NGBs have no track record of helping anybody but themselves
Posted: Sun, 22 Oct 2017 14:11
Mick Owen from Be Well asks some fundamental questions for debate about 'sport', NGBs and policy.
Whoever said that Twitter is the thief of time was bang on. Recently I made a knee-jerk response to a question, was called out on it and now find myself writing 750 words on the premise that sporting infrastructure bodies are not where we should be investing government money originally earmarked for other services such as health, social care or even community cohesion.
The actual question was: "Should sport bodies be funded by other sectors, e.g. health, if helping to achieve social outcomes" and my reply was "Nope! NGBs of sport have no track record of helping anyone but themselves."
I was challenged on the absolutist nature of my assertion and, of course, it being impossible to prove a negative, my critics had a point. For all I know there is a rounders programme somewhere in the North East where former mining communities are being healed after 30 years of hurt by a weekly game of stick and ball activated by a bright, young thing with a sports development degree.
I do know that programmes such as the School of Hard Knocks are having conspicuous success in using sport for social inclusion and football is being used by mental health charities and programmes supporting people living with addiction; but none of these have been led by a "sporting body".
I also know that after a lifetime of playing games at various levels and over 35 years working in the sport and leisure industry I have never come across a sports club or governing body at any level where social good even came into, let alone led, the strategic thinking of the people in charge. And I know, after five years of using physical activity (PA) to raise wellbeing at a community level and having been studied by two universities, featured in the FA's 'How to…' guide to Walking Football and been acclaimed an Unsung (sic) Public Health Hero, that when sports people get involved in PA a lot of the fun goes out of it and the normal, non-sporty people go back to their sofas leaving the session to the winners and the cheaters and the boot campers. And that, gentle reader, is why I am fundamentally opposed to the funding of NGBs by any branch of government, let alone the criminally under-resourced health services.
A very clever friend of mine, Val Stevenson, latterly of Sheffield Hallam University, made the argument that, in order to be successful, an organization's aims and objectives must be in alignment with the wants and aspirations of its stakeholders and that in voluntary organisations – and even our friends at Big Football are answerable to their blazerati – the reverse is true; the stakeholders ensure that the organization does what they want. And what do people who join sports clubs want? They want to "do" sport and, whether "doing" constitutes playing, coaching, managing or making the tea, they want to do it their way, for themselves and others like them.
To illustrate the one-eyed approach of sporty people I will return to Twitter and describe another message on my timeline; this time delivered by a proud coach in a running-related sport. In 2016 the best his child's class could manage in the inter-schools' cross-country championship was a lamentable fourth place. In 2017 "the Head" introduce the Daily Mile. This year the school placed first, second and third in boys and girls races. There was then a thumbs up emoji.
Now you and I thought that the Daily Mile was about getting children fit for life, possibly about countering the obesity epidemic or helping children learn more effectively but for this chap the Daily Mile is "a good thing" because it means his kid, his school, he (?) is beating other people in a running race. And that is the mindset of people who take part in and organize sport and that's why, my sporty friends, you are not a natural home for monies set aside to achieve social good.
I do have another argument and it comes with a graph:
Sadly, I'm graph-blind but I'm told this shows that, of all the interventions tried in the last 10 years to make people healthier, the one that achieved the greatest effect was the introduction of the Statutory Minimum Wage (not, as the label says, the Living Wage). Smoking cessation had a negligible effect, the tobacco tax barely made a dent and there's no sign of the Olympics on there. What made people healthier at a population level was putting more money into poor people's pay packets. Why take any of our tax pounds and put them anywhere else? Especially into a sector when even the brilliantly anti-sport #ThisGirlCan campaign only managed to keep the total number of women doing physical activity static.
Finally; sport is not a nice place.
