The UK government has published its new strategy for Sport and Physical Activity – Get Active – and quite rightly sector bodies are publicly rowing behind it – why wouldn’t they? – but at least the CEO of London Sport has been brave enough to suggest the ‘emperor has no clothes’ by pointing out that without additional resources the government’s ambitious targets will be difficult to achieve.
I’ve lost count how many government sport strategies I’ve seen but they’ve all been pretty similar with the exception of the last one – published in 2015 – which was more radical, on the back of the post-Olympic failure to increase participation.
It proposed a shift in policy to sport and physical activity, aligning this with health improvement as a cross-government priority and really focusing Sport England and the sector on finally addressing ingrained inequalities.
This triggered the huge shift in Sport England policy ultimately set out in Uniting the Movement, a strategy pretty much welcomed across the board by the sector.
There was for many of us a real sense that things were going to change for the better, despite the decade of austerity driven by this very same government, but the anticipated change has not yet happened, partly – but not entirely – due to a pandemic, an energy crisis and a cost of living crisis.
Recent critiques
In response to mounting concerns in December 2021 the House of Lords select committee published its report calling for a National Plan for Sport, Health and Wellbeing and setting out a wide-ranging set of recommendations. Then in July 2022 the National Audit Office published its report into Grassroots Participation in Sport and Physical Activity.
This report examined if the DCMS and Sport England had achieved value for money in their spending on increasing grassroots participation and concluded that: “The Department has made mixed progress towards its objectives of increasing participation, tackling inactivity and reducing inequalities in activity levels since it changed its strategy in 2015” and again made a number of recommendations.
Finally in January 2023, the Public Accounts committee also considered grassroots participation in Sport and Physical Activity and concluded among other things that the “DCMS lacks a compelling vision on sport for England”.
It also made a series of recommendations, many of which related to how performance should be improved, measured and managed. You would, therefore, have expected this government strategy to be quite radical in addressing these recommendations by setting out a very clear and bold plan for change. But this is not the compelling vision called for.
Advocacy, analysis and evidence
With 112 pages, Get Active is definitely not light on advocacy, analysis or evidence. In fact the case for the sector’s contribution to social and economic policy is very well made and evidenced and the analysis of the weaknesses is honest, despite a total absence of any self-acknowledgement of the contribution the government itself has made to these weaknesses – in particular the impact of its spending policy on local government’s ability to support the sector to deliver the objectives.
Not only does the government fail to acknowledge its own failings, but I also sense a hint of frustration with both Sport England and UK Sport and with the sector in general for these continued failings and weaknesses.
This frustration focuses round two core themes, first the failure in school and community sport and public leisure to close the equality gaps in participation and activity and second the mounting failures in elite sport around integrity, discrimination and athlete welfare.
Reality check
If we summarise the priority actions set out at the end of the report we can see how well they address these weaknesses, represent a realistic national plan and enable an agenda of rapid and radical change.
The first set of actions are designed to address disparities in inactivity. They include a cross-government ‘ambition’ for children to achieve the Chief Medical Officer’s guidance on physical activity, a new cross-government taskforce to meet four times a year (but let’s remember the previous inter-ministerial group on healthy living which was set up in 2018 and ceased meeting in 2019), three actions to make Sport England and its partners more accountable by using more performance indicators, impact evaluation and performance management processes and a call for greater evidence to ‘enable’ more growth in the private sector.
The second set of actions specifically relate to children and young people. In addition to the ‘ambition’ to meet the CMOs guidance the actions include ‘exploring’ marketing interventions, including a new campaign, a new kite mark for school provision, a ‘review’ of school sport outside the curriculum and ‘continued support’ for active travel.
The third set relates to active spaces and facilities and includes £300m invested in multisport facilities by 2025 – £21.9m in tennis courts by 2024 – all, I suspect, existing funding – a ‘national vision for facilities’ by the end of 2023 and the roll-out of further place working with a focus on the most deprived communities.
The next set of actions relate to integrity in elite sport. These include ‘continuing’ the support of Olympic and Paralympic sport, ‘support’ to tackle discrimination and holding organisations accountable for their failings, ‘encouraging’ greater diversity of talent pathways through hosting major events and ‘monitoring’ the impact of the revised governance code on diversity.
The final set of actions relate to sustainability including ‘helping’ identify innovative inclusive digital solutions, ‘supporting’ the use of technology to drive investment into the sector, ‘championing’ the importance of environmental sustainability, ‘convening’ a forum to share expertise, guidance and support and ‘working with’ Sport England, UK Sport and their stakeholders to embed greater sustainability in the sector.
The adjectives are telling.
A lack of vision
In the foreword, the minister suggests the government can only set the vision and needs individuals to respond, but the strategy offers no inspiring new vision and is certainly not a radical national plan for sport, health and wellbeing.
Most of the actions replicate existing policy and funding but with some added passive government support, plus a few new low-cost initiatives. It is, therefore, easy to argue that the strategy simply challenges Sport England, UK Sport, other stakeholders and the sector to continue doing what they’ve always done, only better, but driven by yet more top-down accountability, more performance indicators and greater performance management but no additional funding.
Not only does it offer little inspiration, but the approach will also work against empowering local change which could be achieved by building trusted relationships and innovative solutions to local needs.
I’m left disappointed, but we can now focus on influencing a world after a general election.