Sport and the big society, university of brighton
The ‘Big Society’ is being positioned as the backbone of the Coalition Government’s cross-departmental policy programme which aims to transform the relationship between state and society by empowering local people and communities to get involved in the running of public services. Whether you believe this is naked neoliberalism, the emergence of a ‘Red Toryism’ or a differentiation by a Conservative-led Government from the excesses of Thatcherite individualism, it is hard to ignore the ascendancy of the ‘Big Society’ theme in political and policy discourse. This symposium was organised around two questions: what does the ‘Big Society’ mean and how does it relate to sport? Indeed, what can other areas of public policy learn from sport's reaction to the 'Big Society'?
Experts and emergent researchers in the field of sport politics and policy reflected upon the intersections between the Big Society and sport. New theoretical interventions and case studies were presented which teased out important tensions, ambivalences and questions in the links between 'Big Society', public policy, the sporting industry, community development and the voluntary sector.
This one-day conference was organised by Dr Paul Gilchrist and hosted at the Chelsea School of Sport, University of Brighton.
Kicking off proceedings was Prof Barrie Houlihan (Loughborough University) with a paper on Sport: the pioneer of the Big Society? Barrie identified the ends of 'Big Society' as empowered communities, opening up of public services, reduced costs for the state, but firmly connected Cameron’s vision of the 'Big Society' as one of passive service provision and not active political engagement of civil society. He argued that an optimistic interpretation was possible, to highlight greater forms of engagement, civil control, active citizens, the reform of public services, but preferred a pessimistic assessment, as the 'Big Society' points more to the rationalisation of public expenditure cuts. Houlihan warned that this places great challenges on community sport in the UK as the withdrawal of the state places a reliance on voluntary service that does not have the capacity to fill gaps in public services. Houlihan warned it was not a zero-sum game, as the Coalition Government often perceive it to be, for the relationship between state and society is a complimentary one. As such, the implementation of 'Big Society' to sport policy in the UK poses deep problems which may be felt for generations as service provision and investment is unpicked.
Dr Will Norman, director of research at the Young Foundation, followed and posed Can the Big Society be more than a slogan? In the spirit of critical left-realism (the idea that positive social change can occur based upon a critical assessment of what can be achieved in given circumstances through pragmatic engagement with social problems at the local level), Will outlined ten opportunities that the 'Big Society' idea generated: from new rights for community action; new tools for community organisations; support for social enterprise; promoting a sense of belonging and community empowerment; to building the capacity for local leadership by involving a new generation in community projects. These various positive dimensions of the 'Big Society' were being performed, he revealed, through numerous social innoviations at the local level. For instance, Alzheimer's Scotland is supporting a football reminiscence project that uses sporting memories to improve the well-being of people through conversation and reminiscence (www.footballmemories.org.uk). Equally, the Good Gym initiative provides opportunities for elderly people suffering from isolation and loneliness to act as coaches and mentors for sports participants seeking exercise beyond the stale confines of a gym environment (see www.thegoodgym.org). Will's presentation thus highlighted a number of intriguing case studies of where sport meets social policy innovation and where connections can yield positive social benefits in a time of austerity.
Dr Liz Such (University of Bolton) took another large theme, the absence of discussions of leisure in the policy pronouncements on the 'Big Society'. This marginal status was covered in her paper, Little leisure in the Big Society, which presented an analysis of time and leisure considerations in the key speeches, policy documents and communication of the 'Big Society' idea. Such argued that the 'Big Society' requires people to act out of discretionary or 'free' time, to volunteer in their communtiies, and should be conceived as a Government intervention into the uses of leisure time. However, leisure and free time were not generally acknowledged in government policy. The idea of 'giving time' was seen by the Cabinet Office as a policy problem, to be overcome perhaps through applying moral pressure and cajoling people or through the use of technological innovations (e.g.time banking or Orange's 'Do some good' campaign - http://dosomegood.orange.co.uk) to enable slithers of time to be put to community use. However, for Such, these initiatives reveal that the Coalition Government has little understanding of leisure as a domain and how to translate an 'appetite' for volunteering into action. There is little acknowledgement of competing demands and lifestyle hierarchies which shape an individual's committment to work, leisure and the family. Nor has there been any sustained consideration of social divisions in terms of access and willingness to volunteer. Such claimed that 'Big Society' works on poor policy assumptions and political naivetes. What is required is a more coherent understanding of time as a resource and leisure as an important sphere of life; a task made difficult owing to leisure's status as a policy outcast.