I can almost hear you all citing your own favourite personal story of sports-based epiphanies. Swimming did this for this kid and Equestrianism did that for that one. But as I write this final par, Twitter has links to broadsheet newspaper stories on the suspension of a national swimming coach for bullying and on "alleged elitism, self-interest, bullying and corruption" inside the British Equestrian Federation. Without much trouble I can also find tweets bemoaning the poor behaviour of grassroots coaches and administrators in sports as diverse as Gaelic Football and Canoeing. Physical activity is a wonder drug and should be delivered in safe packaging by reputable practitioners with smiles on their faces. But sport is that same drug cut with the need to win and pushed by self-interested middle men posing as your best mate. Just say no!
Mick Owen, October 2017
(The article as always reflects the views of the contributor and not necessarily those of the Sports Think Tank. We are happy to produce these articles to create healthy debate so we would encourage your positive contributions).
Comments (8)
1. Duncan Wood-Allum said on Mon, 23 Oct 2017 22:29:
There is no better time like the present for challenge, disruption and hard questions for a sector within which many of us have committed our careers and free time. Mick’s challenge to the sector and NGB’s in particular is a harsh one, but to be ignored at our peril. It’s up to all of us who believe in the outcomes we contribute to or enable - to make sure they do deliver for the people who would benefit the most - and prove it.
2. Mark Winder said on Mon, 23 Oct 2017 22:33:
I must comment that many NGBs do help others. As CEO of Goalball UK ( a Paralympic sport for the blind and partially sighted) we are proud that the culture around our sport, at all levels, demonstrates many incidences where we have supported people who are blind or partially sighted and their families with the issues surrounding their condition. Here is one example . https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jun/03/goalball-rescued-me-from-my-slump-visual-impairment-blind We are not alone sports like Boccia, wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby do the same.
3. Martyn Allison said on Tue, 24 Oct 2017 08:32:
What a fascinating set of arguments all of which I would share based on my personal and professional experience. At school my size and shape meant I was abused and excluded from the sport field until suddenly I was able to play and win at badminton and I was welcomed into the club. In Coventry in the late 1970's Action Sport reached individuals and communities also excluded by the sport system but only by changing the product fundamentally, ignoring the governing bodies and challenging the provider system in the sport and leisure facilities and clubs much to their annoyance. In my fourty year career participation levels have hardly shifted and the equality gaps remain much the same as they were when Action Sport started. Sport England are at last acknowledging that they will invest in providers who can make a difference rather than in their traditional partners. Will they be able to stick to this when money flows from the traditional providers who have failed for all the reason Mick explains to ones that have real empathy with the excluded and in real need of opportunity to change their lives. Or will the sporting establishment once again try to resist and turn back the clock rather than having a deep close look at themselves and change.
4. Carl Bennett said on Tue, 24 Oct 2017 12:49:
A really interesting issue. NGBs have been relatively late comers to the health / education / social care / education themed resources. I recall chasing £ as a thing people were encouraged to stop doing, arguably, a key issue when short term approaches to improving lives of communities, often referred to as 'parachuting', fails. NGBs, and those who work in the system, generally, are there to foward 'their sport'. Their sport being a key phrase.
I suggest recently at the Active Communities Quest Conference that we need to make a decision in the broader sector: are we health services or are we recreation / physical activity services? A crucial Q when seeking £. Id argue, many simply fail to become what any investment, and I use that word carefully, aims to achieve. Are NGBs chasing £? Yes. Are they best placed to deliver significant, industrial scale local change? No. Are they part of the solution? Yes. Do we need to encourage cultural change within the NGB system? Yes. Will this happen any time soon? No.
Any organisation looking to invest must ensure governance is a factor in investing. I simply fail to see improvement in governance which provides me with any confidence. If I were investigating my own £ Id look elsewhere.
5. Wayne Allsopp said on Tue, 24 Oct 2017 13:25:
Work in the sport sector for long enough and you will see regurgitated strategy after strategy. Like being on a merry go round at a fairground Sport England’s national direction of travel seems to be dictated by the Olympic and Paralympic Cycles. Since the home games in 2012 we have had a reasonably sustained period of time focussing on SPORT. However it is all change again now due to the fading memories of 2012, a very successful 2016 Games and Tokyo 2020 in the distant future. Our elite sporting body remains firmly committed to their task of continuing our Olympic and Paralympic success. However some ministers have suggested a complete shift for the non-departmental body that is Sport England.
