Sports Development and Swim England: An Analysis

The report evaluates the Sports Development and analyses Swim England Company and its current sports development strategy. It examines the modern sports and leisure ideology that is present in the modern Britain and investigates the political ideas that are linked to the creation of the sports development strategy.

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Student’s name
University
Sports management
Date

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Executive Summary
The purpose of this report is to evaluate the Sports Development and analyse Swim England
Company and its current sports development strategy. The report will also analyse the
concepts behind the strategy and examine the modern sports and leisure ideology that is
present in the modern Britain. The paper will also investigate the political ideas that are
linked to the creation of the sports development strategy. The report will further examine
whether Swim England is capable of accomplishing the set development strategies

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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction to sports development............................................................................................4
2.1 The evolution and role of sports development in the UK............................................................4
2.1.2 Evolution of sports development..........................................................................................5
2.1.3 Role of Sports development..................................................................................................6
2.3 Process of professionalism.....................................................................................................6
2.4 Definitions and concepts of professionalism..........................................................................7
3.0 Exploring the organization and governance of sports in the UK......................................................7
3.1 Sports England.............................................................................................................................7
3.2 Youth Sport Trust (YST)...........................................................................................................8
3.3 Department of Digital media, culture, media and sports (DCMS)...............................................9
3.3.1 2012 Olympics....................................................................................................................10
3.3.2 2010-present.......................................................................................................................10
4.0 Gold challenge...............................................................................................................................12
Places people play..........................................................................................................................12
Play to win......................................................................................................................................12
5.0 NGB and Emergence into sports development..............................................................................12
5.1 Role of NGB in sports development..........................................................................................13
6 .0 Olympic legacy.............................................................................................................................13
7.0 Professional bodies........................................................................................................................14
7.1 Role of sports development within organization........................................................................14
8.0 sports and social inclusion.............................................................................................................15
9.0 Strategic planning for sports development...............................................................................15
9.1 Critique current strategies of swim England........................................................................16
10.0 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................20
11.0 References...................................................................................................................................21

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1.0 Introduction to sports development
Sports is any activity that involve use of skill and physical exertion in which a team or an
individual play against each other for entertainment. Sports Developments the advancement
of sporting activities for the benefit of the community. Sport development started in early
1980’s and its involve the likes of, PE staffs, Teachers, coaches, facility directors, community
workers, youth workers, professional health workers, policy makers and sport development
officers. Effective sport development mostly relies on partners and connect with;-
 Community groups,
 Facility operators,
 National governing bodies
 Local authorities
 Voluntary groups
1.1Sport development mission statement
a) To create and advance sport and leisure occasions for the native residence and
personnel from foundation to superiority.
b) Resolving barriers to participation, promoting peoples, public and community growth.
2.1 The evolution and role of sports development in the UK
Sports development refers to the expansion of recreational and leisure activities
in the community. Effective and efficient sports advancement depends mainly on
networking and partnership with a various sorts of community or voluntary
group, NGB’s and local authorities. Sport development enhance change in
behaviour and increase community participation in sports while providing
pathways and structures from its foundation to attaining excellence.

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2.1.2 Evolution of sports development
The development and evolution sports started in 1918. The Forestry Commission
initiated the first government body which responsible for sports and recreation. In the
year 1937 the Physical Recreation and Training Act was started due to the unrest that
occurred in Europe. The Act was a progression to national fitness. Local authorities
started acquiring land for clubs and facilities, this was supported by the government
because of the welfare, social and physical health benefits. Before the Second World War
the central body for Physical Recreation was started together with National Playing Field
Association. These councils played a persuasive and effective role in promoting leisure
and recreational activities (Cabinet Office, 2015).
In the year 1957 the Central Council for Physical and Recreation (CCPR) decided to
allocate small independent committee to review the general sport position in the UK and
to sanction the appropriate ventures through voluntary and statutory organization of
sports. The economics of recreation and sports which cooperates the first main
development of Sports in the UK was a reports from Wolfenden Committee of 1960, this
led to the recommendation for Sports Development Council establishment to help in
facilitating sporting activities, improve quality of life for people, tackle social exclusion,
pursuit excellence and widen access to sport among other functions (Mahtani et al. 2012).
The report also by Wolfenden further reveals the main reasons for decline participation in
games among the young people was because of feeble and frequent unavailability of links
between local clubs and school sport. Many young people who were committed to
participating in sports were led down by the system of leaving school as early as fifteen or
fourteen years of age. Wolfenden created a favourable political environment for sports
and it had main impacts on sport policy formation, it also contributed to increase in the

