Hartpury University Repository

Tabor, Gillian

English

Physiotherapy for neck pain in the horse

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Ramírez-Campillo, Rodrigo

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A narrative review of the risk factors and psychological consequences of injury in horseracing stable staff

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Mackintosh, Christopher

Lee, Sarah

Allen, James

Editorial: Community Sport Development: Managing Change and Measuring Impact 
 
This special issue was inspired by recent developments within community sport which has 
seen a continual redefinition of the roles and responsibilities of community sports 
organisations. Central to these developments has been the increasing demand upon 
organisations to be held accountable in relation to their various funding agreements and the 
requirement to evidence a return on the investment given by multiple stakeholders (Brookes 
& Wiggan, 2009; Collins, 2010). At its core, community sport development is about 
addressing social inequalities and the need to understand and challenge these issues with 
society (Bloyce & Smith, 2010; Hylton & Totten, 2013; Mackintosh, 2011, 2020). Our intent 
has been to provide a special issue which offers insight into best practice examples of the 
management of change and measurement of impact within community sport across a wider 
variety of organisations and settings to address these issues (Hylton & Totten, 2013). 
Our focus and interest from the outset has been to provide an interface between the 
academic world and the community sport workforce to provide a potential stimulus for future 
progression. It is worth noting, however, that at the point of conception, nobody predicted the 
Coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic and the far-reaching consequences and potential 
long-term impact that it has bought to community sport (cf. Doherty et al., 2020; Parnell et 
al., 2020). Perhaps then, the dominant themes from this issue may have greater significance 
as we find ourselves in this turbulent landscape where the community sport world will, more 
so than ever before, be impacted by financial constraints and a potential expectations to do 
more, with less. In particular, from our experience in working with and researching 
community sport – and as the studies within this special issue will attest – we see four broad, 
interrelated trends emanating from community sport within our current climate which are 
likely to be even more pronounced in a post-Covid-19 pandemic world. 
First, community sport organisations are being required to respond to ever changing 
priorities of policy makers and political agendas. The emphasis of ‘sport for sport’s sake’ in 
terms of public funding and government support has dwindled, with increasingly stringent 
requirements being placed on those who oversee and deliver sport within communities to 
demonstrate their contributions towards meeting a range of social policy objectives in order 
to secure funding (Coalter, 2007, 2015). Rather than viewing this shift as burdensome, we see 
this as an opportunity to demonstrate sports’ potential to contribute to wider social issues 
including but not limited to public health, mental health, community cohesion, education and 
criminal justice. 
A second theme is the increasing public, political and media scrutiny and interest in 
governance, ethics and integrity within community sport. How sport is governed, and by 
whom, will continue to be under close scrutiny (King, 2009, 2017; Parent and Hoye, 2018). 
Emerging from this are a broad range of issues regarding governing arrangements, board 
diversity, safeguarding and protection, duty of care, ethical practices and financial probity. 
All of which require further research to better understand the nature and extent of these 
challenges within and surrounding community sport organisations. 
A third theme is the competing demands for the demonstrating the relevance of 
community sport, but commercially and at an individual level. Community sport has always 
had a long-term challenge in being able to demonstrate its relevance, but this has become 
important in recent years due to financial pressures (e.g. austerity), steering to increased 
reliance on a volunteer base (Findlay-King et al., 2018; Nichols et al., 2019) and the 
expanding commercial pressures relating to sponsorship, broadcast deals and other key 
revenue streams (Parnell et al., 2017). In addition, community sport organisations are also 
required to demonstrate their everyday relevance to the communities in which they serve in 
order to attract a younger, more commercially demanding, customer/membership base. 
Stemming from these trends is a fourth theme regarding an increasing need for 
community sport and leisure organisations to understand, quantify and articulate an intended 
or realised impact with fair greater clarity and precision that previously (Taks, Misener & 
Green, 2015). Demonstrating program and policy effectiveness and impact is increasingly 
