Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-139)
DEPARTMENT FOR
CULTURE, MEDIA
AND SPORT
AND UK SPORT
2 APRIL 2008
Q120 Chairman: We are not going to
get anywhere on that but we will obviously return to this after
Beijing. We had a long discussion with Mr Davidson about this
host nation effect but what worries me is how you are actually
going to turn this effect into medals when other nations are also
increasing their funding quite rapidly. I just wonder whether,
contrary to what Mr Davidson was suggesting, the host nation effect
might be rather less in the future than it has been in the past?
Mr Steele: I think we have to
be very aware of what other nations are achieving and that happens
at two levels. One is at the sports level when they have to look
at who are in their disciplines, who are they competing for, where
they should best target and place their athletes to maximise performance
within their sports, and of course on a broader level in terms
of performance investment we need to intelligence gather there
as well, Chairman, and that is what we do.
Q121 Chairman: So you are intelligence
gathering around the place?
Mr Steele: We are. It is not always
easy; not every nation is quite as open with what they are spending
as we are here, but we have certain ways of gathering that intelligence
and we do that.
Q122 Chairman: We have had several
discussions about private funding. How are you setting about making
this an attractive proposition for donors? What is your campaign?
Mr Stephens: We are in discussions
with Fast Track who is the preferred bidder as a result of the
tender process and they are developing a number of propositions
for further discussion with us. In fact they have meeting with
ministers tomorrow, as it happens. But the fundamental pitch underpinning
this is that the government has more than doubled its commitment
in financial terms to elite sport. Success in Beijing, which we
have been talking about, will be primarily based on hugely increased
public sector funding, government grant and Lottery, and ministers
believe that that provides the basis of a platform for saying
to the private sector, "Now it is your turn to get behind
this and sustain and develop it to London 2012."
Q123 Chairman: That is all very general.
Presumably you are going to give them all sorts of incentives,
are you not? You must be thinking about this now. You cannot do
what they do at football matches, can you—you cannot have
their names around the stadium and things like that, can you?
Mr Stephens: It is certainly true
that the traditional rights model is unlikely to contribute hugely
because the rights by and large are owned by different bodies.
So with UK Sport, with Fast Track and others we are developing
looking at alternative models of raising this funding.
Q124 Chairman: I just wonder whether
you are not being too optimistic. I have heard nothing from you
today to suggest to me that this is going to be a terribly attractive
advertising option for private companies.
Mr Stephens: I am agreeing with
the Report that it is a challenging target to achieve. On the
other hand, it is on the basis that the government will be putting
in £500 million—
Q125 Chairman: But just because the
government puts in money does not necessarily spur the private
sector to put in money; the private sector puts in money because
it wants to have advertising opportunities and options to advance
its own brand name. You have not told the Committee anything of
what options you have given to the private sector to do that.
Maybe it is not appropriate at the Olympic Games, but I just wonder
whether you are not being very optimistic.
Mr Stephens: I am agreeing that
it is a challenging target. At the same time in terms of raising
sponsorship for the running of the Games in 2012 LOCOG performed
very well and got sponsorship commitments in the form of about
£300 million towards their target of more than £700
million, so that provides a degree of confidence. The sports market
is of the order of £16 billion, employs 400,000 people, so
the economic interest in this is huge. There is a range of opportunities
to exploit; there are obvious markets around individual wealthy
donors, business support and also whether there is any way to
maximise the support of the general sports participating population.
Q126 Chairman: When will this money
start flowing, do you think?
Mr Stephens: The assumption is
that if first starts flowing in 2008/2009.
Q127 Mr Bacon: The Chairman has just
asked a question that I was going to ask about when it starts
flowing, but if the worst case scenario materialises, as it says
in paragraph 2.34 it is already too late for UK Sport to protect
the full funding that it proposes for those sports it expects
to win medals, and judging by the shortfall in the LOCOG funding
from the private sector I share the Chairman's fears that the
full funding may not be forthcoming. I wonder is there a contingency
plan that does not involve, as paragraph 2.33 says, possibly cutting
funding from developing elite athletics in those sports with clear
medal prospects?
Mr Stephens: Just to clarify,
there is no shortfall in the LOCOG funding. In fact they are on
if not slightly ahead of targets.
