Sports Strategy Consultation — shaping the future

Following the Government's launch of the consultation for a new sports strategy, James Allen, Alliance Head of Policy, outlines our plan of action, how our members can participate and what to consider when responding.

Last week, the Alliance reported on the launch of the Government’s consultation to shape its new sport strategy. There is much to welcome in the stated aims of the consultation, particularly that it is cross-governmental in nature – meeting a long-term need identified by the Alliance for far greater coherence and co-ordination across government when it comes to extracting the most from the sport and recreation sector.

The consultation also covers many of the same areas as our own pre-election work in Raising the heartbeat of the nation. This is reassuring, as it shows that we were heading in the right direction but also ahead of the curve. It’s also promising, in that we’re confident that the future strategy can be shaped to allow our sector to fulfil its full potential.

We are now in the process of forming our early thoughts on the consultation, which runs until early October.

The consultation is certainly wide ranging in scope; from the grassroots to elite sport, through health (including mental health) to education, to infrastructure and governance and more. It’s quite difficult to draw many conclusions about what the future direction of policy will be – not least because of the breadth of the questions, the sheer scale of the consultation and the very open ended nature of questions in almost all areas.

A few thoughts that will shape our own response are already emerging:
1.tThe need to be genuinely strategic – we feel that this consultation presents a real opportunity to set out an ambitious, new strategic framework. It is important that government doesn’t become overwhelmed by trying to cover too much and therefore miss this opportunity.
2.tHow to value participation: it’s a reasonable assumption, we think, that getting more people participating will still form a central part of the strategy. We would want this to be an opportunity to develop the most sophisticated and broadest possible mechanism of measurement – to include things like volunteer numbers, club membership, overall levels of activity across all sport (not just one) and longevity of involvement in activities.
3.tThe need for specifics – whilst we want a strategy to leave enough future room for manoeuvre, we also need to see detailed, workable and actionable recommendations in all areas.
4.tResisting the urge to always go for the ‘new’ – we have a world class, very comprehensive network and infrastructure for sport and recreation in this country. Whilst there is always room for new approaches, innovation and improvement, what works currently must not be lost in the drive for progress.
5.tHow to guarantee accountability – we’re really interested in exactly who and how different parts of the strategy will be developed and want to explore the possibility of a form of “accountability matrix”, which shows who (for example, government, Sport England, NGBs, local authorities) is responsible for what and how this will be delivered.

We have opened up a page on this site to enable our members and other sports organisations to quickly and easily feed their views into us as inspiration hits them – and as often they’d like. These views will be consolidated alongside our other engagement efforts around the consultation with our members and DCMS.

To find out more about our role in the consultation and to participate, please click here.

This is a chance to generate and drive significant improvements in the creation, delivery and maintenance of sport and recreation and the benefits the sector bestows upon society. Don’t miss this opportunity to have your say on how we achieve them.

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