Sports Facilities (PE1434)
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I welcome you all to today’s meeting of the Public Petitions Committee. As always, I ask those present to turn off mobile phones and electronic devices because they interfere with our sound system. We have received apologies from Mark McDonald, and Joe FitzPatrick is substituting for him. I thank Joe FitzPatrick for coming along.
After seeing that my own school was missing certain facilities, I was made aware that there is inequality in the sports facilities that are provided in schools in Scotland. In 2006, the national audit for sports found that there was an ageing stock of sports facilities in Scotland. The fact that some schools have superior and excellent facilities is great, but the fact that a large number of children do not have access to such facilities will not help our fight against childhood obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
Thank you for your comments. It is interesting that you make those links with health. Looking ahead in our agenda, I noted that we have items on diabetes, which you mentioned, and youth football, so there is some integration with our later discussions.
I believe that the school is at the centre of each community. The community or town may have a sports centre, but it may be at the other side of the town. Even in the small town that I come from, there are different communities. The school should be at the centre of its community—it should be the hub where people can go for clubs outwith term time and school time. The facilities should be available for physical education lessons and should broaden the variety of sports that the school provides.
Many years ago, I benefited from schools being open to the community. I was able to go and play netball and hockey at clubs in the schools because of that, so I am a great believer in schools being available to their communities. I continue to push for that but, many years ago, I was told that not all schools could be opened up. I will give you an example, and you can see whether you agree with it. A school in one of the areas that I represented had a swimming pool and a fitness suite, but the only people who could use them after school hours and at weekends were the teachers. I agree with you 100 per cent that schools should be community hubs.
Yes. I got the message from my Youth Parliament constituents that they want to play in the floodlit sports facilities, but if schools had those facilities, the compromise might be that instead of going to the floodlit pitch down the road, they would go to the school. That would encourage more young people, who could bring their parents along, and that would encourage more people in the community to get involved.
I have a tiny wee follow-up. We know the cost of using AstroTurf pitches. The prices are reasonable in some areas and in others they are extortionate. If schools were to provide those facilities, do you see them charging for their use during out of school hours?
Yes. North Ayrshire has K:A Leisure, which allows children to use the facilities for free at certain hours. It makes a small but not unreasonable charge of a couple of pounds at other times. There can be discount options. In North Ayrshire, the clubs get discounts on rents to encourage the use of sporting facilities and to encourage young people to keep up their fitness levels.
I note that your petition refers to creating
Floodlighting should be a basic requirement for an AstroTurf pitch, although there should also be basic standards for the safety and age of equipment. If the playing equipment is not being renewed or kept in good condition, people will not benefit from it. It deters young people from doing sport if they know that the equipment is 10 or 15 years old; they do not really like the idea of using it, even though it might be perfectly safe. They like the idea of using new, up-to-date basketballs and netballs. There should be a minimum standard for the age and safety of equipment. There should be complete safety checks every couple of years to see whether equipment needs to be replaced or reused or thrown away.
I asked that question about the minimum level of facilities because more and more young people want to take up sports and I believe that if a sport is made available for someone to take up, they might come to excel at it. Sandra White mentioned netball, and other sports that I could list include basketball, swimming, running, hockey and shinty—not everyone wants to play football. We need to make facilities available so that we give a rounded sports education rather than just concentrating on the main sports.
I know that AstroTurf can be used for hockey, football and other sports, but I would love to see a facility that could be used for more sports. I could not play football if I tried; I prefer netball, hockey and other such sports. I like the idea of having a wide variety of sports in schools. Some people might not prefer running, jumping, hockey, basketball and football; they might prefer badminton or tennis. We should offer the widest possible range of sports throughout Scotland.
Thanks very much for coming—we are served really well by the Scottish Youth Parliament, which adds to our work as a Parliament. Has the Youth Parliament looked at whether the examples of unacceptable standards and facilities from your experience are replicated in other places?
