Strategy Survival Guide

Benchmarking
In Practice: SU & DCMS Sport Project
Development of policy for the Joint SU/DCMS report on sport "Game Plan: a strategy for delivering
Government's sport and physical activity objectives".
The review team on the sports project used benchmarking in drawing up its recommendations on the two
main areas of sport: grassroots sport and high performance sport.
The review team could not find a recent example of a country which has been able to obtain and maintain
a successful balance between grassroots and high performance sport - many Governments fund one at
the expense of the other (note that there is no firm evidence that strong grassroots sport and high
participation levels leads to success in high performance sport, or vice versa).
The team did not want to make recommendations that focussed on just one area and so developed policy
recommendations that would enable the Government to take a 'twin track’ approach and thereby provide
funding for both.
1. Grassroots sport
The team was keen to make recommendations aimed at developing a sport and physical exercise culture
in the UK and so looked closely at the policies and interventions used by Governments in other countries
in order to increase participation in sport.
Analysis of other countries’ participation rates showed that, similar to the UK, almost all had a sharp falloff
in participation rates at school leaving age, with the decline continuing with age. However,
Scandanavian countries, and Finland in particular, had managed to reverse that decline. Whilst they too
experienced a sharp fall at school leaving age, the decline reached a plateau in peoples mid-twenties.
Participation rates then remained steady until to their early forties when participation rates actually started
to increase.
This was instrumental in giving Finland participation rates of:
• Sport: 80%, compared with 46% in the UK
• Physical activity: 70%, compared with 32% in the UK
Members of the team visited Finland to find out more about this and examine the steps taken by the
Finnish Government to help obtain these high participation rates. Their findings were used to help shape
the final report, with one of the main recommendations being that the UK achieves Scandinavian levels of
participation by 2020.
2. High Performance sport
Given a range of factors including population and GDP, Australia has achieved disproportionate levels of
international success in sport in the last 25 years. Consequently, in developing recommendations in this
area, the review team focussed on Australia as a good benchmark.
Analysis showed that Australian funding of sport breaks down to around 80% for high performance sport
and 20% for grassroots sport. It is exactly the reverse in the UK. Also, the Australians have chosen to
focus on achieving success in a smaller number of popular sports, whereas the UK spreads the funding
thinner over a much wider range of sports.
The review team felt that it would not be desirable to replicate the Australian model of a 80%/20% funding
split in favour of high performance sport, but that we ought to focus our attention and finance on those
sports which offer the best return for the Government investment provided in terms of their:
• need for funding (to avoid funding 'rich’ sports)
• potential to win medals/championships
• ability to deliver (does the sport have adequate management controls in place? etc)
• popularity (and consequently their ability to generate 'feel good factor' and national pride).
The resulting recommendations in 'Game Plan’ are aimed at making the UK (or Home Countries where
appropriate) teams and individuals sustain places in the top 5 world rankings by 2020.
Strategy Survival Guide – Strategy Skills
Page 153