Update - Choice and Opportunity scores are now available from our Choice and Opportunity page. Local authorities will also be able to access all indicator baseline results for their local authority from the Audit Commission website from the 6th of December.  Active People survey results (including all participation and volunteering baseline results) will be released on the 7th of December. Official results for all indicators will be published by the Audit Commission in February 2007.

Sport in the Culture block

Background
Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) is the performance management framework used by the Audit Commission and central Government, to measure local authority performance and drive improvement in the sector.  Local government spends approximately £1 billion per year on sport and leisure, more than 50% of the total resources available to sport.

Sport England has worked successfully with key partners to secure a culture service assessment, which includes sport, in the CPA framework for 2005-08 for single tier and county councils.  The culture service assessment has an equal weighting alongside the housing and environment service assessments in the overall CPA framework. Ensuring this strengthened culture service assessment is embedded within the CPA framework for single tier and county councils will help to focus resources on sport and leisure and strengthen our ability to achieve the national participation targets for sport set out in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Public Service Agreement (PSA) targets and also reflected in the Framework for Sport in England and the Nine Regional Plans Sport Plans.

The participation, volunteering and choice and opportunity indicators will be included in the culture service assessments for single tier authorities in 2006. For county councils these sport related indicators do not form part of the culture service assessment but performance, where appropriate, will be reviewed through the corporate assessment, which addresses issues of partnership working and delivering shared priorities, including healthier communities.  There is no culture service assessment for district councils but again performance on these indicators, where appropriate, will be reviewed through any corporate assessments carried out.

All CPA performance information including county and district council data will be provided to the Audit Commission for use in the Corporate Assessment.

For more information on how these indicators will be applied in the culture service assessment, including the relevant thresholds, please contact the Audit Commission: 0207 166 2394, or refer to CPA - The Harder Test 2006.

How will performance be measured?
Over the next three years there will be a shift in emphasis away from inspection results and towards qualitative and quantative Performance Indicators (PIs).  Sport England has been working on a basket of robust PIs for sport and physical activity, which will be introduced during 2006 and 2007.

There is also an increasing emphasis on self-assessment and self-improvement. To assist with this, Sport England has worked with the sector to develop an appropriate model - Towards an Excellent Service (TAES) - and a system of external validation. This is suitable for assessment of a cultural service as a whole, or solely for sport and recreation.

Performance indicators for sport
The sport performance indicators (PIs) have been developed in line with the DCMS national participation public service agreement (PSA) targets that are also reflected in the Framework for Sport and Regional Plans.  

These are:

	Participation The percentage of adults participating in at least 30 minutes moderate intensity sport and active recreation (including recreational walking) on 3 or more days a week More info
	Volunteering The percentage of the population volunteering in sport and active recreation for at least one hour a week More info
	Equity Representative facility use by - people from the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups - young people aged 11-19yrs - people from black and minority ethnic groups - people aged over 60 yrs Proportion of facility use by disabled people aged under 60yrs More info
	Value for money Subsidy per visit Visits per square metre More info
	Choice and opportunity Percentage of the population that are within 20 minutes travel time (Urban areas – by walk; Rural areas – by car) of a range of three different sports facility types of which one has achieved a quality assured standard More info

We have committed significant resources to collecting data for the above-proposed indicators on behalf of the local authorities through the National Benchmarking Service, Active Places and the Active People Survey.

Other sport related indicators in the culture block:

• Percentage of total length of footpaths and other rights of way easy to use by members of the public
  More info
  
• Resident satisfaction with sport/leisure facilities
  More info
  
• Resident satisfaction with parks/open spaces
  More info
  
• Percentage of 5-16 year olds engaged in 2 hours a week minimum on high-quality PE and school sport within and beyond the curriculum
  More info