The development and promotion of sports has been a growing priority for government sport policy across Britain in recent years (Bergsgard et al., 2007; Coalter, 2007). This notion has stemmed from governments and authorities becoming more involved in setting the policy agenda of sports, which is where the work of sports development originates. Therefore, sport and physical activity is being widely used as a way to accomplish social policy in a broad range of non-sporting objectives. One way in which sport and physical activity has been used to achieve non-sporting objectives is through trying to achieve greater social inclusion.
There has been a growing concern on a variety of perceived social problems in Britain over the past two to three decades, this is more commonly known as ‘Social Exclusion’. With Immigration and Unemployment both on the rise through the 1980’s, certain states in the European Union (EU) started using the term (Levitas, 2004). These developments were allied with a growing concern about the establishment of groups who were not just unemployed or poor but, were perceived as ‘outside’ or ‘apart from’ mainstream society (Roberts, 2008). The Idea of sport being used to promote social inclusion has been a topic of discussion in many policy statements since the the 1960’s (CCPR, 1960; Sports Council, 1982; Sports England, 2008). Within these statements are a mixture of, usually, untested assumptions that sport is an instant quick fix to social exclusion (DCMS, 2000).
As mentioned earlier, over the past two decades the government has intervened and played a much greater role in sports policy making. However, these interventions have created conflict as priorities, and focus on sports development and traditional sports-related goals (e.g. increasing participation and developing skills) have shifted towards using sport as a way to achieve non-sporting objectives (Ref). Houlihan and White state there is ‘conflicting pressures through being expected to contribute to the government’s social inclusion objectives’ (2002, 107). These conflicting pressures have been magnified due to a vast changing political climate in a competition for public funding. This has become increasingly more difficult as those working in sports development are now competing head-to-head with various public services that may traditionally be seen to have a greater entitlement of public funds, for example the education and health sectors (Bloyce et al., 2008). As a result of this, many Sports Development Officers (SDOs) are now being pressed to move beyond simply exalting the personal benefits of sports participation but, to now justify the use of sport for broad social objectives (Coalter, 2007).
With the rapid growth of sports programmes which are planned to encourage social inclusion through sport, many studies have been conducted to observe the effectiveness of these programmes. These studies have been conducted in various different countries, including Britain (Long and Sanderson, 2001; Taylor et al., 1999), The United States (Hartmann, 2001; Witt and Crompton, 1996) and Australia (Morris et al., 2003). Within these examples of literature, the examples of sporting programmes vary significantly from the source of funding and the organisation. There are also factors such as the accessibility, whether the project was open to all members of the targeted community or whether it was only a specific group which was targeted (for example, recovering alcoholics or ex-offenders). However, the most important question in regards to public policy is: do these schemes work? Do these schemes have a significant effect on the targets in which they set out to achieve?
A recent example of a project where the objective was to provide sporting facilities and opportunities for those in areas of high socio economic deprivation is the Barclays Spaces for Sports: Developing people and places through sport. In 2008 Barclays commissioned a study from an independent research group to examine the impact of the programme and the effected communities (Ramwell et al., 2008). Barclays Spaces for Sports launched in 2004 with a three year £30 million community investment programme from Barclays. They were then further assisted by a £29 million investment from two national charities The Football Foundation and Groundwork.
Described as an initiative that ‘combines both capital and revenue investment to develop local communities through sport’ (Ramwell et al., 2008: 10), the capital investment was used to build 200 brand new sports facilities across Britain including, skate parks, multi-games areas, climbing walls and many more. Revenue funds allocated to the programme were then used to support sports development activities such as volunteer programmes. The funds available offered 4,000 coaching packs to help generate sustainability in participation of grassroots sports (Ramwell et al., 2008).
The independent research group from Manchester Metropolitan University used a range of methods such as, interviews, site visits and field notes to measure the impact of the Barclays Spaces for Sports programme (Ramwell et al., 2008), In regards to social inclusion and engagement in the community of the affected areas, the research group established that even though the Spaces for Sports programme is targeted at all individuals in the community, when put into practise it is school aged children that have now become the the main target. There was a claim that there is a great need to engage other large groups of the community, pre-school and the over 50’s who may wish to use the sites. This feedback was key because unless these groups are targeted many of the sites will ‘stand idle during the day in term time’ (Ramwell et al., 2008: 40).
