Sports in Society Assignment Sample
Here’s the best sample of Sports in Society Assignment, written by the expert.
1. Executive Summary
Purpose: This report is aimed to develop understanding of the policy development and execution in the country. For this, a current sport policy named as “sporting future” is selected which is implemented in the UK for the purpose of increasing sport participation in the country.
Findings: From this report, it is identified that this policy will be helpful to achieve outcomes related to individual development, social and community development, economic development, mental wellbeing and physical wellbeing. Apart from this, stage model of policy development and multiple streams framework also analyses that the government and policy administration followed proper steps and process to develop and execute this policy. This policy was developed by adopting a consultation with the public and experts who provided their views and opinions regarding the policy alternatives. Based on this information, the policy administrator selected appropriate ones and framed this policy effectively. In order support the delivery of this policy, several programs and events including Mind’s Get Set to Go, Changing Lives through Sport and East Riding GP Referral are conducted to increase sports participation in the country. All these programs can be said effective to generate the positive outcomes in relation to the execution of this policy. At the same time, key performance indicators also provide better measures to determine the success of executed policy.
Recommendations: This policy was not effective in terms of sampling size as there is need to consider more number of participants in consultation process and use more quantitative key performance indicators to improve the policy development process. In addition, the government needs to remove the cultural and socio-economic barriers for increasing sports participation. Wide perspective of this policy can be considered in next future policies by allocating more budgets to the different sports activities.
2. Introduction
The government policies play an important role in socio-economic development of the country through incorporation of better approaches and actions to handle the issues. For ensuring the effectiveness of these policies, it is required for the government and authorities to analyse these policies and make changes to get the desired outcomes (Herweg et al. 2015). Concerning, this report focuses on DCMS current sport policy i.e. “sporting future” in the UK and critically analyses it by using policy theory and framework. It also evaluates the factors that have impacted its development with the help of stage model of policy development and multiple streams framework. Apart from this, this report also provides evidences in perspectives of programmes and projects that have been executed to support the delivery of this sports policy. Finally, it also explains the key performance indicators that can be used to measure its success.
3. Main Body
3.1 Public sport policy
The chosen public sport policy is Sporting Future: a new strategy for an active nation. This policy defines the vision of the UK government towards achievement of key outcomes. This policy is supportive for making the nation active. It is oriented towards the gaining from the sport power for everyone. The major areas of investment in this policy are focused on the accomplishment of the key outcomes. The government will fund the organisations that will show how they can deliver the shared goals effectively (HM Government, 2015). The purpose of this policy is to encourage more people from different backgrounds to take part in sport and physical activity (as participant), volunteer and experience live sport (spectator) regularly and meaningfully. Through this policy, the government is also intended to maximise the international and domestic sporting success and influence of the sport events. It also wants to make the sport sector more productive and sustainable and responsible.
This shows the broader engagement of the government in sport to ensure the domestic and international sporting success. The UK government is also intended to establish a good governance to set new standard internationally to prevent doping, match-fixing and corruption in the sport sector. A new duty of care will be established for the all athletes and participants to ensure safety in sport (Edler and James, 2015). In addition, a Sports Business Council will be established to increase sport growth and enhance access to finance and focus on skill development in sport sector.
3.2 Factors influencing the development of sport policy
The factors impacting the development of new sport policy can be understood by using the below theoretical frameworks:
3.2.1 Stage model of policy development:
This model explains the development of a policy in five stages agenda setting, policy formulation, adoption (or decision making), implementation and evaluation. In context of new sport policy, its development can be presented through stage model as below:
Agenda setting: For the development of Sporting Future policy, an agenda was decided by the government after recognizing the need of sport development in the country and ensure the commitment made during the Olympic Games. It is required for the government to make a priority of Olympic and Paralympic success, so, it wants to enhance the sport effectiveness and ensure long term elite success. It is also required for the government to enhance the sport effectiveness in the non-Olympic sports. The major challenges like measure success, determine what sport can deliver, ensure the effectiveness of the government working, etc. are the key agendas in the formulation of this policy. Social outcomes were also missed in previous policy as it is also required to focus on it to understand different needs of different groups. These agendas are based on decision agenda rather than public agenda as the government has decided to address these issues. It is challenging for the government to ensure the long term delivery of sport and physical activity in the UK (HM Government, 2015). All these factors played a significant role in formulation of this policy. In relation to this, “the class systems theory” depicts that the public policy is formulated and executed after getting public opinion and government decision making process.
