Assignment 6.

3 Dom Hughes

Describe the structure and roles of three sports development providers

in the UK

First I will describe the structure and roles of a sports development scheme.
All organisations have a structure or set up that staff should follow to help
delver their programmes. This organisation gives communication, authority
and makes good links with a sport development scheme.
There are 4 main types of communication.
• Committees – these are most common in the voluntary sector. These
would be made up of around people which include chairperson or
captain. Also a treasurer who looks over the financial affairs and also a
secretary to work administration. Finally there is a person looking after
child welfare.
• Working groups – These are a looser arrangement than the
committee system. They are found mostly in many organisations in
partnership. These function by each partner sending work with the
others in the group. These groups ensure every interested party is kept
informed and able to achieve the aims set out for the scheme.
• Forms – These are sets of people who tend to be experts on the
issues involved with sport development. These meet to discuss issues
or problems and to put forward ideas for sports development.
• Consultation groups – These are large groups and tend to be used
for consulting a range of people who might be involved in a scheme for
sports development. People who might get consulted includes local
politicians, county sports partnerships etc.

Roles

Sports development schemes have many contributions to the community

around them. They all include diverse aims, dimensions, individual set ups.
The first style of delivery in sports development scheme includes enabling.
This is referred as when the provider responds to participants needs by
providing facilities and resources to give people opportunities.
The other is facilitating which involves motivating and helping people. Both of
these focus on the participants running the club or team by themselves. There
are many different ways development in sports is brung across. For example

Direct delivery – these are carried out directly by professional sports

developers, such as those done by local authority officers.

Strategic- this refers to links, which come together. For example it would be
known as an integrated approach. This would include links in healthy living
and lifelong learning aims.
Operational – this is referred to dealing with the people concerned directly
such as disaffected youngsters or Asian women. These operations tend to be
delivered professionally by leaders with community knowledge.

Also guidance roles are important for sport centres. For example they might
need advice on safety factors and requirements for disabled athletes. There
are many organisations that help with this. It includes English federation of
disability sport, disability sport Wales etc.
There are two main concerns sports development schemes look for. They
include:
Participation – Some schemes may fulfil a role that focuses mainly on
participation level by helping to increase the numbers of people who actually
take part. This has a huge age range, ability levels, gender and sports. In the
UK this is the most common goal and through the country this virtually is the
guarantee of what the target is for schemes.

Performance - A sport specific approach is given to schemes more involved

with performance. These methods are known as excellence. This is the
highest level of the continuum .Key organisations at this level try to work in
harmony to develop talent. For example Uk sport, LOCOG. etc.

Providers of development schemes vary hugely. For example local

authorities. They are councils than play an important role in sports due to
them becoming concerned with all types of target groups in the community.
They provide leisure and sporting facilities that help to make the community
healthier. Some local authorities handle a large-scale scheme and tend to try
and meet the community’s needs.
Sometimes they join up with other schemes and help with such thing as
health authorities, voluntary clubs and group to aid development.
Also governing bodies intervene to oversee a particular sport in terms of
management, rules etc. They operate locally, regionally and internationally.
Some organisations concentrate on such things as grass roots. They relate to
the basics level in sport. Volunteers often join to take part in refereeing, admin
work etc.
They are also private organisations, which get involved in sports development
to further business interests. Some business gets involved with sport as
sponsors. For example the Institute of Sports Sponsorship. Which is on behalf
of the government and Sport England

The sports development schemes I will be explaining will be Sport England ,

5 Star and the 5x60 programme.

Sport England
This is assessed by the following :

“Quest is a tool for continuous improvement, designed primarily

for the management of leisure facilities and leisure
development”
(from the Quest website www.questnbs.org)

This is the national system that can be used for assessing the sports
development schemes for sport in England. This is an industry developed to
specific elements of sport development work including research, management
and customer service.

This quality system is aimed at sports development units in local authorities,

governing bodies and voluntary organisations. The team can use either a self-
assessment programme or submit an independent assessment in order to
gain an award.

An independent consultant oversees this so make sure it is fairly marked and

operates a grading system based on the following points:

• The customer average a score of above 60%

• The customer must obtain a score between 75% and 84% to achieve a
high commended mark
• They must achieve a score of 85 per cent to be excellent.

There is also a assessment based programme which involves criteria such as:

• Objectives and actions are targeted at participants involved in the

programme.
• The assessment involves all different techniques such as time keeping,
workmanship and coaching
• Quality of equipment they have
• Techniques involved in problem solving
• Cultures such as professionalism, standards and elements of pride

This is their official logo of Quest (www.questnbs.org)

Star scheme

The STAR scheme is a partnership between North East Lincolnshire Council’s

Sports Development Unit and local leisure provider, Sport Leisure
Management (SLM).

STAR, which stands for Sports Training And Rewards, provides top-level local
athletes from any sport, who compete at a representative level, with limited
free access to specific leisure facilities within North East Lincolnshire, to help
them train and improve their performance.

The 5x60 Programme

This programme was introduced to help students all over Wales experience
and see sport in a different way.

The programme and role is to help children develop in sport and in some
cases be introduced to all different areas in sport and get more young people
involved.

This was first introduce by the Welsh Assembly Government and they laid
down the fitness gauntlet by setting the target of seeing 90% of children taking
part in frequent exercise for a large period of time.

This programme is rising to the challenge by helping to create the

environment necessary for young people in general to take part in sport
locally especially and widely.

The programme works with officers through the country going to many
secondary school all over the country and help put with the sports
programmes that already run their and also to improve them and encourage
as many young people to take part in sport as possible.

The officers are working with sports development teams to ensure that
activities can also be sustained in the community.

The activities that are involved in this programme are designed to listen to the
needs of young people by providing opportunities that encourage them to
participate. Once young people do get involved their have ownership of what
they are doing and can say they belong to something. Also for the pure
joyment of playing with their mates and getting fit by doing so.

The role of 5x60 is to encourage and advertise extra sporting activities for
young people and to improve fitness all over the country.
 (www.sportswales.org.uk)

These are just some examples to show how some organisations development
sport. It will give the team some ideas on how we could improve and make
changes to the role of programmes in the area.

Domenic Hughes
Sports Development Team