A year on from Fit for the Future and what's ahead?

This time last year, with just a week to go before our annual Sports Summit, we were putting the final finishes to our Fit for the Future: Helping the sport andrecreation sector face the challenges of tomorrow report.

This scene setting report was the first one under our Fit for the Future programme of work that we launched at the Sports Summit 2015. The report highlighted a number of challenges and opportunities for the sport and recreation sector which included:

·         Heightened pressure on public finances and the impact of political change at a local and national level;

·         Changes to the legal and regulatory environment which could either benefit or negatively impact on the sector;

·         The importance of leadership and developing the workforce – both paid and voluntary;

·         The link between sport and recreation and health outcomes both in terms of the potential opportunities and also the challenges of a changing population with some serious public health concerns;

·         The importance of, and opportunity presented by, the natural environment as a “facility” for sport and recreation – but which brings with it the need to invest in those facilities;

·         The desire to increase participation, but perhaps of more targeted specific groups and the importance of measuring and then demonstrating impact.

A lot happens in a year of course. This time last year we didn’t know how committed the Government would be to the role of sport and recreation in the Spending Review – helped we believe through the great way our members got behind the #GetYourKitOn campaign - and we didn’t know we would have a new Government Strategy.

But we must have got some of our crystal ball gazing right because, following the consultation on the Government Strategy which took place last autumn,  all of the points in our Fit for the Future report featured in SportingFuture in some way or form. This of course wasn’t just luck, but a combination of two important factors:

·         our report focused on real issues faced by the sector based on the insight and experience of our members;

·         the Government listened to the input from the Alliance and its members during the consultation period.

So as we look ahead to the publication later this week of the new Sport England Strategy, which will relate to their next 2017-2021 funding cycle, can we be as confident about what it will contain?

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