Sport England prepares for change

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Behind the headlines, the distributor is pushing ahead with a programme of change. Jane Taylor explains what is in the pipeline

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With or without a chief executive, Sport England is focused on 1 April 2003 for ‘kick-off’, in the words of its deputy chief executive Roger Draper. Draper finds himself in that awkward situation of having been recruited by a chief executive who disappears just weeks after the new man’s arrival. For now, Draper is carrying the burden of pushing the new strategy through an anxious organisation, without even having had time to absorb the complicated context of his new job.

Change starts from a new mission statement: ‘To foster a healthier more successful nation through increased investment in sport and active recreation.’ This tells us a lot about the new orientation: sport for all, sport for health, recreational activity that formerly Sport England may not have classified as sport or considered part of its purview at all. The emphasis reflects the Government’s desire to see Sport England play its part in the social inclusion agenda. But it also flags up another concern: to find ways of keeping the cash coming in. Sport England has a modest Exchequer budget: just over £78m for the 2003-04 financial year. What has transformed its fortunes in the past eight years has been the lottery deluge , initially £300m a year. But declining lottery receipts means that Sport England is counting on having £215m annually in future – and even this amount cannot be guaranteed. So the Department of Culture, Media and Sport is anxious to tap into some other, more lucrative and reliable sources of funding, prime among them the health budget. There is a strong rationale for linking sport/recreational activity and health – not least because of the potential cost to the NHS of our growing epidemic of lifestyle-related diseases (cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity). But if Sport England is to get a chunk of health cash, in the Government’s view it has to prove it can deliver the necessary outcomes. David Moffett, the just departed chief executive, had organised staff second-ments to the Department of Health to pave the way for greater collaboration.

DCMS and Sport England alike are looking at other possible cross-cutting strategic tie-ups: crime prevention, education, economic development. But the case for these lacks hard evidence of the contribution sport can play. Expect more research on these fronts.

Nevertheless, the strategic implication for Sport England is that in future it will be expected to work far more in partnership with other agencies. And, in keeping with the almost religious commitment of the sports minister Richard Caborn to regions, it is preparing to shift power and money out to its regional offices. Nine new regional sports boards are being set up – advertisements are out for board members. Regional chairs will, on a rotation basis, sit on the main Sport England council, three at a time. The regions will take charge of decision-making for all community-based pro-grammes, and there is a heavy emphasis on flexibility – adapting programmes to suit regional priorities, and working with and through complementary agencies.

The regional offices will expand to meet their new role, with 28 staff per office (up from about 19). The business plan shifts the balance of staffing from 70% HQ, 30% regions, to 60-40. But this is within an overall staffing reduction: by next April numbers will have dropped from 570 to about 400. A headquarters relocation is planned.

The national operation will concentrate on setting the strategic direction and handling relations with the various sports governing bodies. Funds for these – the backbone of the traditional Sport England operation – are likely in future to be allocated (not bid for), but with outcomes targets attached. The sporting bodies may not like this imposed mod-ernisation of their role, but the Government’s line is that they need to show that the public money invested in their activities represents an investment, not a charitable hand-out. Where there is still some heavy negotiating to be done is in relation to the funding of elite sport and major events.

Inevitably Sport England’s pro-grammes, including lottery, are all being reviewed. As soon as they have been ticked off by the DCMS (scheduled for 2 December), Draper can start to roll out the new schemes. Where it all leaves additionality is unclear, but there is going to be a far closer tie-in between lottery and Exchequer-funded pro-grammes. ‘We’re trying to have a joined-up approach between Exchequer and lottery funding, a one-stop, streamlined approach,’ Draper says.

Draper has full command of the Government’s buzzwords for change. ‘Our job,’ he says, ‘is support, advice; to be an investment bank for sport.’ He says the Government favours the phrase ‘earned autonomy’ – a concept wholly familiar to local government. Referring to the forthcoming Strategy Unit report, Draper says: ‘The Strategy Unit has said sport is good for health, quite rightly. We think sport is much more than that, but it hasn’t been very good at providing the evidence. We’re setting some ambitious key performance indicators, internally and externally.’