The use of public sports facilities by the disabled in England

Disabled sports participants are a small proportion of sports participants at English public sports centres; but they are important to the social inclusion agenda. This paper aims to provide a detailed insight into the preferences and behaviour of disabled sports participants. It investigated whether there were statistical differences: first, between the disabled sports participants and the non-disabled sports participants in terms of (1) social demographics, (2) patterns of participation, (3) travel, (4) sports activities and (5) customer satisfaction; and second, between age, ethnic, socio-economic and gender groups of their subsamples, on (2), (4) and (5) again. Disability is defined as having any long term illness or health problem which limits a person's daily activities or the work that a person can do. The data collected through the National Benchmarking Service, for 458 sports centres from 2005 to 2011, revealed that about 9% of over 150,000 sports participants were disabled. Swimming, using fitness equipment and keep fit related exercises were the top three most frequently stated main sports activities by the disabled. It was also more likely for the disabled to participate in organised activities, own a leisure card and participate regularly when compared with the non-disabled participants. In addition, the disabled were also more likely than the non-disabled to travel to the centre by public transport, from home and travel a longer journey time. The industry weaknesses as identified by the disabled relate to physical evidence of the sports centres, particularly cleanliness attributes. Measures that can be taken to increase sports participation by the disabled include competent support at sports centres, promotions through discount schemes or leisure cards, and free transportation to sport centres in catchment areas with high proportions of disabled in their population.</p

The performance of local authority sports facilities in England during a period of recession and austerity

This paper examines how public sport facilities in England, which are dependent on subsidy from local authorities, have performed during a period of recession and austerity. Using data derived from Sport England's National Benchmarking Service (NBS), we track the changes in a series of key operational performance measures to investigate how local authority sports centres have fared between 2005/06 and 2015/16. Four dimensions of performance are analysed, namely: access; finance; utilisation; and, customer satisfaction. The study includes 1,116 sports centres in the time frame under review. Our results show that the overall financial efficiency of English public sport facilities has improved significantly in the face of a reduction in local authority expenditure on sport and leisure services. There appears to be a business model in the sector that includes outsourcing management and raising activity charges, which has been accompanied by higher levels of customer satisfaction with price-related service attributes and with the overall experience of using a facility. A possible explanation for these findings might be an improved quality of provision and greater customer orientation. At the same time, there appears to be a diminished focus on social inclusion objectives. We therefore conclude that promoting access to public sport facilities for hard-to-reach or disadvantaged groups has been compromised in exchange for the pursuit of financial stability. A key challenge is how to achieve market development whereby new and targeted customers are attracted to these existing facilities

The effect of management types on the performance of English public sports centres.

There has been a change in the management of public sports centres in England, with significant numbers being transferred to non in-house operators. This paper analyses the consequences of this change, by evaluating the variation in public sports centre performance by different management types. It uses data on 260 sports centres that undertook the National Benchmarking Service, which has indicators on access to centres by different types of user, finance, utilization, and customer satisfaction. The results show that local authority in-house management achieved higher customer satisfaction but worse financial performance compared with commercial contractors and trusts. Trust management is positioned between in-house and commercial contract management in terms of service satisfaction. Therefore, the preferred operators for public sports centres depend on which performance dimensions are the priorities of local authorities

Access to English public sector sports facilities by disadvantaged groups and the effect of financial objectives

Public sports facilities in the England have long been subject to questioning in terms of justifying the subsidies that government provides for their operations. This questioning often relates to the types of customers who use these facilities, the logic being that subsidies are justified more when sufficient use is made by ‘disadvantaged' or socially excluded groups. This is particularly the case in the period since 1997, when the policy focus on social inclusion has been considerable. Central government subsidies for sports in England amounted to £668 million in 2004. Typically, over 60% of such subsidies go to support the operations of sports and leisure centres provided by local authorities. This paper uses data from a national service for sports and leisure centres to examine their usage by disadvantaged groups – termed ‘access' performance in this service. First, the evidence from the 2006 data shows mixed evidence of ‘success' in attracting such groups – although defining ‘success' is a difficult task. Second, evidence from the period 1997–2006 fails to show clear signs of improvements in the usage of these centres by disadvantaged groups. Third, evidence of financial performance over the same period gives rise to the notion that financial objectives for such centres may have been more important to local authorities than socially inclusive use of the facilities. Regression analysis is conducted to identify the relationship between financial performance and access performance. This suggests that there is only a weak relationship between finance and access performance. The implications of this analysis are that socially inclusive use of centres should not be seen as detrimental to financial performance when establishing strategies for such facilities, and a greater emphasis on securing the use of disadvantaged groups is necessary to justify the subsidies they receive

COVID-19 and the Sport Sector

Chapter 2 starts by setting the scene and exploring the broader impact of COVID-19 on the sport sector. In this chapter, the authors investigate the consumer and producer sides of the global health crisis in addition to looking at the investment and policy settings required to promote recovery and a sustainable future for the global sports economy