GPA0011

Written evidence submitted by Community Leisure UK

We welcome the opportunity to submit evidence to the call for evidence on grassroots participation in sport and physical activity. We have provided some evidence on the areas where we are best able to offer an informed view. 

About Us

1.1  Community Leisure UK is the trade association that represents the largest collective of deliverers of public leisure and culture services in the UK. 

1.2  Our 110 members collectively deliver over 45% of public leisure provision in England, 50% in Wales, and 85% in Scotland. Prior to Covid-19, members employed over 46,000 staff across leisure and culture. They are and continue to be significant employers of 18-34 year olds. Over 17,000 volunteers engage with our members, participating in a wide range of opportunities to support the work of their local charitable trust. Prior to the pandemic, members received over 233m annual customer visits.

1.3  Members typically have contracts for services with local authority partners to deliver across a breadth of leisure and culture services. The majority of our members are called a single-contract trust i.e. they deliver the services and manage the facilities on behalf of one, local authority partner. A small number of members hold multiple contracts across England and Wales. We also have a number of, predominantly smaller, members with no local authority relationship.

1.4  Members are registered as Company Limited by Guarantee and registered charity, Community Benefit Society with charitable status, Community Interest Company, or Charitable Incorporated Organisation / Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation. All members reinvest their surpluses into the services and facilities that they run and manage.

Measures to increase participation in sport and physical activity and reduce inequalities

2.1 Our members are all community based organisations, focused on the needs of their local communities. They are ideally positioned to understand approaches that work in terms of increasing participation in sport and physical activity.

2.2 Sport England’s latest strategy, Uniting the Movement, makes a welcome focus on more localised approaches, but work to date has not gone far enough to scale and capitalise on best practice across the sector.

2.2.1 Money has been invested in local delivery pilots, with some promising results, and the change to focus on place is also welcome as sport and physical activity need to be an integral part of a whole systems approach in order to maximise the impact and reach as many people as possible.

2.2.2 The Sport England funded Active Kindness programme is bringing some valuable learning around engaging volunteers and offering a rewarding experience in volunteering, which could also provide an interesting route to increasing participation.

2.2.3 However, funding for sport and physical activity at a local level is all too often seen as a cost rather than an investment with a focus on grant-funded projects trialling new approaches, but no large-scale changes in how we sustainably invest in sport and physical activity.

2.2.4 Many successful pilots lack the funding to be rolled out and embedded across the sector more widely. Similarly, learning from pilot programmes and funded projects is often shelved after a year or two of the completion of the programme, and any learning around engagement and participation is not more widely shared.

2.3 One of the keys to increasing participation in sport and physical activity is to ensure sustainable funding to organisations over the long-term to enable them to focus on the delivery, without having to focus on income and budgets that are often short-term.

2.3.1 Indeed, many local authorities expect operators to pay rental for operating facilities, rather than recognising the role of physical activity and sport in supporting health, wellbeing and participation across communities.

2.4 There is a lack of understanding with both national funders and Local Authorities on the sport, leisure and physical activity sector with most focus going to clubs, NGBs and local voluntary groups, disregarding the cornerstone of the sector’s facilities. Investment has gone into sports such as football and tennis, with grassroots and wider public leisure activities overlooked and undervalued.

2.4.1 Leisure facilities act as central hubs for community activity. This includes a wide range of sessions and opportunities for the full demographic within villages, towns, and cities.

2.4.2 Public leisure facilities are the home of individuals and families as well as many community clubs, groups, national governing bodies, and elite athletes. This includes local swimming or football clubs, youth clubs, dance centres, dementia support groups, and self-help groups for disabled children and their immediate families.

2.5 One of the challenges of underinvestment into public leisure, which impacts on participation, is that people are more likely to be active in newer facilities, as highlighted in the participation data through the Moving Communities platform. People want to participate in activity and exercise in nice spaces, which requires investment and upgrading the existing infrastructure.

2.5.1  Yet capital funding is hard to come by and not prioritised, in favour of short-term projects that attempt to increase activity levels by offering specific programmes without considering the environment in which the activities take place.

2.6  It is vital that we recognise the role of public leisure in engaging with communities and the opportunities these facilities provide for everyone within the local community. Charitable trusts are a key pillar of the landscape as they focus entirely on ensuring inclusive and accessible opportunities for all, and they are an integral part to a whole systems approach to increasing participation in sport and physical activity and reducing inequalities.