You have to feel for Sport England with the ever moving ministerial goal post making it near on impossible for them to deliver any sustained change. Let’s take a look back to the last shift from the focus being on other social objectives and creating a sporting habit for life.
Although a short time in the role of chair of Sport England Derek Mapp was tasked with driving Sport England towards becoming an active nation to improve the health and wellbeing of the country. This was quite ironic given the fact that Mr Mapp had made some of his wealth from the brewing industry. The concept driven by Sport England back in 2006 - 2007 through County Sports Partnerships was to create Community Sports Networks which were localised multi agency partnerships tasked with driving participation in physical activity. However with the Olympic and Paralympic Games already secured for London in 2012 some ministers began to get nervous regarding any such SPORTING legacy from the games.
James Purnell, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport at the end of 2007 announced a rethink for Sport England. Mr Purnell wanted to shift the organisation's resources away from active pastimes, such as jogging and walking, to more traditional SPORTS. Although Mapp says he was starting to deliver on his pledge to get two million more people off the couch and taking part in physical activity by 2012, Purnell believed the job of tackling obesity and inactivity should be financed by other ministerial departments namely the Department of Health
Mapp insisted he was willing to push through the reforms at Sport England, but Purnell told him that he did not believe he was fully behind his plans. This brought about the resignation of Derek Mapp along with Purnell announcing he had appointed Richard Lewis, the former executive chairman of the Rugby Football League, to carry out a full review of Sport England's funding priorities
During April 2008 –April 2016 we have seen a focus on traditional SPORT through 2 Sport England strategies where by National Governing Bodies of Sport have been hold accountable for delivering participation through their whole sport plans. Half of this journey was ironically navigated by Richard Lewis in the role of Chair of Sport England.
This lengthy period of investment in our National Governing Bodies of Sport has not seen a dramatic change in more people becoming more active more often. However you have to have some sympathy with NGBs in that the exam question beings asked of them by Sport England was not an easy one. Increase participation in your sport amongst people 16 years old and over.
Did Mr Purnell get it right? I suppose it depends on the outcome he was trying to achieve. However what is very clear is that the responsibility of tackling social issues through increasing physical activity is not what Sport and NGBs are set up to do.
Mick is right in that NGBs have no track record of helping anyone but themselves and the people that want to play their sport. And who could argue with my mentor in the sports development world Val Stevenson. People who join sports clubs want to "do" sport and, whether "doing" constitutes playing, coaching, managing or making the tea, they want to do it their way, for themselves and others like them.
Believe in it or not we are now back to a position where by Sport England are being tasked with improving physical activity levels and delivering 5 health related outcomes. Active Nation appears in both the DCMS and Sport England Strategy titles. The name alone (Sport England) will need bringing in to question when a large proportion of their funding and effort is now likely to be dedicated to physical activity and less traditional sports.
The knock on effect that this has to us that are working in the sport sector is enormous. I am not a health professional and I don’t lay down any claims to being one. However I do strongly believe in that sport does change lives and improved health is clearly an outcome from participating in sport. However like Val I am no fool and I know that improving health is not the motivating factor for why most people play sport particularly in clubs.
On the basis of the above you have to question the expertise within sector to deal with this dramatic shift back to sport for social good. Let’s take a look at the body being tasked with the delivery of these new strategies. Apart from Professor Ian Cummings the rest of the board members seem to be associated with more traditional sport and there seems to be even less expertise within the Executive Team. The delivery arms of Sport England that are County Sports Partnerships remain a mixed bag across the country. Some will be exceptionally well prepared to deliver on this new agenda and others will have followed the political path of the time and need a major shift in focus.
These ongoing fundamental changes in politics for sport make for a fragmented and inconsistent system. Only when we see the true value recognised in sport will we have an all-conquering world leading system. To achieve that we need the wonky donkey that is the various ministerial departments (DfE, DoH and DCMS) all investing in a product that can deliver some of their outcomes.
