Agenda item

Report of the Remembrancer and the Director of Communications.

The Sub Committee considered a joint report of the Remembrancer and the Director of Communications concerning the current provision of sports engagement made across the City Corporation and a proposal for a coordinating policy resource to maximise utility of existing sports-related activity.

The Policy Chairman commended the fact that the report brought together the City Corporation’s sport-related engagement and underlined that the purpose of the proposed post would be to gather this all together further.

A Member proposed an amendment to the report’s recommendation, which was tabled before Members. This was seconded and then Members of the Sub Committee made the following points in favour of the amended recommendations:

·         Work had not been progressed quickly enough, considering the Sub Committee had made a resolution in December 2017 on this work;

·         The strategic oversight in the report laid out a horizontal view, but not strategic;

·         The proposed post should be at a more senior level to provide strategic leadership;

·         The report should have included the resolution from the Sub Committee in December 2017;

·         A Member reported that the consultant who had been engaged in this work would have the information required at hand and so a report outlining this should be submitted to the next meeting of the Sub Committee;

·         There should be a focus on engaging the City Corporation’s cultural and educational resources in support of sporting activities in London;

·         The City Corporation had given a vast amount of financial support to areas such as culture, and there was backing from a small additional amount to be funded on sport engagement.

Other points were made to add to or amend the proposed amended recommendations:

·         It would not be possible for this work to be undertaken by the next meeting and an extension was required;

·         The City Corporation has other priorities and should not put so much emphasis on sport;

·         The paper should be aligned with the Corporate Plan, and assessed in line with other proposals to ensure the correct allocation of resource;

·         There was a strong wish for the work to be proportionate and strategic and the importance of oversight of existing activity was underlined, especially for underfunded activities that the City Corporation already supported;

·         Members also discussed whether it was appropriate for the role to sit within the Corporate Affairs Team rather than, for example, the Culture team under the Assistant Town Clerk.

The Policy Chairman confirmed with officers that a delay in approving the paper would not hinder opportunities of sports engagement in London over the next few months.

MEMBERS RESOLVED:

1.    To note the contents of the report and that it had taken ten months to produce;

2.    To express their disappointment that the report failed to address the fundamental requirements set by the Sub-Committee at its meeting on 14 December 2017 in that it did not set out proposals implementing Members’ decision that “the Corporation should adopt a pro-active and strategic approach to sport engagement in recognition of the organisational and stakeholder benefits”;

3.    To further note that report did not contain proposals requested by the Sub-Committee in respect of:

(a)        the Sport Engagement Assessment Matrix,

(b)        2018/19 Engagement,

(c)        Resourcing … Implications, or

(d)        Committee Approval Process;

4.    To further note that since the publication of the report, HM Government and UK Sport had announced their strategic plans to reinforce the country’s status as a world-leading host of major sporting events by releasing a list of potential hosting targets over the next two decades, and that this ambition is also reflected in the Mayor of London’s draft strategy on sport, currently out for consultation;

5.    To instruct the Town Clerk to:

(a)        bring forward a report to a meeting of the Sub-Committee by December 2018 setting out a clear and proportionate strategy on Sport Engagement in line with the direction provided by Members ten months ago and aligned to the Corporate Plan, bearing in mind existing sports engagement;

(b)        include in the report a proposed approach to:

i)          supporting British (especially London) bids to host major sporting events;

ii)         supporting the organisers of major sporting events hosted in the United Kingdom through the strategic application of Corporation venues and facilities (including open spaces);

iii)         supporting mass participation sport and physical activity events together with other activities that encourage more active lifestyles;

iv)        engaging the Corporation’s cultural and education resources in support of sporting activities in the capital, including making suitable opportunities available to pupils and students at the Corporation’s schools and academies;

v)         involving City residents and workers and Corporation tenants in relevant sport and physical activities connected to our Sport Engagement programme.

(c)        include in the report proposals for a small dedicated staffing structure within his department which will provide both strategic leadership and operational resilience to the Sport Engagement policy in accordance with the wishes of Members;

(d)        include in the report a budget for the remainder of the current financial year (to be funded from the Town Clerk’s local risk contingency) to cover the necessary staffing to develop and implement the strategy as well as funding necessary to support engagement with events due to take place in 2019 such as the Cricket World Cup;

(e)        make recommendations to the Resource Allocation Sub-Committee for ongoing funding for Sport Engagement staffing and resources in his department’s baseline budget for 2019-20 onwards.

6.    To recommend to the Policy and Resources Committee that the terms of reference of this Sub-Committee be amended to include specific reference to oversight and governance of Sport Engagement (with power to act).