Implementing community sport policy: understanding the variety of voluntary club types and their attitudes to policy

Abstract

The Olympic Legacy Plan has been a governmental concern prior to the London 2012 Games, particularly, the aspiration to use the event to inspire participation in sport. However, scant attention has been directed towards the voluntary sector and its role as a delivery agent of the legacy aspirations. New policies for community sport set out a clear focus on using national governing bodies and voluntary sports clubs (VSCs) to deliver growth in adult sports participation and to reduce the proportion of participants dropping out of sport by the age of 25.

How far voluntary organizations are aware of and comply with top-down approaches to policy implementation is debatable, particularly when considering the origins and motives of voluntary clubs, their heterogeneous characteristics and their general indifference towards national sport-related policy. This relationship forms the basis of this enquiry. It draws from implementation theory and seeks to explore how far VSCs are aware of policy goals and to understand club management practices and their likely impact on the role of the VSC in delivering community sport policy goals. The findings identify a variety of management practices that can be broadly categorized into three ‘cluster types’. Each VSC cluster has a distinct set of aims, support needs and policy outputs. This article concludes by suggesting that more work is required in segmenting club types to identify their diverse support needs and the roles that they may be able to play in increasing participation and reducing the proportion of young people dropping out of sport.

Keywords:

• sport policy
• voluntary sports clubs
• implementation
• Olympic legacy

Notes

1. Whilst the fieldwork was being completed, the national policy for community sport was to increase participation in sport and active recreation by 1 million adults (aged over 16 years) over a 3-year period between 2008 and 2011. As a result of a change in political leadership, the community sport policy changed in 2011–2012 to increase participation year on year (with no specific target figure) amongst people aged 14 and over.

2. This is the amount invested in 2009–2013 whole sport plan process, for 46 sports. Further details can be found at: http://www.sportengland.org/funding