Sport and Recreation

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Thursday 11th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for calling this debate today and for his excellent opening speech. As a former Olympian and Minister for Sport, and current chair of the British Olympic Association, he has great expertise in this area which is valued by colleagues across all sides of the House. I also thank the two noble Lords who have also spoken today on this important issue.

The governance of sport, and particularly the governance of sports by their national governing bodies—NGBs—is a key part of the sporting landscape. Over half of all the government and lottery funding distributed by UK Sport and Sport England goes to NGBs, so NGBs need to get their governance right if, as a country, we are to deliver Olympic and Paralympic success and encourage more people to take part in sporting activities. That is why I am grateful for the helpful and erudite contributions made to the debate today. We will take them away and reflect on them further as we develop our proposals in this area.

Before I turn to NGBs specifically, I ought to mention what the Government are doing to strengthen the governance at the very top of the pyramid; all three noble Lords referred to this. As they will be aware, we intend to merge UK Sport and Sport England after the Olympics and Paralympics, to simplify the current landscape. That change will facilitate a more coherent approach to issues which affect sport at all levels, such as coaching, and be more efficient, maximising funding to our front line. I reassure noble Lords from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that we do not propose any changes to the sports councils in those countries, which are not our responsibility as they have been devolved. Also, we are discussing the details of our proposals for UK Sport and Sport England with Ministers and officials in those countries. We want the merged body to have an even stronger relationship with the home country sports councils and work with them even more closely for the benefit of sport across the UK.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, is absolutely right that we need to work with NGBs to strengthen their governance, while protecting their autonomy and trusting in their expertise. But I add that we have a responsibility to ensure that their spending of public funding represents value for money for the taxpaying and lottery-playing public. It is not money for nothing. Along with the other speakers, I add tribute to the volunteers who do so much to ensure the high quality of sport in this country. Both UK Sport and Sport England have sought to tread the fine line in recent years, improving the regular mechanisms for holding NGBs to account for public money through their Mission 2012 and whole sport plan processes, while avoiding continual bureaucracy. Both bodies monitor the governance of NGBs as part of their overall assurance work.

However, that has been given added focus by an independent investigation established by Richard Lewis, chairman of Sport England, and undertaken by Timothy Dutton QC in 2009 into Sport England’s world-class payments bureau, set up under previous management and operated between 1999 and March 2007. The bank account had operated outside the usual financial controls of Sport England, falling far short of the procedures and safeguards now in place in the organisation. There were mistakes in the way this was run, which have since been addressed by the new management team in Sport England, but it was set up because it was not possible to have the appropriate confidence in certain NGBs’ governance and systems in relation to the use of public money.

More recently, there was the collapse of the British NGB for skiing and snowboarding, Snowsport GB, less than a month before the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010. The quick work of the organisation of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, together with support from the talented athlete scholarship scheme and UK Sport, ensured that our skiers and snowboarders were able to compete in Canada.

In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, UK Sport and Sport England are currently working together even more closely than before to help improve the governance of NGBs. Governance, together with performance and finance, is one of the components of Sport England’s and UK Sport’s overall assessment of NGBs. They are currently developing at nil cost a governance, finance and control framework tool which is shortly due to be available on both websites, and which has previously been referred to. This will set out the necessary standards for bodies and provide prompts on how they might go about meeting those standards.

However, the Government do not view this as the end of the story. We want to continue to work with NGBs to help them further to improve their governance as part of our Olympic and Paralympic legacy plans. London is not just about building fantastic sports venues, boosting the UK economy, regenerating east London and hosting a once-in-a-lifetime event. It is also about putting in place a world-class sports system with proper governance from top to bottom.

There are two areas in particular that we would like NGBs to work on. First, we would like to ensure that they have high-calibre independent non-executives on their boards to help drive business forward, whether this is in terms of financial management, efficiency or capitalising on their commercial potential. Secondly, we would like NGBs to consider whether their current boards reflect the diversity of our society today, in order to help sports provide a service for underrepresented participant groups who may feel that they do not have the opportunity to play, such as women, ethnic minorities, the disabled, gays, lesbians and transsexuals. We would hope that all with enthusiasm and talent can feel able to participate and to feel welcome when they do so.

As well as governance processes, we believe that reducing bureaucracy in sport will assist clubs, voluntary organisations and governing bodies, and this is why the Minister for Sport and Olympics, Hugh Robertson, has tasked the Central Council of Physical Recreation with carrying out a review of bureaucracy and red tape as they affect sport. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, referred to two particular issues which the CCPR has been asked to address, and I assure him that it should report its findings to the Minister in early 2011 and then pass recommendations to the Deputy Prime Minister, who is responsible for reducing bureaucracy in the life of the nation as a whole. Certainly, the items that my noble friend mentioned regarding the licensing of alcohol and music are pertinent. It will be very relevant to review how much of a hindrance they are to the good and honest management of local clubs.

Strengthening governance and reducing red tape in sport is not an easy task, but the Government are committed to taking this forward and to being accountable to communities for doing so. There are specific aspects to this which noble Lords have mentioned. Various references have been made to the noble Baroness, Lady Billingham. She spoke to me to say that she regretted not being here. She has in particular been a tremendous champion for lawn tennis and has done great things in widening access to young people and others to enjoy that sport.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, also mentioned school support. Indeed, this Government are fully committed to introducing more competitive sport within our schools and between all schools across the country. An aspect in the business plan of DCMS states that its overriding aim is to encourage competitive sport in schools by establishing an annual Olympic and Paralympic-style schools event, improve local sports facilities and establish a lasting community sports legacy. The words of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, in support of that Olympic-style school sport event were highly pertinent here. That is something which could get local communities and young people really enthusiastic about sport and able to participate as they wish.

I also take on board the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about the competitive element in sport. I agree that running an egg-and-spoon race where it does not really matter who hits the line first is probably not as exciting as having one where there is just that edge of getting there before the others. I have grandchildren and I know that primary school sports days can be truly exciting as long as no child is totally depressed and they can all find something that they can enjoy. That is something that the local community can be involved in: not turning off young people from sport if they are not winning, but finding something that they can participate in and truly enjoy.

Various noble Lords mentioned volunteers. Empowering volunteers is of the utmost importance. The Government must make sure that they help rather than hinder by moving things forward and making more sporting facilities available to more people.

I am conscious that I may not have answered all the questions that have been asked in today's debate. I will look through Hansard and, if I have not, I will of course reply to noble Lords in writing. I commend the business plan that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport published this week. It contains some noble aims and aspirations, and we intend to keep to them. I commend also the work done by all sporting communities, particularly in the run-up to the Olympics and Paralympics, which will be a focus for energising interest in sport. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for the opportunity to debate sport and recreation, which play such a significant part in the life of the nation, and I thank other noble Lords who contributed this evening.

House adjourned at 6.32 pm.