While preparing the petition, I spoke to MSYPs whom I know throughout Scotland. Schools might have facilities, but the levels of facilities differ between schools. I have always accepted that some schools will be able to provide a little bit extra but, when all that is stripped away, a basic minimum level should be available. There should not be schools that fall way behind in providing sports.
In my city, Morgan academy has an old building and limited grounds, so it does not have the space to provide what might be considered to be the minimum standards. However, the pupils can access the facilities in Dundee international sports centre, which is relatively close. Does the Youth Parliament think that that is an acceptable compromise?
That kind of compromise is acceptable. Schools that do not have the space for what is considered a minimum level of provision must reach compromises, but schools that have space and land must provide a minimum level; otherwise, their students will not get the same benefits as students who are 5 miles away in the next town.
I will press you a little on that. Is the most important issue having access to facilities for young people in a school, rather than having facilities in a particular location?
Access is one of the most important things. When I travel throughout my constituency, I see schools lying empty at weekends, because they cannot provide facilities, whereas a school in a town across a border might have a bustling community and have weekend sports, as it provides facilities.
I do not think that anybody round the table disagrees that what you propose would be the ideal situation. Opening up sport to as many young people as possible is important. However, there are lots of barriers to that. In recent years, a number of playing fields have been sold off for development. That is not happening as much it did, but it happened in my area for a number of years.
I always imagined that funding sports facilities would be expensive, but I was hoping that organisations that already get funding such as sportsscotland, active schools and even councils—which are able to get external funding—could be encouraged to provide support. With the push on the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, and the youth Olympics, which Glasgow hopes to host in 2018, and with people coming to Scotland, I am sure that showcasing our facilities and how funding is used to encourage sporting activities would be of great benefit to the country as a whole.
You see it as a legacy of, for example, the Commonwealth games.
Yes.
Good afternoon. I have much sympathy with your petition, and I congratulate you on promoting the issue.
That is an issue in North Ayrshire. Local authorities throughout Scotland are building new schools, but it would be much cheaper in the long run if they provided adequate sports facilities, rather than waiting to find the money to build new schools. By that time, many pupils will have left school. There is a school being built in North Ayrshire that will take four or five years, so the children in secondary 3 will not see the benefits. However, a sports facility could be built in a year and that would allow more children to access it and build up a healthier lifestyle that they can carry on into adulthood.
What is the general condition of the school estate in North Ayrshire? Have any new schools been built recently?
Yes. We have two new schools, and schools throughout the local authority area have been updated, but work is prioritised. The local authority—I think that this is the same with all local authorities—is not able to give equal facilities to every school because that is not possible with the funding cuts to local government.
I think that Anne McTaggart has a question.
Welcome. Nanette Milne has covered the funding issue that I wanted to raise, so I have no questions.
There have been many good questions—and answers. Nairn, you referred to every school having a sports facility, and your answers to Joe FitzPatrick were spot on; they also covered some of the points that I was considering.
The focus is more on secondary schools. In North Ayrshire, each town has a secondary school and a cluster of primary schools that are not far away. If the secondary school had those facilities, the young people in the primary schools would be able to access them. In schools such as mine, PE is not going on constantly, so there would be times when they could use the facilities.
Katherine, do you want to add anything at this stage?
No. Nairn is doing a great job.
As Sandra White said, there are areas in Scotland where local authorities have good public parks. When I went to school—it was a number of years ago—there was a public area, which was not part of the school, that had a running track, football pitches, a long jump track and various other bits and pieces. It was not attached to the school but was operated by the council. Would you welcome closer links between the existing council facilities and schools instead of looking for a minimum standard of facilities for every school? Should we make greater use of the existing public park facilities in local authority areas? In Coatbridge, in North Lanarkshire, where I Iive, the council built a new school that had no facilities but which made use of a public park. The council put in a 3G football pitch and various other facilities within the boundaries of the public park. Would it not be a better use of resources to tie up existing public facilities with the schools in order to make greater use of public amenities, rather than creating additional amenities?
