Improving participation
Northern Ireland needs a culture change to get more active and therefore healthier. Meadhbh Monahan reports.
Chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, strokes and other stress-related conditions are directly linked to the sedentary nature of most Northern Ireland adults. That was the stark message given to the Assembly’s previous Culture, Arts and Leisure Committee by GPs from the British Medical Association during the committee’s inquiry into participation in sport and physical activity.
“The seats that we are sitting on … lead to complacency as we sit in our offices gazing at computer screens [increasing] the number of hours that we spend doing nothing other than moving our mouse hand,” warned Ballygawley GP Theo Nugent, who is a member of the BMA council.
In addition, during its inquiry the committee heard that because many people dress elegantly and neatly, it does not lend itself to cycling or jogging into work and many workplaces don’t have showers to facilitate those who do choose to get to work that way.
Sport and physical activity are “an essential part of a healthy lifestyle” but participation in the region was recorded at 46 per cent in the 2009-2010 Continuous Household Survey, slightly lower than the 2008-2011 Programme for Government’s target of 53 per cent. Thirty-six per cent of the survey’s respondents lived in the region’s most deprived areas and 23 per cent had a ‘limiting longstanding illness.’
Northern Ireland’s Chief Medical Officer has recommended that adults should take 30 minutes of moderate physical activity at least five times a week but few do and the committee suggested that Northern Ireland often has a culture of doing the opposite of what it is told.
Good work is being done, particularly by the GAA, the IFA and Ulster Rugby, which gave presentations to the committee. But relevant government departments, local councils and sports bodies have a greater role to play in making access easier and improving people’s knowledge about health.
At the outset of the inquiry, the committee commissioned an Assembly research paper which identified seven specific groups that are held back.
• Women – who generally stop playing sports when they have children, can’t find the time or suitable childcare to allow them to take part in physical activity and are not encouraged to participate because female sport is “marginalised”;
• Middle-aged men – who are often too busy with work and family and who have the wrong perception that the only worthwhile physical activities should be gruelling and uncomfortable;
Disabled people – who find it difficult to use buildings which are often unsuitably desgiend and who are unable to take part in sports that require a high level of fitness;
Socially disadvantaged people – who are put off by the cost of travelling to facilites, the entrance or membership fee and culture of non-participation in their communities;.
• Elderly people – who face similar cost and cultural problems and have few role models to advocate older people’s fitness;
• Ethnic minorities – who face language barriers, often have cultural practices which make it difficult for them to feel comfortable in participating (for example Muslim women and their head coverings) and who can work during hours which don’t correspond with leisure centre opening times; and
• Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people – who are often put off by a general misunderstanding of their sexual identity and stereotypes of what constitutes as masculine and feminine in sport.
The committee’s July 2010 report contained 24 recommendations including a call for a target and public service agreements in the new Programme for Government.
The committee also urged the Executive to fully fund the ‘Sport Matters’ strategy which contains the following targets:
• to stop the decline in adult participation in sport and physical recreation by 2013;
• to win at least five medals at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games; and
• to ensure that 90 per cent of the population has access to good quality sports facilities within 20 minutes’ travel time by 2019.
Sport for all
Giving evidence to the committee, Eugene Young (Ulster GAA’s Director of Coaching and Games) explained that there are currently 123,000 men and women participating in Gaelic games in the province.
The organisation’s strategy covers governance, coaching and games, facilities and infrastructure, culture and heritage, community development and inclusion and cohesion. Young explained that those areas “correlate well” with the ‘Sport Matters’ strategy in which participation, performance and places are the key themes.
Lifelong participation is also a key goal for the GAA. This includes one-touch football for men over 40, handball, in which there are players aged 70 and over, and ladies groups (Gaelic 4 Mothers, Gaelic 4 Girls, Chicks with Sticks and Hens with Hurls) which are female friendly.
The organisation also works with disabled people through Positive Futures and young offenders through the Youth Justice Agency.
While more GAA supporters are attending rugby matches, thereby eroding the image of rugby as an elite sport, Ulster Rugby’s Director of Rugby, David Humphreys, told the committee that the organisation has to widen its selection base if it is to reach its goal of being “the best rugby region in the world bar none.”
He added that the restrictions placed on Ulster Rugby by the IRFU mean “we cannot just go out and sign 21 international players from around the world” because at any one time, only five non-Irish qualified rugby players can represent Ulster.
“Therefore, we have to go into communities and schools from which we have never attracted players before,” he added.
There are currently 30,000 rugby players registered with Ulster Rugby. That needs to be doubled in order to access more funding, Chief Executive Shane Logan told the committee.