Policy Formulation: At this stage, the government focused on several policy options to select appropriate one. It can be noticed from framework that the UK government selected three actions in policy as it mainly focused on the outcomes including individual development, social and community development, economic development, mental wellbeing and physical wellbeing (See: Appendix 1).
Adoption (or decision making): In this, public statements and actions of government officials and experts are considered by the policy administration before making decisions for the adoption of policy. In addition, president, congress, state legislators, courts and agency officials all contributed well to make decisions for the policy adoption. All these personals provided executive orders, laws, appropriations and budgets, rules and regulations and court decisions to assess the proposed options and set policy directions.
Implementation: This step includes the activities that are associated with the official adoption of a policy. It is required for the government to pass the policy bill from the parliament with the support of opposition parties. After passing law, the policy is implemented. This policy was executed after passing through parliament (Getz and Page, 2016). In addition, some discussion sessions were also conducted between the ruling party and opposing party in parliament to pass this policy that helped to improve the policy actions.
Evaluation: It is important for the government or policy administrators to evaluate the effectiveness of the policy by using key performance indicators for betterment. As this policy covers five major areas including physical wellbeing, mental wellbeing, individual development, social and community development and economic development, so it is required to measure the success of policy in all these areas. This is also beneficial to determine which organisations should get funding in future (HM Government, 2015).
3.2.2 Multiple streams framework
Multiple streams framework includes problem, policy and political streams in policy development.
Problem stream is related to the problem that is seen in the perceptions of the public as it is required for the government to take action. In context of new sport policy, it can be stated that there is a problem in the views of the public (Holt, 2016). The increasing number of people with obesity and diseases in the UK is major concern among public. People want to be healthy and want to gain better healthy life. Apart from this, it is also concern for the UK public to increase the sport participation and feel pride if the sport players get more medals in sport events inside and outside of the country (Howlett et al. 2015). Therefore, it is essential for the government to resolve all these issues concerned to the public. Based on this, it can be stated that public opinions are the major factors that played an important role in the policy development.
Policy stream is associated with the output of experts and analysts who play an important role in evaluating and analysing the problems and proposing the solutions. In this, policy actions and inactions are assessed to select appropriate one. Regarding the new health policy, several expertises contributed in sport policy formulation. These experts participated in the sport strategy consultation to provide their views and opinions regarding the problem identification and providing solutions to resolve these issues successfully. Apart from this, the government also got 3200 comments and responses which were valuable in supporting to deliver the new policy over eight weeks, from 4 August until 2 October 2015 (HM Government, 2015). After assessing different options based on previous policies and approaches and new ones, they decided to select key areas and outcomes in the new policy that how to increase participation in sport and physical activity. Therefore, it can be stated that analysts and expertises also significant factors that contribute in the formulation of a new policy. However, its execution in school games is under review as there is a question of whether this policy will deliver its purpose or not. Apart from this, the policy is not focused in the cultural and socio-economic barriers which can affect the capacity of an individual to participate in physical activity (Honeyman, 2015).
Political stream: It includes factors that influence the body politic including swings in national mood, legal aspects and interest groups. It is also mandatory for the government to focus on the national mood and laws and regulations and interests groups including media, social groups and political parties that decide how the policy can be formulated and implemented (Béland and Howlett, 2016). Concerning to the new health policy, it was also mandatory for the government and policy administration to consider all these factors while designing this policy. Several health campaigns and sport authorities also play a significant role in making it essential to change the existing sport policy. But at the same time, it will be challenging for the government to execute this policy at its full potential because the impact of recession and Brexit may cut the budget of the government on public services. It may affect the outcomes of this policy in political perspectives (HM Government, 2015).