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roles of local authorities in providing for the sport opportunities. Legal authorities started
a vast programme facilitating sports in 1970s.
The above may be confirmed in Sporting Future of DCSM. Sporting Future considers the
reward people get when they participate in sports and what can be done to make healthy
life through transformation in sports. Sporting future redefines how success looks like in
games by majoring on five main outcomes: mental Wellbeing, Physical wellbeing,
individual development, community and social development and economic development.
2.1.3 Role of Sports development
 Intensifications of opportunities to participate
 It has promoted behaviour change
 It has challenges traditions of people
 It has help in eliminating barriers that inhibit participation in sports
 It has bring about positive actions that enhance change.
2.3Process of professionalism
The following are the process of professionalism
 Motivation
 Dedication
 Aspiration
 Professionalism
 Teamwork
 Continuous development
 Training
 Health
 Standing out from the crowd

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 Getting an agent
2.4Definitions and concepts of professionalism
Professionalism sports are sports in which the participants are rewarded for their
performance. Professional athleticism came into existence through amalgamation of
developments. Increase leisure and the availability of efficient mass media have
encourage more audience, this have led to increase in income of sports organizations.
As a results of this most people can afford to make sports as their main career,
devoting skills, time, experience and physical conditions to high level of modern
achievements.
3.0 Exploring the organization and governance of sports in the
UK
3.1 Sports England
Swim England is a governing body of swimming in England. The organization help people to
learn swimming, safely enjoy water, and also help them to participate in all sports. The vision
of the organization for national swimming and it strive to encourage everyone to enjoy the
swimming experience in England. The work with various partners to develop appealing
programmes that enables all categories of people to be very active in sports, stay healthy and
have fun.
Swim England an association that was established in the year 1869, the association have
headquarters in Harold Fern, Loughborough. The company was registered on 18th may
1982. Together with British Swimming the company was relocated to Sport Park,
Loughborough University.

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The Swim England went through rebranding exercise in the year 2008 including new
name and logo. After some negative reaction the company Logo was retained but it stop
using ASA.
The new company’s new strategy was applied for swimming with the England. The
company then change its name to Swim England and Jane Nickerson appointed to the
Executive Officer.
The company now supports over 1000 affiliated clubs through Sub-regional/Regional/
and National structure. The company endeavors to safeguard the interest of the athlete
irrespective of age, gender or experience. Swim England have been organizing
competition across England from elite level to age-group. The company also organize
talent programme for English this has given swimmers an opportunity to develop and
grow potential and skills in swimming.
The company has also partnered with Splash About International and Water
babies to create national for toddler and baby safety within the swimming pools.
The rules was circulated by British Standard Institute, their, main goal is set the
industry to have wide standards to enhance underwater photography and
swimming lessons
3.2 Youth Sport Trust (YST)
British charitable trust that aims in supporting the development and education of young
people. The organization was establish in the year 1994 to create and develop brighter future
for the young in sporting activities. This was an idea of Sir John L. Beckwith, he wanted to
ensure that the young received quality services in sports. This person was also keen in
ensuring that the young focused their energy in one particular direction. The key person who
drove this organization to its developmental years was Sue Campbell who is currently the

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chairman. Campbell was also the former chairperson of the UK Sport and also the
government non-political advisor.
The trust creates and implements, in partnership with other sports organization, sport
programmes and physical education of high quality for the young for ages between 18
months to 18 years, in community and in schools. The key sorts that are included in TOP
programmes includes resource cards, high training standards for deliverers and teachers. The
goodness of these programmes is that it can be used as well by the disabled young people.
In order to provide the best training, education, research and developments that is aimed at
improving the standard of living for the young, the ‘’Beckwith chair of Youth Sport’’ was
established in the year 1998 in Loughborough University. Within a period of one year, the
Trust had expanded and it had a reach out of above 3 million young via the provided TOP
programmes.
The YST consents most commercial companies to be Business Honours Members. Notable
members involve Cyber Coach and Technogym.
3.3 Department of Digital media, culture, media and sports (DCMS)
This is a department of the government of the United Kingdom which is responsible for
sports and culture in the United Kingdom, it is also responsible for some aspects media thru
the UK such as the internet and broadcasting. The department also deal with, leisure, tourism
and creative industries which are linked to the department of energy, industrial strategy and
business. The departments is responsible for the delivery of the Paralympic Games and the
Olympic Games of the year 2012 and the development of the building Digital Economy.
DCMS originated from Department of National Heritage (DNH), the department was
initiated in the year 1992 from various other departments. DNH was changed to DCMS in
1997 during the tenure of Tony Blair (Grix, Brannagan & Houlihan, 2015).

