Game On: Community and school sport – CMS Committee launches inquiry

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee is to examine the health of sport in local communities and schools and whether more can be done to sustain and grow sporting opportunities for all.

The Game On: Community and school sport inquiry has been launched amid warnings of a decline in the number of sporting facilities around the country¹ and a fall in physical education provision in schools².

The inquiry will look at the funding available for sport in the community, how volunteers can be better supported and how to open up grassroots sport to under-represented groups.

It will also look at the role of schools in delivering sporting opportunities both in and outside of school hours and how children can be supported to develop a positive life-long relationship with physical activity.

The Committee will additionally investigate the ways in which national and local government, clubs, sports organisations and sports governing bodies can work together to improve the delivery of school and grassroots sport.

Chair of the CMS Committee, Dame Caroline Dinenage MP, said:

“Taking part in sport and physical activity is tremendously valuable both for our health and well-being and our communities. With alarm bells ringing about disappearing facilities and declining participation, we're firing the starting gun on an inquiry into what more can be done to ensure sporting opportunities exist for all, from playground to pitch.”

Terms of reference

The Committee is inviting submissions in response to the following questions:

Community sport

1. What is the current quality and availability of facilities for grassroots sport?

• What interventions are needed to improve this provision?

2. What sources of funding are available for grassroots sport and are they sufficient?

• How can funds be distributed more effectively and application processes be improved?

3. How can volunteers be better supported and what is needed to attract and retain more

volunteers to grassroots sport?

4. How can grassroots sport be made more engaging and accessible to under-represented groups?

School sport

5. How can schools better enable children to develop positive and life-long relationships with sport and physical education?

• What can be done to engage groups with lower participation rates - such as girls, those with disabilities or from lower socio-economic backgrounds?

6. How should schools and sports organisations work together to deliver better sporting opportunities for children in and outside of school hours?

7. What measures are needed to make the pathway from school to community sport easier?

Governance

8. How effective are national and local government and sport governing body initiatives in delivering school and grassroots sport, and how might they be improved?

9. How can the Government facilitate better coordination across the sport ecosystem to deliver grassroots and school sport?

• Is the Department for Culture, Media and Sport successfully leveraging the economic and community benefits of sport and physical activity across Government?

The deadline for submissions is 11pm on Sunday 12 January.

Further information: 

1. Since 2010, nearly 1,000 public football pitches have been lost in the UK. In 2021 Swim England reported almost 2000 swimming pools could be lost by 2030.
2. The committee in the last Parliament heard that 40,000 hours of physical education have been lost from the school curriculum since the 2021 Olympics.