Three papers were presented on dimensions of volunteering and the Big Society. Dr Samaya Farooq (University of Gloucestershire) presented her research into Sport, volunteering and community development, detailing a large multi-method research study of young people and volunteering in London and the West Midlands. The research explored the role of a sport-based volunteer agency in nurturing a 'different generation' of volunteers, exploring the extent to which sport and recreation activities might present an effective means to engage young people aged 14-19 living in neighbourhoods with high levels of socio-economic deprivation. Farooq outlined the types of engagement, motivations and barriers facing volunteers from Black and Minority Ethnic communities. Her research also enquired into the impact of these young volunteers on existing issues of community cohesion, social inclusion and inter-generational relations. Findings indicate the need for more qualitative insight into volunteering as for some research participants it was important to 'perform' volunteering out of instrumentalist motivations rather than have an involvement from a sustained community need. This suggests, Farooq argued, that 'Big Society' agendas will have to face cultural changes in attitudes to volunteering, necessitating deeper understandings into the relationship between volunteering, identity and employability, in order to have any real purchase.
Dr Andy Adams (Southampton Solent University) gave a paper on Big Society, social capital and sport volunteering: not evolution, not revolution, but degradation? He discussed the application of social capital debates to theorisations of the Big Society, claiming that policy proposals for the implementation of 'Big Society' are now in line with Coleman's version of social capital. Adams usefully unpacked the rudiments of Big Society and examined how voluntary sports clubs and volunteers can make sense of, and operationalise, the idea. His discussion centred on the individualising of connectiveness and the apparent recourse to organic forms of collectivism that may foster exclusionary practices within sport. Finally, Dr Mark Griffiths (Birmingham University) detailed his AHRC Connected Communities project through an An analysis of the capacity of volunteer sport coaches as community assets in the Big Society. He claimed that "Big Society happens" through sport coaching and there was a need to look at the idea from a pedagogical perspective. In the UK, Griffiths revealed, it has been estimated that over 8 million people engage in sports activities in their communities each week, under the guidance of 1.1 million active sports coaches – three quarters of whom are volunteers. Sport and sports coaching are, by any measure, major community engagement activities, producing a wide range of individual and social benefits. Mark's presentation considered the strength of the evidence, nationally and internationally, to support claims made for sport and sports coach volunteering to be major community assets; and examined changes that should be made to the organisation and delivery of community sport to maximise its potential to deliver individual and community benefits in two key areas: health and wellbeing, and social inclusion. However, Griffiths warned that more research is required in order to understand the role of the coach as an independent thinker and knowledge creator; there is a need to look more closely at the pedagogy of coaching to understand how best to support their role in shaping and influencing social actions. As such, this presentation served as an important reminder about the levels of analysis applied to the 'Big Society'.
A panel on localism discussed issues around devolved government responsibility and the actions of local authorities to spending cuts. Dr Paul Gilchrist (University of Brighton) turned his attention to the sports participant turned-citizen scientist in Localism, embodied knowledge and the environment: the limits of 'Big Society' in a sport policy field. He argued that we need to reveal the problematic nature of ‘localism’ in Big Society agendas when applied to a sport policy field (in this case, water-based recreation). David Cameron’s 2009 Hugo Young lecture promised to take power, responsibility and decision-making to the “lowest possible tier of government”, and government agencies have responded by shifting responsibilities for policy domains to volunteer and community groups. When we look at one policy domain, in water policy, this shift is occurring under the auspices of Integrated River Catchment Management, positioning communities and voluntary stakeholders as central to the sustainable management of environmental, economic and social demands upon rivers. However, Gilchrist argued that this is a sport policy field that operates ‘below the radar’; policymakers and agencies require a greater understanding of embodied practices, environmental citizenships, cultures of use and the nature of volunteering on rivers, without which serious questions can be raised about the capacity of (sport) policy spheres to deliver ‘Big Society’ agendas.
In his ambitious research into the effects of spending cuts on local authority sport provision, produced for the Association for Public Service Excellence, Dr Neil King (Edge Hill University) presented findings from a national survey (n=110) and interviews with Heads of Services (n=40) to highlight similarities and differences of responses in the implementation of 'Big Society' agendas. The presentation was entitled Local government and the 'Big Society': compliance or defiance? Exploring the policy trajectories of sport and recreation services in England. King placed the policies and practices related to the Big Society within a model of the ‘enabling state’, positioning this model of service orientation in juxtaposition to the concepts and practices of the ‘ensuring state’ at the heart of New Labour policy. An assessment was provided of the feasibility of delivering this national political agenda at the local level in the context of an economic recession and models were provided to explain local shifts in the policy trajectory of sport and recreation services within the analytical framework of central-local government relations. King's research revealed that 'Big Society' ideas are coming to the fore through community ownership and delivery of sport and recreation services, although the motivations of local authorities vary from consideration of cost to ideological allegiance.
