Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee

Welcome back everyone to this meeting of the Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee.

This morning we are holding evidence sessions into our inquiry into access to sport in disadvantaged areas. We are going to be having our second session this morning. I'll ask our witnesses to introduce themselves for the record. We've got two witnesses in the room and one who's joining us virtually. I'll go to our virtual witness first—Phil, do you want to introduce yourself for the record, please?

Yes, Phil John. My name is Phil John, I'm the vice-chairman of Basketball Wales.

Thank you, Phil. And then we'll come to Fergus.

Chair, thank you. Fergus Feeney, chief executive of Swim Wales.

And Hanna.

Good morning, Chair. Hanna Guise, national learning to swim manager for Swim Wales, also with the responsibility for school swimming.

Lovely to have you all with us.

We'll go—.

We'll go straight to the questions if that's okay. I'll go to Heledd Fychan.

Could you outline—?

Oh, sorry—English. You've just asked me to speak in English and I forgot, sorry.

I know; no sweat.

What are the main barriers to participation in sport in disadvantaged areas? So, how do these intersect with other factors, including age, sex and gender, socioeconomic status, geography, disability and ethnicity?

Thank you, Heledd. Can I start? I think there's a whole load of barriers there that you've listed, Heledd. And from our perspective, from Swim Wales's perspective, as the national governing body of aquatic sport and aquatic activity in Wales, we face all of those on a regular basis. We break it down to two component parts: one is accessibility and the other is affordability, just in its simplest terms. You'll have heard me say in this committee not so long ago that our vision is aquatics for everyone for life at Swim Wales, and that's something that, again, we're very, very proud of. It's fully inclusive. So, in a relatively small population of whatever it is now, 3.1 million or 3.2 million, we want to get our arms around everybody and provide an environment for everyone to access swimming or aquatic activity.

We're really proud of the fact that we had, pre COVID, in 2019, 100,000 children every week in swimming lessons or aquatically active in school swimming, and we also had 400,000 adults aquatically active at that time—so, nigh on 15 per cent of the Welsh population aquatically active every week, which—. And to protect that and to keep that going, we have to constantly work on those barriers. We have challenges. We have 500 pools across Wales—the majority, if not all, of those were closed for 43 weeks of 52 weeks. That's a—. We're kind of labouring that point now, we're all getting over it, but it did have a big impact and we're still seeing the residual effects of that impact across the piece: so, where the plus-60s, for example, the older generation, people have got a little bit more reluctant, a little bit more lacking in confidence, maybe, to go outside, where before that wasn't an issue. So, we're trying to persuade that age group, 60 plus, to be physically active. One of the benefits of aquatics and swimming is that there is less stress on the joints; it's not an impact sport. And the plus-60s—. We internally talk about the pathway being nought to 100. That's one aspect.

The other aspect would be rurality and, within the regions, affordability is a big concern—we'll talk about that in a bit more detail; hopefully we'll get a chance to talk about that later on—with transportation to pools in west Wales, for example, or north Wales, or Ceredigion, Powys, where they'd be a lot further afield, they wouldn't be on your doorstep, for want of a better word, like they would be around Swansea, south Wales, Cardiff, Newport, et cetera. So, of those 500 pools, when we map them, there is a large population, as you'd expect, around south Wales. So, west Wales, north Wales, getting to those pools, and not only transportation but access to transportation and the routes, but also now the cost of transportation, is another prohibiting factor. I know I've gone on a bit there, but there are a few aspects to it, so hopefully we can develop that further later on.

Phil, I'm going to bring in Hanna and then we'll come to you, okay. So, I'm just going to bring in Hanna first and then we'll come back to Phil.

Just to build on what Fergus has shared there, across our network of learn to swim providers across Wales, the average cost of a swimming lesson is around £6.50, and, when you look at the recent StreetGames research that shows that a lower income family will have around £3.75 to spend on active sport per week, you can see straight away that the numbers make it very, very challenging for a lot of our communities to access this potentially life-saving opportunity. Because that's obviously the difference with swimming, the ability to swim and be competent in and around water, that potentially our activity can save your life.