In the meantime with no home Olympic and Paralympic Games to prioritise sport. Those of us working in the sector need to go back under cover and start and use a different language. Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) / Place Based Working are new phrases to come to terms with. More importantly for some in the sector this will be a huge learning curve to understand what they mean and how we create these ways of working. Good Sports Development professionals will be able to do this as it is where most of us begin with grassroots development.
Warning Nick Bitel the last time the political wind changed direction we had a change in Chair at Sport England. I appreciate you have signed up for a longer term, but I would be intrigued to understand whether you have signed up to deliver a sports strategy or a physical activity strategy.
6. Martyn Allison said on Wed, 25 Oct 2017 08:11:
Wayne your analysis is spot on. The pendulum swings when pushed either way politically and yes it frustrates. But that's democracy and why we live in one. If the sector had better addressed equity over the last fourty years and had professionally dealt with exclusion and increasing participation across the whole community then politicians would not have needed to interfere, the system would now be fit for purpose. Equity and fairness is a political issue and I for one hope it remains so. Organisations of any nature who fail on this issue either through governance or performance should not receive public funding.
7. Rob wilks said on Thu, 26 Oct 2017 22:26:
Very interesting comments and I can level with many of the views here. As a leisure services lead at a local authority we have been on the receiving end of austerity measures, coupled with the non stop shift in priorities from government agencies and I very much believe that it is a mixed economy approach will deliver the mission of a more active nation. Clubs, coaches, volunteers absolutely have their place and most definitely contribute to creating and sustaining active lives, yes the particular sport people are involved with benefits, but so does society. In addition to this, schools/education sector, working with communities, planning and infrastructure design and the breadth of our partnerships we work through are just as valuable and play an equally important role. My job is to give balance to the politics, juggle resources effectively and make them fit to what matters to local communities and people who live there, with sport playing an important role.
8. Rob Hardwick said on Mon, 30 Oct 2017 21:15:
There are of course NGBs that help others and there’s a lot of good work going on. But the raison d’etre for NGBs, the whole reason for their existence, is to help their sport – to support the clubs and individuals that play their sport.
Too many NGBs, in chasing the money, have lost this focus. Paid officials represent a very small proportion of the people who run sport in this country – lest we forget, they are (overwhelmingly) volunteers. Why would they, or indeed why should they, worry about KPIs related to physical activity and social good, when so many of them are facing a constant battle to keep their club afloat, or to fund their participation in their sport?
There is little evidence that, without a disproportionate injection of cash and support, the plethora of ‘initiatives’ for sport have a positive impact on the numbers participating in the sport’s ‘core’ format(s). Examples? Can’t move round here for joggers and cyclists, but is that reflected in athletics or cycling club memberships? Why would volunteers in rugby clubs knock themselves out over the summer to provide touch rugby when they still struggle to maintain (say) a third team out during the regular season?
And yet there are still those who see Sport England as part of the sporting establishment – they’re not, they’re civil servants busily implementing government (DCMS) policy, with no inherent commitment to ‘sport’ as such. They’re currently busy turning CSPs into their local offices, thwarting attempts to support sport and driving them down the route of physical activity. Today’s social media headline? ‘Tackling Inactivity & Economic Disadvantage’. Surprise, surprise, sports people with their ‘one-eyed approach’ aren’t falling over themselves for the relatively small amounts of funding available.
Don’t get me wrong, good luck to those that do, but is this what lottery funding is supposed to be for? A couple of NGBs came close, over the summer, to refusing to be bullied, or blackmailed, into making changes insisted on by the funding bodies, and I suspect that many others will have been watching on with sympathy.
I’m not saying that the changes were inappropriate, but there’s an increasing sense of ‘enough is enough’ at the grassroots. In the words of Pink Floyd(!), ‘hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way’ – well, I can hear the sound of fingernails scraping down the sports club’s whiteboard as our volunteers slowly lose the will to live.
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