House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee Community Sport Oral and Written Evidence Tuesday 5 April 2005 Prof Margaret Talbot OBE, Mr Charles Stringer, Ms Linda Neal, Mr Dan Bloxham and Mr Peter Baveystock Mr Francis Baron, Mr Brian Barwick, Mr David Collier and Mr John Crowther Rt Hon Estelle Morris, MP, Mr Paul Heron, Lord Carter of Coles and Mr Roger Draper Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 5 April 2005 HC 507-i Published on 19 May 2005 by authority of the House of Commons London : The Stationery Office Limited £18.50 Witnesses Tuesday 5 April 2005 Professor Margaret Talbot OBE, Chief Executive, Central Council for Physical Recreation; Mr Charles Stringer, Chairman, Hertfordshire Junior Cricket Committee and President Nazeing Common Cricket Club; Ms Linda Neal, Honorary Secretary, Sheppey Rugby Football Club; Mr Dan Bloxham, Head Coach, All England Lawn Tennis Club; and Mr Peter Baveystock, Chairman,Hownslow Sports Forum Ev 14 Mr Francis Baron, Chief Executive, Rugby Football Union; Mr Brian Barwick, Chief Executive, The Football Association; Mr David Collier, Chief Executive, The England and Wales Cricket Board; and Mr John Crowther, Chief Executive, The Lawn Tennis Association Ev 81 Rt Hon Estelle Morris, Minister of State, Mr Paul Heron, Head of Sports, DCMS, Lord Carter of Coles, Chairman, and Mr Roger Draper, Chief Executive, Sport England Ev 95 List of written evidence 1 Central Council for Physical Recreation Ev 1, 21 2 Local Government Association Ev 11 3 Rugby Football Union Ev 22 4 Football Association Ev 66 5 England and Wales Cricket Board Ev 72 6 Lawn Tennis Association Ev 76 7 DCMS Ev 87 8 Sport England Ev 91 9 Amateur Swimming Association Ev 101 10 Association of British Athletic Clubs Ev 104 11 Badminton England Ev 107 12 Big Lottery Fund Ev 109 13 Business in Sport and Leisure Limited Ev 121 14 Corporation of London Ev 124 15 Dr Adam Brown Ev 125 16 European Sponsorship Association Ev 126 17 Football Foundation Ev 129 18 Institute of Sport and Recreation Management Ev 129 19 Leyton Orient Community Sports Programme Ev 131 20 Manchester City Council Ev 137 21 Pertemps People Development Group Ev 139 22 Premier League Ev 142 23 Richard Baldwin Ev 145 24 Sheffield City Council Ev 147 25 Sports Match Ev 152 26 Swim 2000 UK Ev 156 27 The Princes Trust Ev 157 28 UK Sport Ev 159 3049211PAG Page Type [SO] 14-05-05 01:46:48 Pag Table: COENEW PPSysB Unit: 1PAG Culture, Media and Sport Committee: Evidence Ev 1 Oral evidence Taken before the Culture,Media and Sport Committee on Tuesday 5 April 2005 Members present: Sir Gerald Kaufman, in the Chair Chris Bryant Alan Keen Mr Frank Doran Rosemary McKenna Michael Fabricant Derek Wyatt Mr Nick Hawkins In the absence of the Chairman, Alan Keen was called to the Chair Memorandum submitted by the Central Council for Physical Recreation (CCPR) 1. CCPR This inquiry into Community Sport, with emphasis on the development of grassroots sport and participation by all members of the community, is warmly welcomed by the CCPR, which is the umbrella body for 270 UK/GB and English national voluntary organisations for sport and recreation, including the national governing bodies1. CCPR’s member organisations collectively account for approximately 13 million sports club memberships (around 8 million active participants) and around 5 million volunteers. CCPR member interests encompass all competitive and recreational sports and activities, from highly competitive, institutionalised sport, to movement, dance, mind games and outdoor and adventurous activities; and include almost all of the voluntary organisations promoting their primary purposes through sport (eg youth sector, local authorities, physical education and education, military and uniformed services sports divisions and professional organisations). The CCPR membership also plays a huge role in supporting the policy outcomes of many central government departments. For a summary of these contributions by CCPR member organisations, see the CCPR “Red Book for Sport and Recreation”, published last month, immediately before the budget (available from: www.ccpr.org.uk/dyncat.cfm?catid%16737). CCPR has a strategic relationship with Business in Sport and Leisure, the umbrella body for commercial and private organisations and companies delivering sport and recreation. 2. Community sport “Community Sport” is taken to mean that provision which takes place outside and beyond the formal school system, at local level within people’s own communities. There is an obvious synergy between the focus of this Inquiry and the interests and concerns of the CCPR membership. 