Thank you, Hanna. Phil, before I bring you in, I think Alun Davies wants to ask a supplementary on that point. So, I'm just going to go to Alun and then I'll come to you, Phil. Alun.

Yes, thank you. Just to follow up on a couple of the points that you've made in those answers, 500 pools is more than I anticipated hearing, actually. I assumed it was far fewer than that. In terms of access to those pools, are they working full-time public access and the rest of it at the moment? Have you seen a reduction in recent years? Is that a fairly stable number, or is it a reduction from previous numbers, and do you expect it to increase or decrease in the future?

Secondly, do you see—in terms of swimming lessons, do you see a reduction in age profile? I'm particularly thinking of under-18s, children in school. Do you see a change in participation rates as a child would go from primary through secondary? Do you see that difference in age structure?

And thirdly, in terms of transportation, we've all in different parts of our representative lives heard about issues with public transport. Are you seeing a change in the accessibility of swimming pools to people who rely on public transport over recent years? So, three questions.

If I could take No. 1 and No. 3, maybe the—. That's more in your area, Hanna, maybe, the learn to swim and the age groups.

So, regarding learn to swim, what we're actually finding with the participation numbers is that the demand is overwhelming. Obviously, returning from the pandemic, facilities reopening, clearly, a lot of responsible adults are prioritising getting their children into learn to swim lessons because they've missed out on that opportunity. What we tend to find is that there's a big influx in that primary school age group, and I suppose under-11s, under-10s, with the younger age group probably being more significant. And then, obviously, there are lots of other activities that take children's interest. A lot of responsible adults—. We try and get the message across that being water competent and being safe in and around water is more than being just able to swim from one end of the pool to another; there's obviously a lot of other key skills that we need to make sure that our population have got the ability to do, if they're ever in a situation where they might need to draw on those skills.

There is a trend of participation, I suppose, waning as people get older, but I suppose that's down to a lot of different factors. Obviously, compared to when I was growing up, there's a lot more different things available now that can take people's interest. When you look at the school sport survey, when you look at the active adult survey, the insight, things like that, swimming and aquatic activity is always potentially No. 2 after walking, so we know that there is the demand and the desire for our young people to access water.

The first question, Alun, was around pool closure, and we did see, obviously, 100 per cent of pools closed for that period of time, extended period of time, and there was a protracted reopening of pools. At the moment, we stand at just over 90 per cent of those pools are back open, and that 8 per cent or 10 per cent we work with across 22 local authorities, 37 operators of leisure facilities. The key driver for the ones that haven't opened up is purely business case. There was a massive loss of revenue and, obviously, to keep one of these pools, for want of a better word, afloat or open, it's quite costly. So, a massive hit.

So, if you look at some of those revenue lines—and we go across all of that; it's not our direct business, but we work closely with partners to make it our business, to help them problem solve—we're concerned that that 10 per cent won't open again and provide. And, of course, unfortunately, the vicious circle is they are typically in those rural areas, because footfall is absolutely key. It doesn't take much for that—. It's a sensitive place; it doesn't take much for that to be affected negatively. So, how are they going to reopen? Will they reopen again? The question mark is around probably 10 per cent of those; we're working constantly with them.

As far as transportation is concerned, that's obviously a hugely important issue. Public transportation, as well as the cost of fuel, just getting children from A to B, if you look at the average age— the average distance rather—from home to a club in north Wales, it could average 15 or 20 miles quite easily to get to club swimming or to a lesson—very, very easily. And then we look at our domestic challenges with bills, fuel and utility bills et cetera. You just throw that into the mix, and we can work out that there are going to be decisions for households around transportation.

