Fiona Reid

Increasing sports participation in Scotland: are voluntary sports clubs the answer?

A policy objective of the Scottish Government is to increase sports participation as a means of increasing health and social inclusion. This article assesses the potential contribution of sports clubs run by their members to these objectives through an analysis of the Scottish Opinion Survey results. These identify the percentage of sports participation that occurs in clubs by sport, gender, deprivation level and local authority; and the article also examines how volunteering in sport varies by these dimensions. This shows that participation in clubs is more important for particular sports, it is highest in the least deprived areas, highest for male participants, and for those over 55 years old, and varies considerably across local authorities. This leads to a discussion of the implications for sports policy. Three aspects are considered: the geographical dimension, the demographics and target populations and the nature of voluntary sports clubs. Voluntary sports clubs are important because they are the places where sport participation occurs most commonly. Sports clubs are run by volunteers who are motivated by a number of factors, almost certainly not by the policy direction of government. If the interest of the clubs and their members can be served by delivering government policy targets, perhaps through increasing funding for the club, or improving facilities, then voluntary sports clubs can make a significant contribution to achieving those targets.

Volunteers in some sport for development programmes are different: a comment on Burrai and Hannam

CONTEXT This section of the journal encourages discussion between several authors on a policy-related topic. The same question may, therefore, be addressed from different theoretical, cultural or spatial perspectives. Dialogues may be applied or highly abstract. The Dialogue in this issue starts with Burrai and Hannam contribution here https://doi.org/10.1080/19407963.2017.1362809.