important for all sport and leisure organisations (Coalter, 2007; Houlihan & Green, 2010; 
Schulenkorf, Giannoulakis & Blom, 2019), but is particularly challenging for community-
based organisations who, often with limited resources and capacity, must demonstrate 
accountability to a wide range of funding partners (Misener et al., 2013). Perhaps more than 
any other, this is an area in which the sport sector could do a great deal to help itself. Part of 
the challenge, which is explored in depth within this special issue, is around a skills deficit – 
the sector lacking the requisite skills and experience to effectively develop sophisticated 
metrics (Wicker, Breuer & Pawlowski, 2009). However, the greater challenge we suggest is a 
broader shift in culture and willingness within community sport settings to be able to 
understand and demonstrate its own intended and achieved outputs and outcomes. 
In turning to the contributions of this special issue, the overriding consensus amongst 
the editorial team is that it will likely generate more questions than answers, although we feel 
the scope and possibility for action is plentiful. Much like sport development in general, we 
recognize that community sport development is a contested and debated term that has 
multiple meanings and is used in a variety of ways in different contexts (Hylton & Totten, 
2013; Mackintosh, 2012, 2020). It is for this reason that the articles contained within this 
special issue share varying degrees of interest in and focus on community sport, across a wide 
range of contexts (NGBs, clubs, local authorities, sport development units) and sectors 
(public, private and not-for-profit). Nonetheless, they share a common interest in and focus 
on either those who are responsible for grassroots sport and attempting to address inequalities 
within our society. 
The studies within this special issue fit broadly into three themes – challenges, 
opportunities, and enablers to manage change and measure impact within community sport. 
However, before delving into these, it is perhaps worth noting some more general comments 
surrounding the type of research that is on show in this issue. Firstly, this issue offers insight 
into a number of research approaches and theoretical perspectives that are relatively new to 
the community sport development field (for example, the use of the active voice and realist 
evaluation from Bailey & Harris). We hope that by showcasing these here we will inspire 
those working in this field to look to further our understanding of the value that these kinds of 
approaches may have. Secondly, it is clear that if we wish to understand mechanisms through 
which we can best measure and evaluate the impact of community sport, we need to move 
away from a reliance upon the voice of the end users and ensure that we capture the 
perspectives of the many, varied stakeholders associated with community sports programmes, 
(as shown in Sanders, Keech, Burdsey, Maras & Moon for example). This does, of course, 
include the end user, but also a consideration of the strategic and organisational factors, the 
policy and funding regulators, and the support network around the end user (including 
administrators, parents, coaches etc) appears critical if we are to truly understand the impact 
that is being made.     
Challenges 
This issue has undoubtedly reinforced that there are substantial challenges that surround 
measuring and evaluating impact in community sport. At the centre of this challenge is the 
complication of trying to define what success means within community sport development. 
Without a clear vision of what success looks like, and indeed this will be individual to 
organisation and context, community sport development is arguably trapped between striving 
for social return on investment vs. searching for sustainability and security (financially 
driven) (cf. Davies, Taylor, Christy & Ramchandani; Millar & Doherty; Sanders et al. for 
varying insights here) . It is this juxtaposition which influences the strategic decisions that an 
organisation makes. Does it attempt to innovate and build organisational capacity to diversify 
the sport offer or does the necessity to comply with stakeholder policy stifle these attempts at 
innovation? We have found in this issue that the traditional outcome evaluations often fail to 
link to the programmes itself as the push towards KPIs often takes over. It is this narrative 
behind the outcome which may be one of the missing pieces of the puzzle when it comes to 
measuring impact. Whilst the academic world has developed frameworks to address a more 
holistic approach to understanding impact, this issue has revealed that the theory to practice 
divide is very real and the translation of knowledge between both parties may be impeded. 
There are learnings here for both academics, who potentially need to consider the 
simplification of theoretically driven frameworks, but also practitioners, who need to 
consider their own continual professional development and gaps in knowledge, especially in 
relation to the measurement and evaluation of their programme offers. 
  