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3.3.1 2012 Olympics
DCMS coordinated the bid by London in order to host the Olympic Games in the year 2012,
the department was responsible for appointing and overseeing delivery of the agencies
towards game programmes and infrastructure, mainly the ODA ‘Olympic Delivery
Authority’ and LOCOG.
The reshuffling of the cabinet in the year 2017 which made Tessa Jowell to assume office of
the minister of the cabinet but still remain to be the minister of the Olympic games (Grix,
2015).
3.3.2 2010-present
Following the general election of the year 2010, the ministry that was responsible for
coordinating Olympics was returned to the State Secretary. Even though the tittle of Jeremy
was still the secretary of DCMS the department was not changed. Jeremy was appointed to be
Health Secretary in the year 2012, he was later replaced by Maria Miller who later resigned.
After the general election of the year 2015, John Whittingdale receive an appointment of
becoming a State Secretary and had a role of creating the review process of the BBC charter.
DCMS was granted full responsibility for enhancing the policy of digital economy.
Karen Bradley later replaced Whittingdale on the referendum that was done on UK’s
membership of EU in the year 2016. In this case also the Civil Society office was relocated
from office of the cabinet to the DCMS.
In the year 2018 Mathew Hancorck who was the former minister of Digital State minister
was appointed to be State Secretary due to the cabinet reshuffle and on the same year Jeremy
Wright became DCMS secretary.

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3.4UK sport
This is a government agency which is responsible for devoting in Paralympic and the
Olympic games in the UK, it is a none-departmental and Executive body which is sponsored
DCMS department. The body was initiated following ‘’rock bottom’’ show that was held in
Summer Olympics in the year 1996.
UK Sport has invested nearly £400m and £24m in summer and Winter Olympics respectively
in Paralympic and Olympic sports. The investments come from Athlete Performance Awards
that are directly paid to athlete which assist them to cover their sporting cost and enjoy their
living. The investments also come from funding from National Governing Bodies of sport.
These have assisted the UK sport to invest in sport science, coaches, medicine and sports
facilities.
3.5 Local authority
Local authority has got central role in providing the community with recreational
facilities and sports. From the leisure centres to the local parks, local council enhances
variety of sport and leisure activities to be carried out. They are responsible also for
crucial leadership roles such as leading: sports clubs, school games, National sports
governing bodies, private and health sectors. This has help many bodies to unlock sports
participation barriers and enhance the delivery systems of the local sports.
4.0 Gold challenge
Gold challenge was launched in the year 2010, the organization ran Paralympic and Olympic
inspired trials in the Olympic Sport Challenge and London 2012Km Challenge. It has
partnered with British Olympic Organization, Sport England, Paralympics GB and also
worked very closely with LOCOG which is a sport organizing body in London. The main of

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the Gold Challenge is to form and keep track of events and challenges which motivate people
to be very active and improve
Places people play
Places is the major lotter-funded initiative for sports that was aimed at helping in capitalising
on games inspirations across Sport England. Evolution of Places people play has got three
evaluation objectives, that is: to measure the influence of Iconic amenities, inspired amenities
and guarding playing grounds.
Play to win
When a sports participants play, they play to win. This is the new era of sports development,
the heart of this plan is to change sports culture in England. The plan encourage more people
to love and participate in sport, to expand the English sports. This has enable England to win
medals and tournaments (Lenskold, 2002)
5.0 NGB and Emergence into sports development
NGB is a governing body of sports that has a sanctioning and regulatory function. This
governing bodies comes in many forms, and has got many regulatory factions, for instance it
may involve disciplinary actions, rule infractions and determining rule changes that govern
them in sports.
5.1 Role of NGB in sports development
There are several governing bodies of sports across England, the major one is NGB which
has the responsibility of controlling specific sport. They help in promoting sports, they are
also in charge of taking disciplinary for regulations infraction and determining on change on
rules in the sporting activities that it govern (Long, Fletcher & Watson, 2017).

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6 .0 Olympic legacy
2012 Olympic legacy in London, is the long-term benefits and effects of planning,
arrangement, funding and staging the Olympic and the Paralympic games (Holt & Ruta,
2015). Variously it is described as;-
 Economic growth- supports and creates new jobs and skills, boosting trade,
investment and tourism attraction
 Sporting- growth of more sport facilities which leads to encouragement for
participation in school games
 Volunteering and social-lead to a social change and volunteer gets inspired
 Regeneration-lead to creation of new homes, improve transportation and other sites
(Evans, 2016).
7.0 Professional bodies
Sports governance has increasingly become recognized to be crucial in many areas.
Professional bodies of sports plays an important role in practising good governance. The
bodies are more concern on leadership, conformance, change, strategy and performance
among other functions. Good governance in sports have risen in UK over the past decades,
the National Governing bodies of sports (NGBS) and sports council have been fortified to
make their administrative to be professional as part of modernization of sports. NGBs
concentrate by proving participation opportunities in sports to many people. NGB is a non-
profit organization that rely on mostly on volunteer boards in order oversee diverse and
multiple roles that include organizing and managing competitions, increasing participation,
coach development, developing talent, promotion and marketing of sports and many other
roles (Holt & Ruta, 2015).