In Kilwinning, we used to have tennis courts in our public park. However, because it cannot be guaranteed that everybody will use such facilities sensibly and responsibly, they can be abused and vandalised. If they were in a school that was locked overnight, they would be protected and people would not have the opportunity to abuse and vandalise them. They would be kept in excellent condition and could be used for many years.
As I am sure members will agree, the petition is a good one. It is important that we continue the petition so that we can get further information from the Scottish Government, Education Scotland, sportscotland and the Scottish Sports Association. Do members have any suggestions for additional organisations to write to?
I suggest that we write to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, as the issue is very much a local authority one, in relation to the education provision and, as I said, how we utilise public parks where there are public playing facilities. We need to take on board Nairn McDonald’s point about the security and safety of the use of public parks beyond the usual opening hours.
I agree with what has been said. Once we get a response to the letters that we plan to write, would it be appropriate to refer the petition on with the responses to the Health and Sport Committee, which is planning to do an inquiry on community sport in the fairly near future?
That is certainly an option that we should consider when all the information comes back.
For clarification, would we still have time to refer the petition on, given that the Health and Sport Committee launched its inquiry on 25 June?
It is in September.
Okay—sorry.
I think that we still have time, but we will take advice from the clerks on that.
When we write to the Government, we should ask whether any audit work has been done since 2006 to find out whether things have improved and are improving.
I am advised that the Health and Sport Committee inquiry has just been launched, and that it will continue for a number of months, so the timescale is fine. We will be conscious of that and try to get information back quickly enough.
Scotland-Pakistan Youth Council (PE1435)
The next petition is PE1435, by Wajahat Nassar, on a Scotland-Pakistan youth council. Members have a note by the clerk, which is paper 2, a SPICe briefing and the petition. I invite the committee to consider the petition and ask members for their comments.
As this is the first time that the petition has come before us, we should give it due consideration. However, in my opinion, it would be difficult if we went down the road of setting up various councils for various people. We have many cross-party groups in the Parliament on issues such as older people and China. As this is the first time that the petition has come before us, we should write to the Scottish Government, the Scottish Youth Parliament, the British Council, the cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on Pakistan, the Scotland-Pakistan Network and the Scottish Asian Pakistan Foundation to ask for their thoughts on the petition and what they want to do. However, I want to put on the record my opinion that it would be difficult if we start down the road of creating groups for everyone who writes in.
The general thrust of the petition is to be supported in principle. Perhaps we should at this stage refer the petition to the Scottish Youth Parliament. We have just seen an example of how capable the members of that Parliament are. That might be the best place for the petition to start. There is a piece of work to be done.
That is a novel idea that has a lot of merit.
I note that, according to the petitioner, the Scottish Government has stated that it cannot endorse the proposal for a Scotland-Pakistan youth council and that the Scottish Youth Parliament has also said that it is unable to support the initiative. However, if we land the petition in the Scottish Youth Parliament’s lap, that might well help to move it forward.
Reading through the briefing papers, it strikes me that the British Pakistani Youth Council already exists, having been set up in 2009. Apparently, the council works with national and devolved Government on issues relating to British Pakistani young people. I suggest that we contact the organisation and find out what it does. It might be an umbrella organisation and the petition may fit in with its work.
Joe Fitzpatrick raised an interesting point about the Scottish Youth Parliament. I am enthusiastic about that idea, but Nanette Milne made a good point about checking the status of the petition first by going to the umbrella organisation. Once we get that raw material back, we will have better guidance on referring the petition to the Scottish Youth Parliament.
I have read the petition and some of the petitioner’s comments, which are not particularly helpful. They mention the China and North America plans, which are dealt with by the Government and the European and External Relations Committee.
That is very useful. Do members agree that, in the first instance, we should refer the petition to the British Pakistani Youth Council to seek its advice and guidance, and then consider options involving the Scottish Youth Parliament and other options thereafter?
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