The sport sector is under a lot of pressure at the moment. Many funded partners are facing financial strain, demands on their capacity and making the best out of limited resources.
But at the same time, there are opportunities to work differently, through:
- more collaboration
- sharing expertise
- making better use of commercial and technological opportunities
This is where the Sport Wales Sector Resilience Programme comes in.
We caught up with Laura Jones – Sector Resilience Lead, who told us more about a series of pilot projects which have been put in place as part of the programme to explore opportunities to help ease the pressure on our funded partners.
What does the Sector Resilience Programme explore?
Individual organisations can't tackle every challenge on their own - and they don't need to. This programme allows us to work directly with partners and practically explore wider opportunities with them through the pilot projects.
We might find ways to help them work more collaboratively instead of in isolation, find where capability and infrastructure can be shared, avoid duplicating resources and save time.
The pilots help us break this all down into different areas.
Tell us more about what the pilots are.
We’re currently working with 12 funded partners across four pilot projects:
Collaboration Maturity Mapping
This maps how our funded partners currently collaborate, what enables effective collaboration and where there may be opportunities to collaborate more in the future.
Digital Infrastructure
Here, we’re exploring opportunities to improve how organisations use and access digital infrastructure and capability. For example, customer software tools and software licensing.
Commercial Readiness
This looks at our funded partners’ commercial capability and making better use of the assets and opportunities they already have. In other words, exploring how to strengthen commercial relationships, such as securing brand partners.
Data Aggregation
Here, we’re exploring where organisations can maximise how they use their data.
For example, using membership data to create profiles that will help them target brands they’d like to secure sponsorship from. In doing so, they’ll also allow us at Sport Wales to have insight into that membership data, which shows us who is taking part in sport in Wales, and where.
Which partners are we working on the pilots with?
We are currently working with:
- Hockey Wales
- Welsh Boxing
- Disability Sport Wales
- Actif North Wales
- Welsh Athletics
- Welsh Triathlon
- Welsh Sports Association
- Snowsport Cymru Wales
- Basketball Wales
- Cricket Wales
- Squash Wales
- Paddle Cymru
Tell us more about your role.
I lead the Sector Resilience Programme within Sport Wales and bring together the different areas of work across it. I work with organisations across the sector and turn learnings into a clearer picture of what could happen next.
A key part of my role is making sure the programme is shaped 'with' the sector, rather than simply done 'to' it.
And is there a wider team?
There is a Sector Resilience Advisory Group, which is made up of nine senior leaders from across Welsh sport. Their role is to challenge and shape the thinking behind the programme, looking out for issues and opportunities that may not be visible from where we sit within Sport Wales.
As the programme develops, the group will continue to play an important role in helping us step back from the pilots and think about the bigger picture; particularly what the overall learning from the pilots might tell us about opportunities for the sector as a whole.
What happens next?
It's still early in the programme and the pilots are deliberately about ongoing testing and learning, rather than delivering pre-determined results. All four pilots are currently underway and the majority will conclude in October this year.
Our ambition is not to create one way of doing something for every organisation. Each organisation has different needs, circumstances and opportunities. Instead, the programme is helping us build a better understanding of where working collectively could add value, what might be possible, and what support may be needed to make it happen for organisations.
The learnings will help us understand where there are opportunities for organisations to improve efficiency and work in a less isolated way, and for us to learn where approaches may not be right for the sector.
This is also part of a wider conversation taking place across the UK sport system about how organisations can become more sustainable, make the best use of available resources and find new ways of working together.
As the pilots progress, we'll share learning with the sector and use that insight to decide what comes next for the Sector Resilience Programme.