Sport can play an important part in Sustainable Community
Strategies, and can be used as a tool to address local need and
contribute to achieving local priorities including Local
Area Agreements.
Sport England has published five themed guides to advise local
councils on how sport can assist in the delivery of local
priorities. This is part of Sport England's ambition to create
sporting opportunities in every community.
The Shaping
places through Sport series details how local authorities can
use sport to build stronger, healthier, sustainable and more
prosperous communities.
The five themes are:
-
Building communities - Sport has a role to play in
helping to build strong, cohesive and sustainable communities.
-
Healthier communities - Playing sport can reduce the
risk factors that contribute to poor health.
-
Transforming lives- Sport can have a significant
impact on health, personal development, educational achievement and
economic well-being.
-
Creating safer communities - Sport can help to
reduce anti-social behaviour and the fear of crime.
-
Increased prosperity - Sport can be a catalyst for
economic development.
Pilot project
NAVCA's Sports Partnership Project is also working to ensure that
resource allocation and local policy making (especially in the
context of LAAs) takes account of the benefits that sport can
bring. This can be achieved by ensuring there is improved
partnership working between organisations that provide sport and
local infrastructure organisations (LIOs).
Sport England provided resources for NAVCA to run a national pilot
project looking at these issues. The pilot objectives are:
- To improve communication and collaboration between sporting
organisations and LIOs/volunteer centres
- To encourage greater partnership working between local
strategic partnerships, local authorities, county sports
partnerships, community sports networks and local infrastructure
organisations in the delivery of local area agreements
- To encourage and develop infrastructure support to sports
clubs, as part of the wider third sector, to improve effectiveness
and reach.
Pilot project update, Dec 2008
Other resources
IDeA have produced a toolkit -
Improving
culture, sport and tourism. It is a practical set of tools to
help councils assess and benchmark culture and sports services, get
constructive feedback from partners and engage in peer-led
improvement. The toolkit has already enabled pilot authorities to
strengthen relationships with partners, and will help position
culture and sports services within LSPs and LAAs.