He noted that “Leinster and Munster have perhaps moved ahead of us recently in GB and in Europe” and that Ulster was currently ranked twelfth in Europe.
Michael Boyd, the IFA’s Head of Community Relations, said that poor health and fitness levels and racism, sexism and sectarianism are some of the barriers facing the organisation. He asked the committee to consider the secondment of a senior civil servant to work with governing bodies to promote the ‘Sport for All’ message, as is done in Scotland.
He added that “football touches every street in Northern Ireland” therefore “the key message and the key mission statement from football is ‘Football for All’ and the value that that gives to communities.”
Improving services
Local authorities should carry out an audit of their current facilities and establish plans to maximise the potential of all leisure centres, including the provision of single-sex and family changing areas.
The committee claimed that sports governing bodies should emulate the work being done by the GAA on lifelong participation in sport. They should also look into the creation of flood-lit walkways around sports pitches.
Following a suggestion from Shane Logan, the committee recommended that Sport NI should set targets for sport governing bodies to increase their participation rates as part of grant funding packages.
In addition, Sport NI, local authorities and sports governing bodies should fund programmes which encourage the whole family unit to get involved in sport or physical activity.
The report challenged four government departments to take action on sport. agendaNi asked each one for a progress report.
Department: Health, Social Services and Public Safety
Recommendation: Invest more in preventative health (i.e. to stop people getting ill) including participation in physical activity, to reduce obesity-related illness and the associated financial cost to the Health Service.
Action: In 2007 the department established a cross-sectoral Obesity Prevention Steering Group. Its obesity prevention framework aims to increase the percentage of people eating a healthy, nutritionally balanced diet and to increase the percentage of the population regularly participating in physical activity. Responses to a consultation on the framework are currently being considered by the department.
Department: Education
Recommendation: Be more pro-active in helping schools to meet the target of two hours of physical education (PE) per week. Make school facilities more available to local communities at evenings, weekends and during school holidays.
Action: PE is a compulsory part of the curriculum for all pupils at every key stage, from 4-16 years old, and schools are encouraged to provide “a minimum of two hours high quality PE per week wherever possible.” The department encourages schools to make their premises available outside normal school hours e.g. through extended schools.
Department: Regional Development
Recommendation: Work with local authorities to develop safe walk and cycle paths, reduce the speed limits on roads which form part of the National Cycle Network and/or increase signage for motorists in the interests of safety.
Action: The Roads Service has invested £8.6 million to provide 222.5km of dedicated cycle lanes and 183.5km of new footpaths over the last 10 years. Extra signage can be considered. Cycle lanes installed beside roads have the same limits as those roads. Walking and cycling are promoted through the Travelwise initiative and will also be encouraged in the forthcoming ‘active travel strategy’.
Department: Enterprise, Trade and Investment
Recommendation: Advise employers on how they can collaborate with sport and leisure service providers about providing participation opportunities for employees. Advise employers on how to facilitate more active travel to work e.g. bicycle storage and changing facilities.
Action: None. The department says it has asked the committee to “reconsider the allocation of the recommendations assigned to DETI.” Asked to explain this phrase, a spokeswoman said that it was up to the Department for Regional Development and the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure to carry out that work.
Don’t forget smaller sports: Minister’s response
Small sports should have been
invited to give evidence to the inquiry, the new Sports Minister has remarked. Caral Ní Chuilín said it was “disappointing” that the committee didn’t take evidence from sports governing bodies other than those for Gaelic, rugby and soccer, especially since “over one quarter” of the committee’s recommendations directly relate
to those bodies.
The committee was then chaired by her Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Barry McElduff. The Northern Ireland Sports Forum was consulted for DCAL’s Sport Matters strategy and should have
been considered for evidence-giving, the Minister told agendaNi.
Ní Chuilín took note of the report during her first few weeks in office. She told agendaNi that she welcomes the report as it effectively endorses Sport Matters and recognises that “a genuine partnership approach is required.”
She believes that the support of the departments, local authorities and the sport governing bodies will be “more easily secured when the benefits to them, rather than simply to sport, are clearly signposted.”
As well as the health benefits of sport, Ní Chuilín
points out: “Regular participation is fun and fulfilling in its own right. Equally importantly – and an aspect which particularly interests me and my department – is the evident value that people put on sport as an important dimension of their culture.”
When managed properly, sport can also “promote important values in our society like fair play, respect, teamwork and individual responsibility,” she adds.
The improvement and creation of new sports facilities is “essential” but so too is overcoming the barriers facing different groups of people, the Minister notes.
