Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
DEPARTMENT FOR
CULTURE, MEDIA
AND SPORT
AND UK SPORT
2 APRIL 2008
Q80 Mr Dunne: The final question
from me, Chairman. Mr Stephens, could you comment on press reports
about the number of personnel within your Department who are overseeing
the Olympic London 2012 delivery? I think it referred to 48 civil
servants working in your Department overseeing the ODA, which
itself has some 200 people. Can you confirm that that is correct?
Mr Stephens: Yes, it is.
Q81 Mr Dunne: Do you think that that
is a reasonable level of oversight from your Department?
Mr Stephens: Absolutely for a
budget of £9.3 billion which has some very significant risks
associated with it.
Q82 Mr Dunne: And what is the cost
to your Department of that team of people on an annual basis?
Mr Stephens: Perhaps I can write
to you with that detail but I hope that the Committee would support
our close examination and consideration of value for money and
keeping the Olympics to budget.[9]
Chairman: I am sorry, there is another
division. We will try to come back as quickly as possible and
then Mr Davidson will start.
The Committee suspended from 4.15 pm to
4.21 pm for a division in the House.
Q83 Mr Davidson: One of the reasons behind
the emphasis on winning medals is this concept of role models
and so on and it generating a wider interest. Is there actually
much evidence that that really works? You gave us a couple of
anecdotal examples earlier on but what evidence is there that
it works across the board because I am conscious that, for example,
when England were in the football World Cup the consumption of
alcohol went up considerably, which is not necessarily an indicator
that people were involving themselves in sport. Similarly in rugby,
I am not sure whether or not England get into the final has led
to a much larger of number of people taking up the sport. What
evidence is there that that actually works in terms of grass roots
participation?
Mr Steele: There are participation
figures after major events which show an increase in participation
and I think that happened after the success in The Ashes and after
the Rugby World Cup in 2003, but of course the secret is not just
to have a blip and a brief increase in participation, and that
is what I was talking about earlier that in sport we need to ensure
that, yes, there is medal success, yes, there are trophies, championships,
medals won but actually what we are doing is creating a world
class system which keeps sustainable performance happening over
and over again. If we do that at the elite level then that will
definitely impact on participation and increase it. To go back
to what you were talking about, I cannot provide for you direct
evidence of that happening but I could make enquiries and try
and send you a note.[10]
Q84 Mr Davidson: I think it would be
very helpful, Chair, if we did have something along those lines
and if the National Audit Office then commented on that because
I must confess I am not convinced that this actually happens.
If we look, for example, at chart 7, which gives the sports that
are getting most money for the Beijing cycle the top three are
rowing, cycling and sailing. Rowing and sailing, I would have
thought, are not sports that are generally open to all—they
are predominantly upper class sports based in private schools
and the like. There is a degree of social exclusion there and
to what extent are you able to demonstrate that the amount of
money that rowing gets impacts upon wider populations such as
those in my constituency?
Mr Steele: I think the figures
that were asked for earlier will go some way to expressing those
in terms of the breakdown of athletes in relation to the investment
which we said we would send on before. I think it is important
to note that of the 1400 athletes on our world class pathway the
Scottish input and the Welsh input actually are punching above
their weight per capita. So there are more of those athletes
than you would expect. So in terms of our investment I think there
is a good spread across the home countries in terms of home country
breakdown in GB.
Q85 Mr Davidson: That covers as it
were what my colleague referred me to as the regionalist aspect
but the social class aspect within it, I am not sure even that
my constituents would be adequately represented within the Scottish
contingent. Coming back to the question of equestrianism as well—
Ms Nicholl: Could I just add that
in terms of a good example of how rowing has broadened its horizons
and not relying now on just individuals coming up through the
public school system it has a development programme called Project
Awesome and it is actually reaching out to school level youngsters
and those at university as well and it is bringing a lot more
individuals now into the rowing programme from other walks of
life. Particularly if we work that we do at UK Sport, Sporting
Giants, which was a national initiative inviting those individuals
over a certain height and weight to put themselves as potential
rowers and volleyball players and handball players there are a
number of those that have come through just by picking up the
phone and saying, "I would like to have a go at doing that."
Mr Davidson: I recognise that effort
is being made but things like equestrianism, for example, it does
help obviously to have a horse and there are not many people in
my constituency that either have a horse or have ever had a horse
or whoever indeed are likely to have a horse! The same cannot,
I must confess, be said of fencing because a number of my constituents
have swords!
Mr Bacon: A lot of them have knives though!
Q86 Mr Davidson: What evidence is
there that sports such as equestrianism and fencing are actually
genuinely open to all? What statistics do you have about the make-up
of the elite athletes group at the moment? How many of them are
public schoolboys and girls?
Ms Nicholl: We do not actually
collect that data.[11]
Q87 Mr Davidson: Can you get that for
me, please?
Ms Nicholl: It would take us some
time if we asked all 1400 funded athletes.
Q88 Mr Davidson: We have until Beijing!
Both of you are involved in netball and rugby respectively, both
of which have common people in them but that is not the case though
for some of these other sports. So you have not monitored that
at all?
Mr Steele: We see our mission
as elite sport, so it is delivering medals, it is building a world
class performance programme. Of course we want to have as many
talented people in that as possible but participation and inclusion
are not a direct objective for that.
Q89 Mr Davidson: I understand that
that to some extent is not your problem, that is Mr Stephens'
problem, so let us hear how he has sorted it.