Two papers focused upon fan activism and whether new forms of community-building through football were evidence of Big Society in action. Dr Peter Millward (Durham University) challenged the symposium to view The 'shade' in community-action: fan protest, 'everyday xenophobia' and the Big Society. Utilising the work of Alain Touraine et al. (1983, elaborated in Touraine 2009) who argued that collective action tends to seek to reform social values (the ‘light’ in a mobilisation) but may also entail defensive and potentially exclusionary cultures (the ‘shade’ of a social movement), Millward provoked the symposium to "understand communities, warts and all". Whilst Millward supports and encourages the development of football supporter community action, such as those projects that have developed amongst Liverpool and Manchester United supporters, that offer much to notions of the ‘Big Society’, there are also moments in community building that potentially offer channels where ‘everyday xenophobic’ values can prosper. Millward reflected upon those moments by asking whether there are clear elements of ‘shade’ in fan projects and whether these (negative) values may rise to the fore in other ideas connected to the ‘Big Society' out of defensive reactions to community dynamics. For all the optimism of 'Big Society' rhetoric around community empowerment, this presentation targeted the moral desirability of some forms of community action and leadership.
Finally, George Poulton (Manchester University) gave a case study from his doctoral research of FCUM (Football Club United of Manchester) and their attempts to fashion a supporter owned football club. His presentation, Supporter owned clubs: football socialism or a vision of the 'Big Society'? posed the question as to the political value of these initiatives. Drawing upon twelve months ethnographic research with FCUM, a fan-owned club set up in 2005 by Manchester United fans in opposition to the Glazer family’s leveraged buy-out at Old Trafford, Poulton identified two competing understandings of the political value of FCUM. The first was that the club as a collectively owned entity represented as a form of ‘football socialism’. Conversely, another understanding of FCUM sees its bottom-up formation, autonomous structure and desire to be of ‘community’ benefit as making the club as a model of the ‘Big Society’ in action. These competing analyses were not resolved, for Poulton felt that supporter-owned clubs carry a necessary ambiguity in their ideological and political value; a position which enables these clubs opportunities to push for a favourable regulatory environment for effective financial management of professional football, though questions can be raised about the forms of capital accumulation still defining the game today.
The symposium did not generate a consensual definition of 'Big Society', though several working definitions were offered, but it certainly offered a valuable exchange of current knowledge of the impacts, innovations and responses to the 'Big Society' being felt throughout the UK in the sport policy community at various levels.
This workshop was kindly supported by an award from the
PSA's specialist activities competition.
Experts and emergent researchers in the field of sport politics and policy reflected upon the intersections between the Big Society and sport. New theoretical interventions and case studies were presented which teased out important tensions, ambivalences and questions in the links between 'Big Society', public policy, the sporting industry, community development and the voluntary sector.
This one-day conference was organised by Dr Paul Gilchrist and hosted at the Chelsea School of Sport, University of Brighton.
Kicking off proceedings was Prof Barrie Houlihan (Loughborough University) with a paper on Sport: the pioneer of the Big Society? Barrie identified the ends of 'Big Society' as empowered communities, opening up of public services, reduced costs for the state, but firmly connected Cameron’s vision of the 'Big Society' as one of passive service provision and not active political engagement of civil society. He argued that an optimistic interpretation was possible, to highlight greater forms of engagement, civil control, active citizens, the reform of public services, but preferred a pessimistic assessment, as the 'Big Society' points more to the rationalisation of public expenditure cuts. Houlihan warned that this places great challenges on community sport in the UK as the withdrawal of the state places a reliance on voluntary service that does not have the capacity to fill gaps in public services. Houlihan warned it was not a zero-sum game, as the Coalition Government often perceive it to be, for the relationship between state and society is a complimentary one. As such, the implementation of 'Big Society' to sport policy in the UK poses deep problems which may be felt for generations as service provision and investment is unpicked.
Dr Will Norman, director of research at the Young Foundation, followed and posed Can the Big Society be more than a slogan? In the spirit of critical left-realism (the idea that positive social change can occur based upon a critical assessment of what can be achieved in given circumstances through pragmatic engagement with social problems at the local level), Will outlined ten opportunities that the 'Big Society' idea generated: from new rights for community action; new tools for community organisations; support for social enterprise; promoting a sense of belonging and community empowerment; to building the capacity for local leadership by involving a new generation in community projects. These various positive dimensions of the 'Big Society' were being performed, he revealed, through numerous social innoviations at the local level. For instance, Alzheimer's Scotland is supporting a football reminiscence project that uses sporting memories to improve the well-being of people through conversation and reminiscence (www.footballmemories.org.uk). Equally, the Good Gym initiative provides opportunities for elderly people suffering from isolation and loneliness to act as coaches and mentors for sports participants seeking exercise beyond the stale confines of a gym environment (see www.thegoodgym.org). Will's presentation thus highlighted a number of intriguing case studies of where sport meets social policy innovation and where connections can yield positive social benefits in a time of austerity.
