Education, Culture and Sport Committee, 25 Mar 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 25, 2003

Official Report 123KB pdf

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Sport 21

Members will be aware that "Sport 21 2003-2007: The National Strategy for Sport" was launched this morning. It contains 11 key targets, which I certainly support—I hope that other members will be able to do so, too. It is important that the previous sport 21 document and the new one are used not as party-political tools but for the benefit of sport as a whole. We should all work together, whatever our perspectives, to try to meet the targets that have been drawn up using information gathered from a wide variety of sources and consultations. I believe that, if we work together, by 2007 we will see the fruits of that labour in our elite sport and in the participation of our children and young people in physical activity and sport. We saw two good examples this morning in Chris Hoy and Rhona Martin, who are excellent role models for our children and young people.

I agree that a lot of useful work has been done in the past four years. It has been useful to identify the issues and to make appropriate links across portfolio areas in a way that perhaps had not been done before. Sport has been linked with health, social inclusion and education. Like you, convener, I do not disagree with any of the targets. The challenge for whoever finds themselves in the Administration in the next session is to implement those targets. We must ensure that the work has not just been a prolonged exercise to identify what we need to do; the strategy must be taken forward so that better health and sporting outcomes are delivered for Scotland.

This is a strategy document, so I do not want to get into detail. I will mention a couple of points that were raised this morning in discussions before the launch. First, in drawing together all the strands—which is a good thing—by talking about social inclusion, health promotion and so on, we must remember that sport is sport; it is not only part of a pattern of activities relating to issues such as social inclusion. There must be partnership. Sport may be a way of achieving some of the other objectives, but it ought not to be subsumed by them.

The second point is that the document and the discussions about it show that the Executive and sportscotland have a great deal to do and will be reliant on partners such as local authorities. We must ensure that local authorities recognise their role and do not, for example, price sports clubs out of the market. As well as considering the economics, councils must take into account the benefits that arise from being generous and allowing clubs to use local authority facilities. Other factors must be taken into account when facilities are priced for local use.

Way back when there was a COSLA community services working group, it was always keen to say that local authorities play a key role in promoting sport. We must recognise that probably no agencies do more than local authorities to promote sport, especially given their role in education. Local authorities have often felt frustrated that their role is not clearly recognised.

It is clear from the document that the partnership approach involves not only the statutory agencies and local authorities, but sports clubs, which are the backbone of sport throughout the country and provide volunteers, training, coaching and services in their own facilities and in local authority facilities. The partnership also increasingly involves the private sector. There is some recognition in the document of the private sector's role in the development of sport in Scotland. That is important.

The money coming in from the Executive needs to be channelled correctly. I agree with Ian Jenkins that sport is important in itself. I have held that position over the past four years. However, sport is bad at promoting what it can do across the range of other issues in the country. Whereas other areas have generated income and received support because of their ability to gear their funding applications appropriately and blow their own trumpet, sport has not been particularly successful in that regard. We need to address that, because sport is one of the key factors in attempts to deal with health, educational attainment and social inclusion issues.

The document is good and I look forward to the implementation of its recommendations. I also look forward to taking part in a bit more sport, as I fall into one of the age groups that is mentioned.

Finally today, I would like to thank everyone who has served on the committee. Some of you have been here since its inception in 1999 and all of you have worked hard to get us where we are today. We have done some valuable work.

On behalf of committee members, I thank our support staff—those who are with us now and those who have been with us in the past. A variety of staff have supported us in the past four years, including the clerks, our advisers, the Scottish Parliament information centre and the non-Executive bills unit. They all ensured that we were able to deal with the many challenges that have faced us.

I hope that we have produced something positive—I think that we have—and I look forward to working with you all in any guise. Ian Jenkins is excepted from that, as he will not be returning to Parliament.

You will be able to work with me somehow.

Perhaps Ian could return as an adviser to the committee.

Three of us have been members of the committee throughout the session—Brian Monteith, Ian Jenkins and I, although Brian is the only one who has held his party's education portfolio for all that time. You have had two periods of absence, convener, but I pay tribute to you as an excellent convener and someone with whom it has been possible to work while, at times, failing to agree.

The committee has done significant work during the past four years. Some members present today have joined us as we went along. Cathy Peattie has been on the committee since the beginning but had an enforced absence. However, we got her back.

Regardless of all the differences—and there are many—between members, a great deal has brought us together. Serving on the committee has not only been one of the most pleasurable experiences of the past four years, but one of the more productive. I am sure that that is due to the diverse nature of the committee and to the high standard of support that we have had.

It has been a pleasure and an honour to serve on the committee. I am delighted that we will be able to end the four years of the parliamentary session by dealing with the Commissioner for Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill, which is our committee bill and will stand as evidence of the work that the Education, Culture and Sport Committee has done for the children of Scotland.

I agree with the comments that have been made. I congratulate Ian Jenkins on being not only one of the three permanent members, as it were, but the member with the best attendance.

Does that mean that he has a veto?

The committee has been one of those that have given the impression that the work of the committees is a good aspect of the Scottish Parliament. I am thinking in particular of our reports on the Scottish Qualifications Authority and the national companies, particularly Scottish Opera, which set a good standard for inquiries into the difficulties of our non-governmental organisations.

There have been a number of differences in the committee but, in the main, they have been handled with good humour. That has made attending meetings enjoyable, even if, at times, we looked forward only to baiting each other. I thank my colleagues for putting up with me for those four years.

I echo what has been said.

Is everyone going to make a speech?

I have enjoyed my time on the committee. It is important to highlight the role that the committee has played in showing how committee members can work together to achieve consensus where possible while acknowledging their differences. People have worked together in the way that families do. Everyone has had a role to play—including that of being the one who always wants to disagree.

Why are you staring at Brian?

When people talk about the way in which Parliament works, they often forget the role of the committees. However, the SQA inquiry is an excellent example of the good work that committees can do. We have been able to become involved in many areas through our inquiries and examine issues with greater focus than would have been possible if there had been no Scottish Parliament.

I thank all the staff who have supported us through that process. I am sure that, at times, they must have been in despair about what the hell we were going to say next and must have wished that we would shut up.

I will finish up by asking people not to mention the Hampden inquiry, which was not our finest moment.

Are you indicating that you want to say something, Jackie?

As the baby of the committee, I thought that we were all required to make a comment. I thank everyone who has supported the committee and note that we will all miss Ian Jenkins, who will not be standing again for election to the Parliament.

On a more serious note, the reality is that committees can perform a powerful and useful role in the work of the Parliament. On occasion, this committee has exercised consensual judgment, which I hope our successor committee will do as well.

I thank the staff of the official report for making us all sound terribly intelligent.

Irene, do you want to make a comment? Come on, you might as well. After that, we will see if anyone from the audience wants to say anything.

There is little to add so I will continue to play the role of the committee member who speaks the least. I express my appreciation of the opportunity to serve on the committee and thank members for allowing me to be one of the two members who worked with the non-Executive bills unit on the Commissioner for Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill. Not many members of the Scottish Parliament have had that privilege and I can say that the work was fascinating in every respect. The fact that the outcome of our work will be extremely positive makes it all worth while. As Ian Jenkins said, that legislation will stand as a legacy of the committee. I am sure that our successor committee will undertake many such good pieces of work in future.

I thank everyone who has been involved in the committee and I hope that, tomorrow, we get the vote that we want on the Commissioner for Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill.

I close the final meeting in this session of Parliament of the Education, Culture and Sport Committee. Goodbye.

Meeting closed at 15:40.