Q128 Mr Bacon: I probably have the
wrong Olympic body but when we last looked at the Olympic budget
there was a shortfall in private sector funding compared with
what was originally anticipated, was there not?
Mr Stephens: That is on the construction
side.
Q129 Mr Bacon: There were about 20
different bodies with the word "Olympic" in them, I
know.
Mr Stephens: But in terms the
body that is raising private sponsorship for the running of the
Games they are actually far ahead of any previous Games. No previous
Games have had more than one major sponsor signed up by the time
of the previous Games. The organising committee currently have
five top sponsors—
Q130 Mr Bacon: Who are they?
Mr Stephens: From memory they
are Lloyds TSB, Adidas, British Telecom, British Airways, EDF
Energy and the next tier down of sponsorship by Deloitte.
Q131 Mr Bacon: Thank you. I would
just like to turn to Mr Davidson's question about the social background
of participants in these different sports. Do you happen to know,
Mr Steele, what proportion of medal winners went to public schools?
Mr Steele: I do not.
Q132 Mr Bacon: I have heard that
it is as high as 80%. This is only an anecdotal figure but it
sounds like this information is available. Ms Nicholl, do you
have any idea about this?
Ms Nicholl: No, I do not know
the actual detail but I do recall that post-Athens there was press
coverage around that and I think there was some independent collection
of data, but never formally collected data.
Q133 Mr Bacon: Is it able to be found
out and could you find it out and send it to us?
Ms Nicholl: We probably could
find that data; it would take a little time and we would have
to go back to each of the medallists to check that.[13]
Q134 Mr Bacon: That would be very helpful.
May I ask, were you educated at public school?
Ms Nicholl: No, I was not.
Q135 Mr Bacon: Were you, Mr Steele?
Mr Steele: I was, yes.
Q136 Mr Bacon: Were you, Mr Stephens?
Mr Stephens: I am a grammar school
boy myself.
Mr Bacon: Excellent, first class! One
of each! Thank you very much, Chairman.
Q137 Chairman: But actually it is
a serious point because if we are talking about widening participation
it is pretty worrying if £700 million is going into advancing
our cause in elite sports and 80% of medals are won by people
who went to public school. You must be worried about this, must
you not, in terms of widening participation amongst the general
population?
Mr Steele: As I said before, Mr
Chairman, we are not about participation, but I think from a personal
perspective—
Q138 Chairman: You told me a lot
earlier about how you were going to trickle this down and how
these people were role models and all the rest of it.
Mr Steele: That is the way I understand
role models work and there is a genuine value in a role model,
but going back to what Mr Davidson was saying in my experience
in elite sport and coaching and playing in it I think it is more
inclusive than it was and I think traditionally there are some
sports that you could point to and say, "Yes, those are particular
to a part of our society," and I think that is less of an
issue now than it was a few years ago, but that is just from my
experience in sport.
Q139 Mr Davidson: I think it is fair,
Chairman, that it is less of an issue than it was before but that
is not to say that it is adequate. I do not think I shall be satisfied
until the medal winners reflect the percentage of areas we each
have in society and once we see public schoolboys and girls dropping
down to the same percentage that we have in society as a whole
then I would not believe that elite sport is open. I understand
your position, you work with what you have and it is not your
job to change things, I understand that. Can I come back to the
point that I was making earlier on and on reflection I am a bit
concerned by Mr Stephens' answer because the point I was making,
just to clarify it, was about UKCAT saying that the Olympic Authority
have launched a report saying that 1,000 youngsters from the local
area will receive training and 90% of that however is only going
to be NVQ2 which is essentially semi-skilled, rather than NVQ3
which would be equivalent to a modern apprenticeship. Government
policy is quite clear in terms of wanting to see modern apprenticeships
and rather than just passing this to the Authority to respond
to us I would have thought that this is something that the 48
civil servants that you have supervising ought to be dealing with,
and this is not something that you should pass on to somebody
else but ought to be something that you are responding directly
to us.
Mr Stephens: It is simply that
the training will be delivered in partnership with the Olympic
Delivery Authority and so they are responsible. I am very happy
to agree and reply and write back myself. I just did not want
to hazard an answer without checking the position.
13 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. Back
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