Dr Liz Such (University of Bolton) took another large theme, the absence of discussions of leisure in the policy pronouncements on the 'Big Society'. This marginal status was covered in her paper, Little leisure in the Big Society, which presented an analysis of time and leisure considerations in the key speeches, policy documents and communication of the 'Big Society' idea. Such argued that the 'Big Society' requires people to act out of discretionary or 'free' time, to volunteer in their communtiies, and should be conceived as a Government intervention into the uses of leisure time. However, leisure and free time were not generally acknowledged in government policy. The idea of 'giving time' was seen by the Cabinet Office as a policy problem, to be overcome perhaps through applying moral pressure and cajoling people or through the use of technological innovations (e.g.time banking or Orange's 'Do some good' campaign - http://dosomegood.orange.co.uk) to enable slithers of time to be put to community use. However, for Such, these initiatives reveal that the Coalition Government has little understanding of leisure as a domain and how to translate an 'appetite' for volunteering into action. There is little acknowledgement of competing demands and lifestyle hierarchies which shape an individual's committment to work, leisure and the family. Nor has there been any sustained consideration of social divisions in terms of access and willingness to volunteer. Such claimed that 'Big Society' works on poor policy assumptions and political naivetes. What is required is a more coherent understanding of time as a resource and leisure as an important sphere of life; a task made difficult owing to leisure's status as a policy outcast.
Three papers were presented on dimensions of volunteering and the Big Society. Dr Samaya Farooq (University of Gloucestershire) presented her research into Sport, volunteering and community development, detailing a large multi-method research study of young people and volunteering in London and the West Midlands. The research explored the role of a sport-based volunteer agency in nurturing a 'different generation' of volunteers, exploring the extent to which sport and recreation activities might present an effective means to engage young people aged 14-19 living in neighbourhoods with high levels of socio-economic deprivation. Farooq outlined the types of engagement, motivations and barriers facing volunteers from Black and Minority Ethnic communities. Her research also enquired into the impact of these young volunteers on existing issues of community cohesion, social inclusion and inter-generational relations. Findings indicate the need for more qualitative insight into volunteering as for some research participants it was important to 'perform' volunteering out of instrumentalist motivations rather than have an involvement from a sustained community need. This suggests, Farooq argued, that 'Big Society' agendas will have to face cultural changes in attitudes to volunteering, necessitating deeper understandings into the relationship between volunteering, identity and employability, in order to have any real purchase.
Dr Andy Adams (Southampton Solent University) gave a paper on Big Society, social capital and sport volunteering: not evolution, not revolution, but degradation? He discussed the application of social capital debates to theorisations of the Big Society, claiming that policy proposals for the implementation of 'Big Society' are now in line with Coleman's version of social capital. Adams usefully unpacked the rudiments of Big Society and examined how voluntary sports clubs and volunteers can make sense of, and operationalise, the idea. His discussion centred on the individualising of connectiveness and the apparent recourse to organic forms of collectivism that may foster exclusionary practices within sport. Finally, Dr Mark Griffiths (Birmingham University) detailed his AHRC Connected Communities project through an An analysis of the capacity of volunteer sport coaches as community assets in the Big Society. He claimed that "Big Society happens" through sport coaching and there was a need to look at the idea from a pedagogical perspective. In the UK, Griffiths revealed, it has been estimated that over 8 million people engage in sports activities in their communities each week, under the guidance of 1.1 million active sports coaches – three quarters of whom are volunteers. Sport and sports coaching are, by any measure, major community engagement activities, producing a wide range of individual and social benefits. Mark's presentation considered the strength of the evidence, nationally and internationally, to support claims made for sport and sports coach volunteering to be major community assets; and examined changes that should be made to the organisation and delivery of community sport to maximise its potential to deliver individual and community benefits in two key areas: health and wellbeing, and social inclusion. However, Griffiths warned that more research is required in order to understand the role of the coach as an independent thinker and knowledge creator; there is a need to look more closely at the pedagogy of coaching to understand how best to support their role in shaping and influencing social actions. As such, this presentation served as an important reminder about the levels of analysis applied to the 'Big Society'.
