are talking about
trying to attract here, there had to be something in it for them.
To be involved in a child's life at the time they start to form
peer groups you have to have an activity that is at least once
a week, preferably three times a week to be part of their social
structure, and their parents. We cannot do that with two facilities
in the country. If you want to look specifically at facilities,
those two facilities are working at capacity so that is the best
advert you can have really for saying that we need another one.
It is a great problem to have. There are 500 metres of Olympic
standard cycle track in this country and that is it for everybody
to use. There are outdoor facilities and we make the absolute
most of those, but it is very, very different. There are a number
of different strands. Really I could throw it back to Government
and say that the one thing our sport needs that is fairly unique
is we need roads to ride on that are safe to do so, and ones where
you would say to your kids, "Yes, that's fine, you go down
the shop through the local village on your bike". That is
going to be an increasing challenge. I feel we are doing our part.
We have actually created some great club links now, we have those
things and they are working. We have actually got really good
people for the first time as well all the way throughout who can
actually work with the clubs, and that part is working, but we
still need to use the roads.
Q44 Paul Farrelly:
Firstly, Mr Sparkes, I am very glad you said what you did because
this is something we need to follow up with Sport England. In
this country in terms of legacy and infrastructure there is already
concern because of the raid on the Lottery that areas that would
have qualified, for instance, for Lottery grants for swimming
pools are just not qualifying any more. There is a concern about
the effect on non-Olympic sports such as rugby outside London.
In London, given the pitch that we made, it is remarkable to see
that actually there is nothing in place at the moment in schools
in London as a starting point to get people excited. Many of the
schools in Lambeth and Hackney do not have a blade of grass there;
they do not have access to athletics tracks; they cannot play
football; kids are not being taught to swim until the age of nine
or ten. In terms of what UK Sport's role in this is, has anyone
from UK Sport come to you to say, "This is what we want you
to do starting with, say, the schools in London, the boroughs
involved in the Olympics. This is what we are going to do, and
this is what we want you to do"? Has nothing like that happened
here?
Mr Sparkes: There are a number
of things. First of all, it is not UK Sport's remit. UK Sport
is dealing with the elite.
Q45 Paul Farrelly:
Sport England?
Mr Sparkes: There are a number
of agencies we are working with. We are working with the DCSF,
the Department for Children, Schools and Families, on a project
which is about top-up school swimming which works again with the
Youth Sport Trust and works through the schools network. Basically,
that is about making sure that every youngster gets an opportunity
to learn to swim and that those who have not learned to swim through
the normal school swimming actually get swimming through a top-ups
programme. Interestingly, a report which was produced I think
this week by Ofsted suggests that 83% of children are learning
to swim through school. It also suggests that, of those children
are coming through the top-ups programme, more than 50% are learning
to swim. For some of them, that is the first thing they have ever
achieved in school. There are some green shoots. What the report
also highlights is that we still are not getting to some of the
communities out there. We need to learn that we have to go out
and reach into the community to get them into the swimming pool.
What we do know in London is we need more swimming pools. We know
that we need better swimming pools. If I can just ask the Committee
to reflect on when they learned to swim, it is really important
that that learning to swim is a magic moment because that is what
follows you for the rest of your life. That is what inspires you
to swim, to run, to be a sportsman. Learning to swim is like learning
to ride a bike. It is like learning to walk. It has to be really
important. Having great coaches at that moment is really important.
Are we working with the communities? Yes, we are but is it all
joined up? No, it is not. That is the point I think you are making.
You are right. There needs to be a total, joined up strategy.
I believe that there should be a sporting strategy across London
which says what facilities do we need; how are we going to get
people in London doing more sport more often; how are we going
to get the clubs to be vibrant within the London area. I am frustrated
by nobody joining up the dots. I think that is the area that needs
attention. I would pass the ball to Sport England, maybe unfairly,
but it is the only organisation I can see that can really deliver
in that area. I have tried to answer your question by saying there
is some good work going on. What we need to be doing now is to
make sure that it is across London and everybody feels it.
Q46 Paul Farrelly:
The Aquatics Centre is going to be the Wembley for swimming.
Mr Sparkes: Yes.
Q47 Paul Farrelly:
Why only one or potentially no bidders?
Mr Sparkes: To build it?
Q48 Paul Farrelly:
Yes.
Mr Sparkes: You had better put
that question to the ODA because I am not in the construction
business. I do not know enough about it. The answer is I do not
know.
Chairman: Thank you all very much indeed.
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