Spaces for Sports is believed to have made significant influence on objectives linked with regeneration of sporting facilities, in addition to regeneration of local community and creating a heart to the community (Ramwell et al., 2008). With the delivery of greater sporting infrastructure in deprived communities has come greater social participation and job opportunities through provision of coaching awards and other leisure and sports training.
From data collected it is estimated that roughly 50,000 people are now using the Barclays Spaces for Sports facilities each week (Ramwell et al., 2008). However, also from this data, there is no evidence to suggest these individuals are ‘new’ to sport of if they are participating as a result of a specific programme established to increase greater social inclusion or participation. Therefore, because of the lack of systematically collected and reliable data it is difficult to accurately measure the claimed effectiveness of the programme, especially in regards to long-term changes within the deprived communities. In the future it is important that such projects demand more specific and consistent process-monitoring to provide evidence that the programme is meeting it’s targets and making progress.
Alongside using sport as a means of achieving non-sporting social inclusion goals, much like the Barclays Spaces for Sports programme, there is also a recent push to use cost effective sports such as football to help tackle the difficult issues in within communities. Football has been used since the 1980’s as a useful, cheap and convenient way to reach out towards many social groups but most specifically those seen as at ‘risk’ or ‘hard to reach’ (Tacon, 2007). One scheme, founded in 2006, that uses the already established appeal of professional football to engage young people (12-18 years-old) who are exposed to crime and anti-social behaviour is Kickz- Goals Thru Football (Football Foundation, 2008). This programme contrasts to that of Spaces for Sports as it is not developing infrastructure and facilities, it is creating a long-term programme with the plan of having a direct positive effect on the lives of young people in deprived communities (McMahon and Belur, 2013). The programme is supported by the central government through the Metropolitan Police and Department of Health. It also receives the majority of its £11 million funding from charities such as Football Foundation and organisations such as the Premier League and The Football Association (Football Foundation, 2008).
By 2008, all Premier League Clubs were in inloved in delivering the Kickz programme and 15,000 young people were engaged in the programme. The objective as stated by The Football Foundation (2008) is to create safer, stronger, more respectful communities through the development of young people and their potential. To do this Kickz programme moved away from what was seen as more traditional approach which involved short projects reaching a high number of young people, the aim now was to create a longer project stretching over forty-eight weeks where the aim was to build relationships with individuals (Morgan, 2010). Kickz is not just coaching sessions delivered to young people but there is also many workshops and discussions on topics such as drug awareness, anti- weapons, career development and healthy lifestyle (Football Foundation, 2008).
After the first full season of the Kickz programme crime rate fell in the targeted areas. Crime reduction rates were further increased on nights when Kickz programmes where running, compared to days without (Parnell et al., 2015). Despite this being established as a clear success it is unfortunately not the greatest of indicators for a couple reasons. Firstly, the youth volunteer to take part in the programme. which in isolation isn’t a negative but it does create problems for evaluation. Youth who enter a scheme are ‘self-selecting’ and will be less likely to offend than those who have not volunteered on the scheme (Collins and Kay, 2003). Because of this, it then becomes increasingly more difficult to conclude that the decrease in crime was due to the Kickz programme.
The research and literature from both examples of the Barclays Spaces for Sports Programme and the Kickz Scheme has shown that It is very difficult to establish a clear cause and effect connection between sports development inclusion programmes and their desired targets. It is made increasingly more difficult to know of the exact results when sport is used in conjunction with other programmes to achieve non-sporting goals. In a policy delivered by the Department for Digital, Cultural, Media and Sport (2000) it noted the great and unique influence sport can have in tackling social exclusion in society but only by working alongside other agencies. Despite this approach proving to have a positive effect in many areas (Agnew, 2013), the problem now faced, especially by sports development workers, is tackling what Coalter (2007: 70) labels as ‘widely ambitious, extremely difficult to define measure for the social impacts of sport.’
There is, therefore, are a number of important changes which need to be made. Firstly, as mentioned earlier, better systematic monitoring to track long-term effects on communities (Ramwell et al., 2008). Secondly, there must be a clearly focused rationale. Take Kickz for example where they want to achieve safer, stronger, more respectful communities, because the rationale is so broad it will make it increasingly more difficult to monitor the effects of sport on social inclusion In one particular area.