Opportunities 
Whilst challenges will always exist, this issue has revealed a number of opportunities and 
possibilities worthy of exploration in our quest to find more comprehensive and effective 
mechanisms to manage change and measure impact in community sport. We invite both 
academics and practitioners to consider exploring the opportunities afforded in the content. 
Arguably one of the most prominent ideas that has been presented is the incitement to look 
beyond the more traditional outcome evaluation measures that have historically dominated 
our field, and look towards other disciplines to see what can be borrowed and applied. For 
example, in this issue we learn about the theory driven approach of realist evaluation from 
(Bailey & Harris). This attempts to develop an understanding of what works for whom and in 
what context. We also hear of asset-based approaches which has roots in the applied field of 
positive psychology and the notion of strengths-based practices. As an approach this almost 
flips what we might see as the norm for community sport development in that the start point 
is appreciating what is good and what capabilities exist in individuals, associations and 
institutions, rather than working from a deficit lens and finding what is lacking. Indeed, there 
is potential here to see what other disciplines can offer ours, but in order for this to be 
achieved we need to consider how we are able to get the knowledge translation from the 
academic world to the applied workforce. It is abundantly clear from this issue that we may 
be able to enhance practice so much more if we are able to educate those responsible for 
community sport delivery. This may be through more formal qualification and training and 
CPD mechanisms, but perhaps we can also learn from disciplines that are grounded in 
informal learning as a vehicle for development and the role of mentoring and communities of 
practice, as an example.     
  
Enablers 
Our final theme looks to draw out a number of factors that this issue identifies as being some 
of the potential enablers if we are to enhance approaches to managing change and measuring 
impact. Special issues like this provide a platform to showcase the diversity of ideas and 
approaches that exist both in literature, but also in practice. Whilst this diversity is to be 
celebrated, and also expected given that community context is fundamental, it does arguably 
reveal that the lack of common framework to social impact assessments poses a real 
challenge to community sport and leisure organisations as competition for funding continues 
to intensify. Indeed, proof of successful delivery through social impact assessments will be 
crucial in successful bids, so perhaps key to ensuring a level playing field is the development 
of a common framework. This issue has shown that the frameworks of certification that exist 
in a number of international contexts (Doherty & Schlesinger) have potential for managing 
interests in community sport, but the caveat is to find the balance between standardising an 
approach, yet allowing for diversity. This emphasises that strategic mapping of context is key 
from the outset of all community sport programmes and would need to be factored into any 
framework development. For many organisations, however, there is a struggle to focus on the 
strategic change processes required to continuously compete for funding and build capacity to 
enhance offers, due to the lack of resource and the informal nature of planning, where the day 
to day is the priority (Millar & Doherty). So, whilst organisational readiness and a workforce 
who are committed to taking initiative has been shown here to be fundamental to initiating 
change, organisations need existing capacity, on which it can rely, in order to achieve 
strategic developments. In addition, this issue presents an argument that sport policy-makers 
need to develop their awareness of how policy changes can create constraints and tensions for 
the community sport workforce operating at the lower level (see, for example, Thompson, 
Bloyce, & Mackintosh). 
Perhaps then, this is where academics may be able to have their greatest influence on 
the applied world. Within this issue we see a call to academics to build links with industry 
stakeholders and take the role of being boundary spanners to help mobilise more theory 
driven, strategic thinking amongst practitioners. We see this as an important and necessary 
step forward in order to enhance discussions between academics and practitioners and why 
we felt Managing Sport and Leisure was the most appropriate outlet for generating such 
important dialogue. Future research within community sport should focus on the intersection 
between theory and practice as such research can potentially be a hugely powerful 
mechanism to enable community sport and leisure organisations to enhance their social 
impact. One way to achieve this is for researchers to work more collaboratively and directly 
in partnership with community sport organisations to develop long-term, sustainable 
relationships and research programmes. But the responsibility cannot just rely solely on the 
shoulders of the academic world. If progress is to be sought, the culture of sport development 
organisations needs to be challenged. We encourage governments, national governing bodies 
and core community sport funders to be more open to diversity of monitoring, evaluation and 
research approaches. The current shift away from top-down, narrowly focused, quantitative 
outcomes and KPI measures towards more broader, qualitative based outcomes is a 
promising starting point in this regard and one that, in our view, opens up much more 
opportunity for collaboration between academics and practitioners. 
 
