County Sports Partnership Update

CSP Benchmarking Study Staffordshire University

Research officer Jimmy O’Gorman, is carrying out a CSP benchmarking study as part of his doctorate. Jimmy, who works in Sport and Exercise at the university’s Faculty of Health and Sciences, will be conducting investigations into current practices in CSP’s regarding lines of communication, structure and management with a view to highlighting best practice.

Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent CSP will be alongside their counterparts from Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire and Rutland in the study, the results of which will be available in the autumn this year.

The project will look at similarities and differences between CSP structures, lines of communication and responsibilities as well as case studies highlighting what has or has not worked well within the relevant sub-regions. It is hoped that the study will provide models of best practice and consultancy material for wider dissemination.

For more information please contact:

Jason Britton
Business Development Manager
Tel: 01785 619599
Email: jbritton@staffordbc.gov.uk

Active People Survey Developments

Sport England West Midlands recently presented details of developments to the Active People Diagnostic Tool (APD) as well as confirming plans for future surveys.

The most recent development builds upon the APD’s Tier 5, which provides a model of demographically, adjusted participation rates. 

The model is in the form of a chart, which presents the expected sport participation rates in local authorities compared to the actual participation rates (as measured in the survey). It is based on a regression model determining the main economic and demographic factors that influence sport participation. It takes into account a wide range of economic and demographic variables outside the control of local authorities such as income, age, profession, and family structure.


The chart illustrates the 'expected' participation rate. By 'expected' we mean when taking into account or allowing for a broad range of socio-demographic variables, what would we expect the participation rate to be, given these demographics.

Ipsos MORI have produced estimates of the 3x30 participation rates for Middle Super Output Areas – which were developed as an alternative to Wards for calculating small area statistics. Unlike Wards which use geographies, Super Output Areas (SOA) represent areas with similar population numbers – Middle SOA’s being around 7,200 people. The estimated participation rates represent a likelihood of people in each SOA to participate given a number of considerations (age, employment, qualifications etc) and Sport England are currently working on estimated numbers for each Local Authority in England. The figures are expected to be available at the end of July. SASSOT intends to distribute the figures to each LA along with details of each authority’s ‘Nearest Neighbours’ and their participation rates. This may then be used for benchmarking and good practice sharing of what projects have or have not worked well to impact upon participation rates in similar local authorities.

Sport England has also confirmed details of repeat waves of the Active People Survey. Active People ‘Year 2’ will commence in October 2007 and will run for 12 months and repeated annually thereafter. Each year a representative sample of 500 adults per local authority (aged 16+) will be interviewed, providing an annual sample of around 177,000. Funding has been committed by Sport England for the 2007/08 survey and has an ‘in principle’ commitment for the survey to run continuously beyond that date.

For more information please contact:

Jason Britton
Business Development Manager
Tel: 01785 619599
Email: jbritton@staffordbc.gov.uk