Mr Stephens: I was going to say
that that is absolutely the responsibility of Sport England and
the equivalent bodies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
They have a very strong objective around broadening and deepening
participation at the community level, including under represented
groups, and those are the key objectives.
Q90 Mr Davidson: One of the issues
I did ask about is this question of role models and if we find
that there is a disproportionate number of people in the elite
sports group who have public school origins that might very well
be a good role model for other public school youngsters, but youngsters
at schools in my area would not necessarily see a public school
boy or girl on a horse as being a role model because they would
see that as something that was just beyond their capacity—not
only possibly physically but also financially—and that is
why I think it is important. If we could have those statistics
and have them checked by the National Audit Office then that would
be very helpful, Chairman. Could I ask about the multiplicity
of organisations? We have UK Sport, we have National Sports bodies,
we have the British Olympic Association; we have ruling groups
for every sport; is that coherent?
Mr Steele: I think the sporting
landscape, as it is described, is pretty much as coherent as it
has been.
Q91 Mr Davidson: That is not a yes
or a no though, is it?
Mr Steele: I believe it is coherent,
yes, and the reason for that is that back in April 2006 there
was a transfer of responsibility where government looked to clarify
the landscape, so to make it clear where youth sport was governed,
the participation of club piece with the home countries or Sport
England and the elite piece with us, and a number of sports at
the time said, "This is what we have been waiting for, this
is a big step towards clarifying the landscape."
Q92 Mr Davidson: So between now and
Beijing we can expect not to hear any stories about turf wars
and all the rest of it?
Mr Steele: We want the same thing;
we all want to achieve in Beijing and we all want to achieve in
London 2012.
Q93 Mr Davidson: That is fine, if
you will give us an assurance that we are not going to have those
sorts of difficulties then I am perfectly happy with that, it
is in the record now and it will come up at your trial! Can I
just pick up the point—I think the Chairman touched on this
earlier on—about the target for Beijing to be eighth in
the Olympics and already ranked seventh in the world by the British
Olympic Association, and the question of whether or not that is
a soft target. I did not catch all of your response and maybe
you can just clarify that for me again?
Mr Steele: I can assure the Committee
that eighth in Beijing is not a soft target. I think eighth in
Beijing and the ultimate goal of fourth in the Olympics and second
in the Paralympics for London is a huge challenge and I think
that the Report alludes to that. There will be a huge step change
in performance to achieve that, and that is what we are intending
to achieve.
Q94 Mr Davidson: You have seen the
Report that we have and it is indicating here, in paragraph 2.24,
that you are already ranked seventh, so to do one place worse
than that does not seem to be particularly stretching it. I do
not quite understand that juxtaposition.
Mr Steele: In Athens we were tenth
so we are looking to move from tenth to eighth in Beijing. The
seventh is the BOA's ranking which is based on non-Olympic competition,
so world championships, European championships. So it is not Olympic
evidence. What is Olympic evidence is that at Athens we were tenth.
Q95 Mr Davidson: Can I ask about
the host nation factor? Given what has happened elsewhere presumably
you would automatically expect to move up two or three places.
You have taken that into account in terms of your targets, have
you?
Mr Steele: Host nation effect
is huge and as the Report alludes to it can be up to six or seven
gold medals and the evidence is there for that. That in itself
will not be enough. I think part of the host nation effect starts
right back when you win the Games itself and there is a change
in ambitions and that is exactly what happened, and it was only
a matter of days after winning the bid that the BOA, ourselves
and sports governing bodies sat in a room and said, "What
is it we want from this home Games?" And the ambition is
massive. Also an increase in resources and of course making sure
that those resources are maximised in terms of performance returns
is what we are about.
Q96 Mr Davidson: You mentioned earlier
that you were tenth in Athens. If the host nation effect is massive
is it massive enough to move you up four places, so that you would
normally expect to be sixth and we can then distinguish that that
would happen anyway and that your efforts would then hope to move
you forward another couple of places?
Mr Steele: Host nation effect
is judged from when the bid is won to when the home Games take
place. So in this case it is from Athens to London and in that
case six or seven gold medals would not be enough, as the Report
says, when looking at numbers of medals.
Q97 Mr Davidson: Where would it move
you to? I am trying to establish who gets the credit. If you move
us forward you will deserve credit for something. If you are going
to get a certain amount of boost because of home nation status
anyway let us just try to distinguish which is which.
Mr Steele: I understand. I suppose
the way to look at it is that host nation effect is not automatic—it
does not happen as soon as you win the bid. You have to maximise
it, you have to tap into it and nations that do not tap into it
properly will only win a couple more medals—maybe none.
It is about maximising it and we intend to try to go beyond the
average of that.
Q98 Mr Davidson: I understand that;
I am trying to understand what the average is. Can I just clarify
from the National Audit Office, using the home nation boost what
would you expect Britain to move to from tenth?
Mr Prideaux: As Mr Steele said,
we think six or seven medals and I think that that would certainly
move them up several places.
Q99 Mr Davidson: How many is several?
Mr Prideaux: I cannot say.
9 Ev 15-16 Back
10
Ev 16-18 Back
11
Note by witness: UK Sport does not seek to determine the
school background of athletes and could only seek to collect this
information from individual athletes at significant cost. This
information is not considered to be relevant in determining either
athlete performance potential or UK Sport investment strategy.
Also see Ev 19 Back
| 