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7.1 Role of sports development within organization
The main purpose of sports development is to increase participation and promote health of
the community. In sports development a profound leadership organizational skills and level
of interest for the people is essential. The major role of officer in charge of sports
development is to organize and plan various spots projects and to lead in campaigns of
encouraging people to participate in sports. Most of the sporting clubs and organization
works towards making the sports to be accessible to all and their goal is to make people live
strong healthier (Sherry, Schulenkorf & Phillips, 2016).
8.0 sports and social inclusion
This is the process in which groups or individuals take part in the society. The following are
ways where by the sport development is changing the social world at a high level, from
gender equality to helping out veterans and refugees.
I. Getting together alienated community- research found that in 2010 sport helped in
bringing together hugely culturally divided Sri Lanka three separate communities
namely Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslims. Sport creates momenta of closeness
II. Keeps kids and youths out of gangs- installing sport facilities in a ganged area helps
the youth and kids to stay away from the bad company of gang life.
III. Giving refuge a space to ease- the IOC invested $2 million to fund sporting facilities
at the biggest refuge centre in Greece
IV. Introducing kids into peace contest- peace player international is one of the
organization that emphases on teaching children about life skills and new
perspectives.
V. Teaching public about gender equality- exposure to female athletes is a crucial
learning to young generation that, the female are powerful and strong.

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9.0 Strategic planning for sports development
Planning is a phase of process management whereby decisions are made on purposes, the
strategies, plans and programmes which direct and control sport organization activities.
Planning is a continuous and dynamic process which is adapted by sport associations and
it influence sports environment (Coalter, 2013)
Planning is the process of directing sport associations basing on the past analysis,
evaluation of aims, present situation and future forecasting- deciding on goals and
approaches for the realization of the set objectives through strategies, politics, plans and
programmes that will ensure that the entire sport organization activities are covered (Lee,
2016).
9.1 Critique current strategies of swim England
Swim England do not provide any swimming facilities, but its main aim is to facilitate and
catalyst the swimming by ensuring that the participants has suitable facilities and appropriate
programmes. The company is providing this in order to ensure that the needs of the aquatic
clubs and the community is met. The company is having an ambition of creating a society
whereby every individual: has an opportunity to learn swimming, is supported to crow their
skills and adores the water through their lifespan. To realize this dream the company has
come up with their important strategic objectives to enhance the development, the following
are the development strategies for the company (Grix, 2015).
I. To provide a robust leadership and be among the recognised authority for
swimming
The company will achieve this strategy by:
 Providing leadership and insight to the swimming sector in order to improve the
swimming quality and experience to all the participants.

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 Utilizing their expertise to drive investment in accessibility and quality services for their
pools.
 Incorporating all the influential partners from the industry in order to establish how
swimming may enhance health and sport agendas and work within the minimum
requirements by the government in ensuring physical activity.
 Utilizing their influence to bring the required resources into the industry to benefit all.
II. substantially increasing the swimming population
The company will achieve this by:
 building the company positioning to be one of the trusted and the leading authority that
enhance learning in swimming
 Working together with the company partners to improve, quantity, quantity and
consistency in ‘’learn to swim’’ programmes that is being delivered.
III. Growing and diversifying the number of people benefiting and enjoying the
regular swimming.
Swim England will achieve this by:
 Creating and developing clear opportunities to swimmers of various abilities and
conducive backgrounds to enable many people to take part in aquatics and swimming.
 Nurturing networks and swimming clubs and assisting them to advance and diversify
membership with company.
 Creating and developing partnership in order to improve health and social outcomes by
assisting the people living with health conditions.
 Working together with providers in order to develop a swimming environment that is
very inclusive and meet the needs of the swimmers.

