Summary
StreetGames West Midlands in partnership with Advantage West Midlands and SkillsActive commissioned as it is recognised that the community sports workforce undertake a critical role in the support and delivery of sports participation.
This workforce audit is the first of it’s kind within the West Midlands, as the focus is specifically on the most deprived areas and communities in the region. The audit examined the skills, training and employment position of the current West Midlands StreetGames community sports workforce. Responses were received from project managers and the wider StreetGames workforce, in particular frontline coaches and volunteers within 15 StreetGames projects.
Approach
The development of the workforce audit included the design of the audit material and the coordination of the distribution through February – April 2009. Although the StreetGames projects differ in their scale, structure and approach, it was identified that the workforce basically comprised of a project manager supported by a core workforce mainly consisting of coaches/activity leaders. Therefore two audits were developed.
The audits were designed to consist of a core set of questions aimed at assessing the workforce skills, competencies and training needs. As little was known about the workforce operating within the StreetGames projects within the West Midlands our approach included both online and hardcopy circulation of the audits to the project managers to be circulated to the project workforce, semi-structured interviews with project managers and project workers.
In terms of analysis all quantitative data was processed through SPSS, whilst all qualitative material will be collated and assessed through a structured coding process. The analysis informed the production of the final report produced in May 2009.
Outcome
The demands placed on the project in the West Midlands are anticipated to grow as the population and employment increases. With this comes the need for the community sports workforce to develop the skills and qualifications of its workforce in relation to both sport specific and management competencies.
StreetGames should seek to engage with partner organisations in accessing opportunities for disadvantaged communities such as the Learning and Skills Council for the West Midlands Inspiration 2012 programme and the new Future Jobs Fund.