What I will say is that there are really positive and innovative projects, like in Rhondda Cynon Taf, where the local authority have got together with their transport colleagues—sport and leisure and transport—and they've actually plotted out the routes to make sure that, if there was a redesign of routes or bus services in that area, they are dropping off and picking up from leisure facilities. That's something that we would really embrace and love to see across the 22 local authorities. So, there are some great pieces of work—huge challenges, but I think one thing the pandemic has given us is that sense of collaboration, where teams and departments have come together in a better way. I hope that answers your question.

Yes, thank you. I know that Carolyn wants to ask a supplementary. I'm very aware that Phil hasn't come in yet, so if it could be as brief as possible—forgive me, I know that there's a lot we want to get in—and then we'll come back to Heledd. Carolyn.

I was interested what you think, because we're looking at transport going forward, so bringing in leisure centres as part of the hubs, as well as stations, is not something I've thought about, so that's really interesting. Accessibility, for many, is through school, especially in rural areas as well. That's where they start. But wasn't the funding cut for provision through school? And then transport is a main issue, isn't it, do you think, a barrier for schools as well—affordability of coaches to take children to swimming lessons.

Yes, Carolyn. Again, I'll refer to my colleague, Hanna, who has done an awful lot of work in that space.

So, regarding the transport, that is obviously the biggest cost when it comes to schools accessing school swimming. Quite often, the actual price per head to access the pool, they've got the budget for that, but, like Fergus said regarding the distances travelled, that is quite often a barrier and why some headteachers might make the decision to only have a small exposure to water for their pupils. And you are right: the majority of children in Wales, their only experience of water is through the school swimming experience. Obviously, with the current curriculum, it's categorically written: being able to swim is in the current curriculum. Obviously, with the changes being more holistic with the Curriculum for Wales coming in later this year, obviously that's going to be moving more to an experience in and around water, so we just need to obviously make sure that swimming and water competence—. Because, like I said, it's being safe. The safety element is obviously the priority. We need to make sure that for headteachers that's still on their radar and they're thinking about the safety of their pupils going forward.

I have gone through the Chair. Just one really—. Ten seconds. Our calculations, our numbers, our data and insight tell us that 52 per cent of Welsh schoolchildren will leave key stage 2 without the ability to be able to swim, which is really shocking.

Fifty per cent?

Fifty-two per cent. That's our latest—

That's on the latest statistics.

Yes. Hanna's done that piece of work with the rest of the team. So, 52 per cent will leave without the ability to be able to swim, and if—. Again, very quickly. I count myself as being on one side of the line. I have four daughters; one is tiny, and three are learning to swim—12 and 10. I'm in a privileged position where we can afford swimming lessons for my daughters, for those kids. There are a lot of people on the other side of the line, who, with the fuel, with utility bills, with the numbers that Hanna talked about earlier on—this is moving further out of sight. So, the only safety net or catch-all for those children will be school swimming, and if it's only 52 per cent at the moment—and that's before the new curriculum has hit—one of the biggest concerns we have as an organisation, and we are working very closely with education and our colleagues, is to maintain that in-school swimming, because, if we lose that, we've lost the fight.

Thank you very much for that. Thank you. Heledd, could you ask your question again to Phil?

Yes, of course. So, Phil, just asking if you could please outline what the main barriers to participation in sport, you believe, are in disadvantaged areas, and how this intersects with other factors, such as age, sex and gender, socioeconomic status, geography, disability and ethnicity.

Thanks for that, and firstly can I thank everyone and particularly Welsh Government for allowing Basketball Wales to come to the fore? I'd like to start off, basically, by saying that I'm sitting in the car, I've got my notes in front of me, and I'm just going to go through them. I think the colleagues that have just spoken have spoken basically about some of the same issues that we've got, but, if I just go through my brief, are you okay with that?

Yes.

Yes, of course.

I think, that way, we'll probably pick up everything that I want to say. As a board, we have—. And can I just say, as a board, we are all volunteers? There is no paid member of staff, except just a little bit of money for an administrator. The rest is entirely volunteers.

As a board, we have continued to address the opportunities for our sport to grow, to which travel and transport have been identified as barriers, which has just been mentioned by other colleagues, to progress in basketball, including facilities in deprived areas, with some of the patches of our capital city in the south, and Caernarfonshire and Holyhead in the north, although this does not exclude such places as the Valleys and in mid Wales.