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 Utilizing the new partners and innovative tools to modernize the swimming experience
and enhance satisfaction in swimming.
Iv. Developing a prominent talent system for all the aquatic disciplines
The company will achieve this by:
 Making sure that well-defined and consistency is delivered when training and
developing the athlete for all stages from ‘’learn to swim ’’ to an elite performance.
 Ensuring that all the athletes are trained in the right way and in the conducive
environment at all times.
v. Employing skilled, motivated and diverse workforce in the company
The company will achieve this by:
 Partying the achievements of the company workforce and uplifting the profile of all
volunteer and career roles in swimming.
 Providing high quality, accessible, and flexible and frequent training sessions to the
company workforce and also providing development opportunities that create
transferrable skills.
 Increasing diversity of the swimming and the size of the swimming workforce to
guarantee reflection of the community.
VI. Strengthening the company sustainability for forthcoming generations
The company will achieve this by:
 Developing an inspiring company’s brand which is eloquent to the general public and
which the members of the organization, commercial partners, and stakeholders are proud
to have an association with company.
 Ensuring that the governance of the company and order of activities exhibit best practices.

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 Optimizing the current resources of the company and beavering assets including the
technology to maximize revenue.
 Providing a leading sector that support its members and to expand the offering for wider
swimming to the community.
VII. Marketing and sponsorship
In the next few year, the company will emphasis on imputing more resources to marketing.
Major marketing operations would be developed in order to ensure that they are focused and
targeted and also achieving high level of exposure that is needed in order to achieve the
company’s participation targets (England, 2016).
The important strategic goal of marketing for 2013-2017 of Swim England are:
 To utilize marketing and communication strategy to boost the major programs to assist
major programs within ASA strategy.
 To develop and instrument campaigns to promote new products that is within the major
programmes.
 To lead major national campaigns and to work very closely with various clubs to market
the company efficiently. .
VIII. Facilities
In conjunction with Sport England ASA will be seeking to attain the creation and
development of sustainable and accessible pools in England. The organization is aiming at
giving guidance and advice to pool providers and local authorities in order to achieve a
managed and designed pools that will cater for demand across all the development of
swimming and ensuring that the pools are:
 Available through the year and will not be restricted through pricing policies or exclusive
membership.

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 Located in a site that is convenient to users and can be access easily by the community at
large.
 Design and build with materials of high standards.
 Cost effective in operation and design.
The concern team for facilities will equipped areas where the targeted venture has been
acknowledged in order to grow the number of participants and enhance talents. The company
will work very closely with the pool owners in creation and developments of projects.
10.0 Conclusion
The evolution of sport has boosted life in many communities, there are many benefits that
come with sporting. For instance it enhance prevention and treatment of many health
conditions. The strategies that have been set by sports governing bodies shows the possibility
of vast sporting potential and recreational activities that support health to most of the people
This is because of improvement in technology and the availability of many clubs with
facilities of high quality.
I recommend that further strong research is needed to understand the role that sports plays in
health and welfare agenda and the benefits of the community at large. This report has
identified the evolution of swimming and several strategies of Swim England that shows that
there is potential growth of the industry.

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11.0 References
Cabinet Office, U.K., 2015. Sporting future: a new strategy for an active nation.
Coalter, F., 2013. Sport for development: What game are we playing?. Routledge.
England, S., 2016. Towards an active nation. Sport England, pp.1-46.
Grix, J., 2015. Sport politics: An introduction. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Grix, J., 2015. Sport politics: An introduction. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Grix, J., Brannagan, P.M. and Houlihan, B., 2015. Interrogating states’ soft power
strategies: a case study of sports mega-events in Brazil and the UK. Global society, 29(3),
pp.463-479.
Holt, R. and Ruta, D. eds., 2015. Routledge handbook of sport and legacy: Meeting the
challenge of major sports events. Routledge.
Holt, R. and Ruta, D. eds., 2015. Routledge handbook of sport and legacy: Meeting the
challenge of major sports events. Routledge.
Lee, J.W., 2016. A game for the global north: the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in
Pyeongchang and South Korean cultural politics. The international journal of the history
of sport, 33(12), pp.1411-1426.
Lenskold, J.D., 2002. Marketing ROI: Playing to win. Marketing Management, 11(3),
p.30.
Long, J., Fletcher, T. and Watson, B. eds., 2017. Sport, Leisure and Social Justice. Taylor
& Francis.

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Mahtani, K.R., Protheroe, J., Slight, S.P., Demarzo, M.M.P., Blakeman, T., Barton, C.A.,
Brijnath, B. and Roberts, N., 2013. Can the London 2012 Olympics ‘inspire a
generation’to do more physical or sporting activities? An overview of systematic
reviews. BMJ open, 3(1), p.e002058.
Sherry, E., Schulenkorf, N. and Phillips, P. eds., 2016. Managing sport development: An
international approach. Routledge.