A year on from Fit for the Future, 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?

In many respects I think we can. For example, we know Sport England had a lot of very specific actions from the Government’s Sporting Future strategy that need to be delivered through their new strategy.

We also know from our engagement with our members, the wider sector and Sport England that the strategy will also address many of the points that we have already highlighted in our Fit for the Future report and continued work under this programme.

The good news is we are already working with the sector to address some of these issues. Clearly we have some way to go as none of us would claim any of them have been “solved” but we can be confident there is both a willingness and an ability from the sector to tackle them head on.

For example, next week at the Sports Summit 2016, we will be exploring specifically how we need to collect and use data more effectively in order to evidence the impact of what we are doing so as to demonstrate the value gained. The Summit is a culmination of a month long focus we have had on tech and insight, and in addition to the areas covered over the month, on the day we will be looking at how data has been used in other sectors, how some of our members that work at a national level are embedding better use of data into what they do, and what the commissioners of services want to see from sport and recreation to address the issues most pressing to them.

We have also started to look at a number of ways to support the desire for increased financial sustainability in the sector. For example we are excited by some work that we are doing in collaboration with the Cabinet Office, DCMS and Sport England around social investment and separate work with Sport England and UK Sport about how organisations can be supported to explore the ways that shared services and bulk procurement can help them increase their efficiency and potentially reduce their costs.

We are of course also pleased that one of the key outcomes from the Sporting Future strategy is around mental health and wellbeing. We have been very proactive in this area, so during this Mental Health Awareness week, 16-22 May, we are looking forward to seeing how Sport England will be investing to support this outcome in the future in particular.

Clearly we can’t ignore the fact that there will be some big challenges ahead as Sport England are being asked to do more things with less money and also to do some things differently – so it is obvious that they will have to change the way they work. In addition they have already been clear that they anticipate funding a wider number of activities with the focus on funding the outcome, rather than the organisation and this will be a significant change in approach.

For the membership of the Alliance, there will undoubtedly be those who seek opportunity in the new strategy and those who feel the challenge. Our role will continue to be to support our members so the benefits they deliver are fully appreciated and maximised to the sector’s collective advantage.

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