3. The Role of CCPR: Protecting and Promoting the Interests of Voluntary Sector Sport and Recreation As well as providing a forum for sharing experience and good practice and acting as a consultee to government and its agencies, the role of the CCPR is to protect and promote the interests of voluntary sector sport and recreation, including the national governing bodies. This is achieved both through providing information and development services which help membership organisations build the capacity to respond to changing legal, regulatory and strategic requirements; and through its policy work, whose intention is to influence and steer policy and strategy so that the interests of voluntary sector sport and recreation are protected and promoted. CCPR’s preferred approach is always to be in a position to analyse policy or emerging legislation at an early enough stage to be able to influence its development and drafting. This, however, depends either on the eVectiveness of the consultation process; or on CCPR’s ability to recognise, early enough, the implications of proposed changes in legislation, regulation or policy. Since this requires 1 For more information, see www.ccpr.org.uk or telephone CCPR on 020 7854 8500, or E mail adminwccpr.org.uk 3049212001 Page Type [E] 14-05-05 01:46:48 Pag Table: COENEW PPSysB Unit: 1PAG Ev 2 Culture, Media and Sport Committee: Evidence knowledge of the activities of around 17 central government departments or their agencies, this is a demanding task! The policy work of the CCPR is valued highly by its members and is best represented by the monthly Policy Update which is distributed to members and available more generally on the CCPR website. 3(i) Recent examples of CCPR’s role in promoting the interests of its members: (a) Drawing attention to the contributions and needs of the NGBs and voluntary sector sport and recreation in national strategy. “Game Plan”, the Government’s national strategy for sport, acknowledged that Government itself does not (and cannot) deliver sport and recreation, but depends on four major delivery sectors to do so—the voluntary, education, commercial and local government sectors. The strategy was, however, silent on the nature and scope of provision by each of these four sectors; and there was (and remains, with the exception of physical education and school sport) no strategic approach to building the capacity of these sectors to continue and extend the opportunities they provide to people and their communities. CCPR regards this as the most serious gap in thinking at national level, and in November 2004 it issued a Challenge to the Next Government, which suggested measures which could be taken to secure concrete outcomes which would strengthen the capacity of each of these sectors and enable them to do more. The CCPR Challenge focuses on all four of the delivery sectors for sport and recreation (see later section on national strategy), but specifically outlines measures which would support the existing and potential contributions of the national governing bodies and the voluntary sector: — Recognise and celebrate the core provision and added value which national governing bodies and their clubs bring to the system; — Double the current Exchequer funding for sport and recreation; — Invest in voluntary organisations and clubs and their volunteers, and provide learning credits; — Protect volunteers and their organisations from trivial and unnecessary regulation and legislation. (b) Evidence of the contribution of voluntary sector sport and recreation to the active citizenship and volunteering agenda. Through its relationships with the wider voluntary sector and the Active Communities Directorate in the Home OYce, CCPR was aware that the massive contribution of national governing bodies (NGBs), national sports organisations (NSOs), their clubs and volunteers to this agenda was virtually invisible—both in sport policy and in voluntary sector policy. The CCPR was aware from the existing research that 26% of all volunteering takes place in sport and recreation—the biggest single arena for volunteering to take place—most of it, under the aegis of the national governing bodies and their clubs. An independent research study was therefore commissioned by CCPR to record and show evidence of this contribution2. The study has been invaluable in raising awareness and the profile of sport and recreation in Home OYce thinking, and helping NGBs to recognise their own (often taken- for-granted) contribution to this important area of government policy. (c) Social capital: Following from the above study, and from a national seminar series funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the CCPR decided to extend data collection on the promotion of the value of NGBs and NSOs by commissioning the Carnegie Institute at Leeds Metropolitan University to construct a framework for evaluating NGBs’ and NSOs’ social capital. This was done, because there seemed to be little recognition across sports strategy of the crucial importance of the sector in sports provision. Voluntary sector sport and recreation is unique, in being the only sector whose primary purpose and responsibility is the delivery and development of sport and recreation. It therefore provides a continuity of purpose, strength of belief and range of local community involvement which simply cannot be matched by the other delivery sectors.