2.6.1 Public leisure facilities are a gateway for many people to discover sport and wider physical activity, and offer pathways for those who want to improve and progress.

2.6.2 One of the cornerstones of public leisure facilities managed and operated by charitable leisure trusts is to offer choice based on need, ability and interest to engage.

2.6.3 Leisure trusts as non-profit distributing organisations increase accessibility to public leisure by reinvesting their profits, enabling people to participate through:

●       cross-subsidy of services – profit generating activities will subsidise some health, community-based activities etc; and

●       cross-subsidy of access – where those that can afford to pay support those who need a subsidy, or those activities that need to be subsidised.

The impact of the pandemic

3.1 The Covid-19 pandemic had a significant impact on our members and the wider public leisure landscape. To date, return rates have stagnated around the 70-80% of pre-pandemic participation levels and have done so since November 2021.

3.2 Our January landscape report focused on the impact of the pandemic and looked at the future of the sector recovering from Covid-19. It showed that two thirds of members anticipate that it will take at least one to three years from then (January 2022) until their business would be operating normally, though ‘normal’ may look different to pre-pandemic.

3.3 The pandemic also worsened existing recruitment and retention challenges in the sport, leisure and physical activity sector, creating significant operational challenges, which has led to the reduction of some services due to staff shortages.

3.4 As we enter the cost-of-living crisis and energy crisis, leisure trusts are in a fragile financial position with utility costs having spiralled out of control.

3.5 On top of the impact of cost of living for businesses, the reality for many people will be that they have far less disposable income. This will inevitably force people to make difficult decisions around where they spend their money, with a risk that some may be unable to continue participating in sport and physical activity.

3.5.1 Individuals with long-term conditions and some of the more vulnerable people with communities had already expressed hesitancy to return to activity after the pandemic, with anxiety around the impact of Covid on health continuing to be a real concern for many people.

3.5.2 There are also many people who have become deconditioned throughout the pandemic and as a result of lack of access to their regular exercise routines, who now feel concerned that they are unable to do the activities that they previously enjoyed.

3.5.3 One of the most significant impacts on people is the loss of social connectedness and an increase in feelings of loneliness. The mental health benefits of sport and physical activity are well recognised, yet have never been more evident than during the pandemic.

3.6 The pandemic undoubtedly weakened the financial position of many of our members, with many forced to use their reserves to remain solvent through this period. There is significant uncertainty around the viability of facilities and organisations as we move into autumn and winter as a result of soaring operating costs and local authorities’ inability to provide further support due to their own financial pressures. As non statutory services, there is a real risk of sport and leisure services being cut, which would in turn impact on participation across communities.

3.7 Sport and physical activity must be accessible to everyone, across all communities within the UK. The priority must be to ensure access, and for this to happen, it is vital to enable and protect local public leisure facilities to remain open and accessible.

How the success of the grassroots strategy is measured

4.1 It is important for the government to support sport and leisure from a grassroots level, as this will provide the infrastructure and engagement for sports to flourish and become embedded within communities. Local leisure facilities are vital places for community clubs, National Governing Bodies, community groups, and the general public to come together to participate in sports and physical activity.

4.2 There is a need for greater cross-government working as sport and physical activity have a role to play in the delivery of key cross-government priorities including Levelling Up, strengthening public services, driving economic growth, improving health and wellbeing and achieving Net Zero.

4.3 Social value should play a more prominent role in the measure of success, with a real need for greater understanding of social value - from procurement/commissioning through to delivery of public services. Any success should be measured in terms of social impact and outcomes, moving away from a purely financial focus.

4.3.1 Partners need to understand that purpose should come before profit. There is a need to recognise the distinct delivery models of charities and social enterprises and the inherent social value that these organisations provide in delivering services, as distinct to other delivery models.

4.4 There are opportunities to support the sector to gather data around equality, diversity and inclusion, which would provide valuable insight into who is participating in activities, rather than just numbers of participants.

4.4.1 There are also simple ways to encourage organisations, from clubs and community groups to larger operators, to encourage and record participation. An example is Scotland’s Mental Health Charter for Physical Activity and Sport, which supports organisations of all shapes and sizes to recognise their role in providing a safe and supportive environment for all participants, and also enables a simple impact infographic to be produced by entering a few core pieces of information.

4.5 Public leisure continues to be undervalued and unrecognised as a key provider of physical activity and sport opportunities at the grassroots level. As explained in point 2.7, it is vital that we recognise the role of public leisure in engaging with communities.

September 2022