3.3 Programmes and projects supporting the delivery of sport policy
3.3.1 Changing Lives through Sport:
One of the programmes or projects that has been executed for supporting the delivery of this sport policy is “Changing Lives through Sport” conducted by Greenhouse Sport, which is a London-based charity. This charity conducts several sports to engage people to participate in different types of games including tennis, football, swimming, and judo. It helps young people to realise their potential and participate in sports (HM Government, 2015). It provides sports coaching in schools and community to improve physical and emotional skills. The major operational areas of this organization are 37 mainstream and 9 special educational needs schools and 4 community clubs.
3.3.2 East Riding GP Referral
Another project is “East Riding GP Referral” that has been executed to support the new sport policy. In the East Riding of Yorkshire, general practitioners and other health professionals refer the patients to join an activity programme at a council leisure centre. In this, qualified fitness trainer provides 20 sessions to help people to do exercise and be fit for longer. Even, people who have participated in this programme have reported several benefits including quality of life, wellbeing and improved self confidence with more activeness and healthier and fitter (Cairney and Jones, 2016).
3.3.3 Mind’s Get Set to Go programme
Mental health charity named as Mind has conducted a research and found that some attributes like low self-esteem, body consciousness and low confidence cause restrictions for the people with mental health issues to be active especially for women. It was launched in 2014 to address health issues and maintain mental health of people. It encourages people to participate in mainstream sport and physical activity. It delivers peer mentors support and sports sessions to develop a warm environment and encourage inactive people to be active.
3.4 Key performance indicators used to measure its success
The physical wellbeing can be measured in terms of reduction in risk of developing diseases like diabetes, cancer, dementia, heart disease and depression. It can also be measured in the Physical inactivity costs to people. So, the key measures that can be used for determining the effectiveness of policy in terms of physical wellbeing are increase in % of population of country engaging in physical activity and decline in % of population which are physically inactive (HM Government, 2015).
Mental wellbeing can be shown in perspective of reduction in stress and anxiety, enjoyable experience and improvement in self-confidence and self-esteem. Physical activity or participation in sport causes a positive effect on the mental health. Therefore, the improvement in subjective wellbeing can be a better measurement to measure the success of the new sport policy (HM Government, 2015). At the same time, sport participation brings improvement in educational behaviour and attainment through mental health development leading to better employment opportunities. Improvement in perceived self-efficacy will be crucial for the individual through participation in physical activity. Therefore, the success of policy can also be measured based on scales to measure self-efficacy (Honeyman, 2015).
On the other hand, social and community development is also possible through sport that brings people from different backgrounds together and develops cohesiveness. It also enables people to develop better social relations measuring in terms of social capital and social trust (Flitcroft, 2015). Overall all these outcomes can be measured in the following key performance indicators:
- Increase in % of population participating in physical activity (2 times in last month)
- Decline in % of population which is physical inactive
- Increase in % of adults using outdoor sport activities (exercise)
- Increase in % of children getting physical education and swimming proficiency
- Increase in % of youths with positive perception towards sport and physical activity
- Increase in number of people volunteering in sport (twice in the last year)
- Demographics of volunteers in sport
- Number of people attending a live sporting event
- Number of Olympic and Paralympic medals (HM Government, 2015).
- Position in Olympic and Paralympic games
- Performance in UK Sport
- Attendance ratio in domestic sports and government and UK Sport major events
- Economic impact of events
- Growth in Jobs in the sport sector (HM Government, 2015).
- Percentage of publicly owned facilities (underutilised)
- Increase in non-public investment into sport
- Increase in the number of publicly funded bodies
All these key performance indicators can be said appropriate to measure the success of the policy in future. In addition, these performance measures are significant to measure the participation of people in sports at all set levels. However, there is lack of some quantitative aspects that may reduce the measurability of the policy outcomes.