A panel on localism discussed issues around devolved government responsibility and the actions of local authorities to spending cuts. Dr Paul Gilchrist (University of Brighton) turned his attention to the sports participant turned-citizen scientist in Localism, embodied knowledge and the environment: the limits of 'Big Society' in a sport policy field. He argued that we need to reveal the problematic nature of ‘localism’ in Big Society agendas when applied to a sport policy field (in this case, water-based recreation). David Cameron’s 2009 Hugo Young lecture promised to take power, responsibility and decision-making to the “lowest possible tier of government”, and government agencies have responded by shifting responsibilities for policy domains to volunteer and community groups. When we look at one policy domain, in water policy, this shift is occurring under the auspices of Integrated River Catchment Management, positioning communities and voluntary stakeholders as central to the sustainable management of environmental, economic and social demands upon rivers. However, Gilchrist argued that this is a sport policy field that operates ‘below the radar’; policymakers and agencies require a greater understanding of embodied practices, environmental citizenships, cultures of use and the nature of volunteering on rivers, without which serious questions can be raised about the capacity of (sport) policy spheres to deliver ‘Big Society’ agendas.
In his ambitious research into the effects of spending cuts on local authority sport provision, produced for the Association for Public Service Excellence, Dr Neil King (Edge Hill University) presented findings from a national survey (n=110) and interviews with Heads of Services (n=40) to highlight similarities and differences of responses in the implementation of 'Big Society' agendas. The presentation was entitled Local government and the 'Big Society': compliance or defiance? Exploring the policy trajectories of sport and recreation services in England. King placed the policies and practices related to the Big Society within a model of the ‘enabling state’, positioning this model of service orientation in juxtaposition to the concepts and practices of the ‘ensuring state’ at the heart of New Labour policy. An assessment was provided of the feasibility of delivering this national political agenda at the local level in the context of an economic recession and models were provided to explain local shifts in the policy trajectory of sport and recreation services within the analytical framework of central-local government relations. King's research revealed that 'Big Society' ideas are coming to the fore through community ownership and delivery of sport and recreation services, although the motivations of local authorities vary from consideration of cost to ideological allegiance.
Two papers focused upon fan activism and whether new forms of community-building through football were evidence of Big Society in action. Dr Peter Millward (Durham University) challenged the symposium to view The 'shade' in community-action: fan protest, 'everyday xenophobia' and the Big Society. Utilising the work of Alain Touraine et al. (1983, elaborated in Touraine 2009) who argued that collective action tends to seek to reform social values (the ‘light’ in a mobilisation) but may also entail defensive and potentially exclusionary cultures (the ‘shade’ of a social movement), Millward provoked the symposium to "understand communities, warts and all". Whilst Millward supports and encourages the development of football supporter community action, such as those projects that have developed amongst Liverpool and Manchester United supporters, that offer much to notions of the ‘Big Society’, there are also moments in community building that potentially offer channels where ‘everyday xenophobic’ values can prosper. Millward reflected upon those moments by asking whether there are clear elements of ‘shade’ in fan projects and whether these (negative) values may rise to the fore in other ideas connected to the ‘Big Society' out of defensive reactions to community dynamics. For all the optimism of 'Big Society' rhetoric around community empowerment, this presentation targeted the moral desirability of some forms of community action and leadership.
Finally, George Poulton (Manchester University) gave a case study from his doctoral research of FCUM (Football Club United of Manchester) and their attempts to fashion a supporter owned football club. His presentation, Supporter owned clubs: football socialism or a vision of the 'Big Society'? posed the question as to the political value of these initiatives. Drawing upon twelve months ethnographic research with FCUM, a fan-owned club set up in 2005 by Manchester United fans in opposition to the Glazer family’s leveraged buy-out at Old Trafford, Poulton identified two competing understandings of the political value of FCUM. The first was that the club as a collectively owned entity represented as a form of ‘football socialism’. Conversely, another understanding of FCUM sees its bottom-up formation, autonomous structure and desire to be of ‘community’ benefit as making the club as a model of the ‘Big Society’ in action. These competing analyses were not resolved, for Poulton felt that supporter-owned clubs carry a necessary ambiguity in their ideological and political value; a position which enables these clubs opportunities to push for a favourable regulatory environment for effective financial management of professional football, though questions can be raised about the forms of capital accumulation still defining the game today.
The symposium did not generate a consensual definition of 'Big Society', though several working definitions were offered, but it certainly offered a valuable exchange of current knowledge of the impacts, innovations and responses to the 'Big Society' being felt throughout the UK in the sport policy community at various levels.
This workshop was kindly supported by an award from the
PSA's specialist activities competition.