  
References 
Bloyce, D., & Smith, A. (2013). Sport policy and development: An introduction. London: 
Routledge.  
Brookes, S. and Wiggan, J. (2009) reflecting the Public Value of Sport: A game of two 
halves? Public Management Review, 11: 4, 401-420.  
Coalter, F. (2007). A Social Role for Sport: Whose Keeping the Score?, London: Routledge.  
Coalter, F. (2015). Sport-for-Change: Some Thoughts from a Sceptic, Social Inclusion, 3:3, 
19-23. 
Collins, M. (2010) From ‘sport for good’ to ‘sport for sport’s sake’ – not a good move for 
sports development in England? International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 2:3, 
367-379.   
Doherty, A., Millar, P., & Misener, K. (2020). Return to community sport: leaning on 
evidence in turbulent times. Managing Sport and Leisure. Advanced online publication. 
10.1080/23750472.2020.1794940. 
Findlay-King, L., Nichols, G., Forbes, D. and Macfadyen, G. (2018) ‘Localism and the Big 
Society: the asset transfer of leisure centres and libraries–fighting closures or 
empowering communities?’ Leisure Studies, 37:2,  158–170. 
Houlihan, B., & Green, M. (Eds.). (2010). Routledge handbook of sports development. 
Routledge: London. 
Hylton, K., & Totten, M. (2013). Community sport development. In K, Hylton (Ed.). Sport 
development: Policy, process and practice (3rd edition). Routledge (pp. 80-126). 
King, N. (2009) Sport Policy and Governance, Butterworth-Heinemann: Oxford. 
King, N. (2017) Sport Governance: An Introduction, Routledge: London.  
Mackintosh, C. (2011) An analysis of County Sports Partnerships in England: The fragility, 
challenges and complexity of partnership working in sports development, International 
Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 7:3,  45-64.  
Mackintosh, C. (2012) ‘The shifting dynamics of local government sports development 
officer practice in England: New identities and hazy professional boundaries’, in Harris, 
S., Bell, B., Adams, A. and Mackintosh C. (eds.) Sport for Sport? Theoretical and 
Practical Insights into Sports Development, Brighton: Leisure Studies Association, 
113-130. 
Mackintosh, C. (2020). Foundations of Sport Development, Routledge: London.  
Misener, K., Harman, A., & Doherty, A. (2013). Understanding the local sports council as a 
mechanism for community sport development. Managing leisure, 18(4), 300-315. 
Nichols, G., Hogg, E., Knight, C. and Storr, R. (2019) Selling volunteering or developing 
volunteers? Approaches to promoting sports volunteering, Voluntary Sector Review, 
iFirst 1-16. 
Parent, M.M. & Hoye, R. (2018) The impact of governance principles on sport organisations’ 
governance practices and performance: A systematic review, Cogent Social Sciences, 
4(1), 1503578.  
Parnell, D., Widdop, P., Bond, A., & Wilson, R. (2020). COVID-19, networks and 
sport. Managing Sport and Leisure. Advanced online publication. 
10.1080/23750472.2020.1750100 
Parnell, D., Spracklen, K., & Millward, P. (2017). Sport management issues in an era of 
austerity, European Sport Management Quarterly, 17(1), 67-74.   
Schulenkorf, N., Giannoulakis, N., & Blom, L. (2019) Sustaining commercial viability and 
community benefits: management and leverage of a sport-for-development event, 
European Sport Management Quarterly, 19(4), 502-519. 
Taks, M., Chalip, L., & Green, C. B. (2015) Impacts and strategic outcomes from non-mega 
sport events for local communities, European Sport Management Quarterly, 15(1), 1-6. 
Wicker, P., Breuer, C., & Pawlowski, T. (2009) Promoting Sport for All to Age-specific 
Target Groups: the Impact of Sport Infrastructure, European Sport Management 
Quarterly, 9(2), 103-118.  
 
 
 
 


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