4. Conclusion
On the basis of the above discussion, it can be concluded that DCMS current sport policy i.e. “sporting future” can be effective policy to encourage the sport participation in the UK to make people healthy. This policy is formulated and developed with the consideration of proper policy formulation frameworks and theories including Stage model of policy development and multiple streams framework. In addition, it is also summarized that some programs and projects like Changing Lives through Sport, East Riding GP Referral and Mind’s Get Set to Go programme are being conducted to support the execution of this sports policy. Apart from this, it can also be identified that the effectiveness of this policy will be measured based on certain key performance indicators that can be helpful to monitor and control the effectiveness of the policy. However, this policy is criticized in terms of sample size consideration in policy development and lack of considering elements including external engagement and appraisal and design and ideas and quantitative KPIs. Therefore, it can be effective for the government and policy administrator to make changes in the policy development process to make it more effective and generalized.
5. Recommendations
In concern of policy formulation, it can be recommended that the policy should be formulated with the consideration of more samples as the development of the sport policy was based on low number of participants in consultation process. Apart from this, it is also required for the government to focus on elements like goals, ideas, design, external engagement, appraisal, roles and responsibilities and feedback and evaluation. The consideration of all these elements can make the policy effective. In addition, key performance indicators can be decided in terms of quantitative aspects more to measure the success of policy effectively. Apart from this, the government also needs to make better management of budget for this area to execute all the activities under this policy (Honeyman, 2015). In addition, there is need to tailor programs to address the cultural and socio-economic barriers to increase the capacity of individuals to participate in the physical activity.
6. References
Béland, D. and Howlett, M., 2016. The role and impact of the multiple-streams approach in comparative policy analysis. pp. 221-227.
Cairney, P. and Jones, M.D., 2016. Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Approach: What Is the Empirical Impact of this Universal Theory?. Policy Studies Journal, 44(1), pp.37-58.
Edler, J. and James, A.D., 2015. Understanding the emergence of new science and technology policies: Policy entrepreneurship, agenda setting and the development of the European Framework Programme. Research Policy, 44(6), pp.1252-1265.
Flitcroft, C. 2015. Vision for sporting future outlined by the government. [online]. Available at:https://www.thebmc.co.uk/government-publish-sporting-future-sports-strategy (Accessed: 8 November 2017)
Getz, D. and Page, S.J., 2016. Event studies: Theory, research and policy for planned events. Routledge.
Herweg, N., Huß, C. and Zohlnhöfer, R., 2015. Straightening the three streams: Theorising extensions of the multiple streams framework. European Journal of Political Research, 54(3), pp.435-449.
HM Government 2015. Sporting Future: A New Strategy for an Active Nation. [online]. Available at: https://www.activenorfolk.org/uploads/sporting-future.pdf (Accessed: 8 November 2017)
Holt, N.L. ed., 2016. Positive youth development through sport. Routledge.
Honeyman, A. 2015. Sporting Future: A New Strategy for an Active Nation. [online]. Available at: http://www.apse.org.uk/apse/assets/File/Andrew%20Honeyman%20-Session%201.pdf (Accessed: 8 November 2017)
Howlett, M., McConnell, A. and Perl, A., 2015. Streams and stages: Reconciling Kingdon and policy process theory. European Journal of Political Research, 54(3), pp.419-434.
Khayatzadeh-Mahani, A., Sedoghi, Z., Mehrolhassani, M.H. and Yazdi-Feyzabadi, V., 2015. How Health in All Policies are developed and implemented in a developing country? A case study of a HiAP initiative in Iran. Health promotion international, 31(4), pp.769-781.
7. Appendices
7.1 Appendix 1: The Framework for a new sport strategy
________________________________________________________________________________
Know more about UniqueSubmission’s other writing services:
