Source · Select Committees · Culture, Media and Sport Committee
Recommendation 4
4
Community and grassroots sport is heavily reliant on a relatively small volunteer workforce who have...
Recommendation
Community and grassroots sport is heavily reliant on a relatively small volunteer workforce who have worked tirelessly through the pandemic to keep their clubs going. This shrinking workforce is one of the biggest challenges facing community sport post-pandemic. Sport England has placed an important focus on the issue in its new ten-year strategy, Uniting the Movement, but the sports groups affected by the declining number of volunteers need help now. In addition to our proposed ‘Work Out to Help Out’ scheme, we recommend that the Government should set out, in its response to this Report, how else it will work with Sport England over the next 18-months to encourage people to volunteer across the community and grassroots sport sector and reduce drop-out rates among existing volunteers. (Paragraph 26) Funding and facilities
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The Government agrees that working with Sport England to encourage people to volunteer in the grassroots sector is valuable. DCMS will continue to support Sport England to deliver against their ambitions around volunteering, as set out in Uniting the Movement. This includes a focus on skills, behaviours, diversity and inclusion to open up and increase volunteering and employment opportunities for people from a broader range of backgrounds and experiences. Sport England is also looking at the support and experience for volunteers within the sport sector, focusing on what is needed to attract and retain volunteers, and the Government supports them in this. We know that despite the pandemic, the Active Lives survey indicates that 10 million people gave up their time to help make sport and activity happen last year (2019/20). Sport England currently provides guidance and resources to support volunteer development, marketing and management via their free-to-access Club Matters website: https://www.sportenglandclubmatters.com/volunteer-development/. Alongside this, work in train includes forthcoming research due to be published this autumn, into Innovative Volunteering practices. This will provide greater insight into what innovative approaches emerged as a result of the pandemic that could be shared and replicated more widely to help modernise the volunteer experience and that may help make volunteering more inclusive. This will be used to create a series of case studies and practical resources to be shared with the wider volunteer sector. Sport England are also involved with consultations being led by NCVO, Volunteering Matters the Association of Volunteer Managers and NAVCA to support the sector called ‘Vision for Volunteering’. 6 Government Response to Committee’s Fourth Report More generally, the Civil Society and Youth Directorate in DCMS is leading the development of work across sectors to support and strengthen volunteering. Sport England is feeding into this work.