We have our sport and we want our sport to grow. We are regarded, I believe, and it was stated number of years ago, as the fourth most utilised sport in Wales for children and young people, and I believe that's still the fact, because we've still got waiting lists for our young people to participate in our clubs and in schools as well.

The board are all volunteers, like I just mentioned, and mainly the sport is driven by the volunteers. Our first endeavour for a national league—and I know Carolyn was there—finished with a great day at Wrexham university. The four nations competition, which was held in Cardiff recently, was deemed as one of the best four nations under-18s championships ever run within Britain, which was fantastic news to us. And looking forward, we are looking forward to something that maybe the Welsh Government don't know too much about—I think that Carolyn does—that is, on 13 June of this year, we've got the junior National Basketball Association taking place in Aberystwyth.

But this doesn't take away the facts about the accessibility and facilities. BW have worked during the pandemic to utilise as much opportunity as we could and we introduced the 3x3 competition, which was coming forward for the Olympics, and, again, it's going into the Commonwealth Games but, unfortunately, Wales this year won't be taking part in that, because they lost up in Scotland.

Anyway, BW are working to address the accessibility and facilities with outdoor courts and indoor facilities, but, as has been mentioned earlier on, we are very, very low on funding. We try to get external funding and we work with an individual, Kate Gordos, who is a commercial person—again, totally voluntary.

We have secured for some funding to drive some facilities for outdoor courts in four strategically selected locations across Wales and this is at the moment in the early stages. The demand, if I just say to you, demand—and it's been mentioned by other speakers—the demand for basketball, particularly, even in under-10s and under-eights, has been enormous. I was speaking to Jon Bunyan yesterday from Pontypridd Panthers, and he was mentioning that he's got something like about 60 children waiting to come and take part in his basketball sessions. And this is what's happening, but, without the support of internal and external funding, it's going to be very, very difficult.

That would be fantastic, please, Phil. That would be great. Thank you very much.

We'll move—. Are you happy to—?

We'll move on now, Phil, to questions from Alun Davies.

Yes. I'm grateful to witnesses for their time this morning. I'm looking at the future, and what are the interventions that you would like to see from Welsh Government that would help support and sustain the sports that you're representing this morning?

I'll take that one. I think the first one—it might be on people's lips or on people's lists today, but—the free swimming initiative, the FSI initiative, I'd just like to say a quick rundown on that. We are extremely grateful to Welsh Government and successive administrations over—. I don't know of another national programme that has lasted 16, 17 years—it's in it's seventeenth year now. It's had a couple of iterations, but it's lasted a long, long time, and it's the only one. I sit on the British Swimming Board and I look at Scotland, England and my counterparts, I talk internationally, and no other nation has a programme like it. And the FSI programme has supported—. It used to be £3 million; it's down to £1.5 million. We can talk about its different priorities and what it's trying to achieve later or another time, but that's a huge investment, keeping going accessibility, free swimming for targeted groups. I'm not the only one; 22 local authorities will tell you that it's a godsend. So, maintaining that. Yes, all programmes and all projects will need initiatives that need a tweak, and there's talk about that in front of Ministers, and I'm sure the Minister, Dawn, will talk about that herself. So, there's free swimming and maintaining free swimming and that investment into aquatic activity for all—our targeted groups.

There's also helping organisations like ours and local authorities to join up the dots. So, I think—and you guys will know this—there's a huge amount of efficiency and opportunities for efficiency across Government, across departments. We as an organisation, and I know Sport Wales are very much on the same tack, will be reaching out and working a lot closer with education, with transportation, to try and join up those dots. We are in a unique position where we talk to all of those partners. We sit in the middle of the national governing body and we take pride in the fact that we've got those multiple relationships so that we can bring people together, so we can facilitate those conversations. But I think support from central Government, if you like, in nudging departments closer together, so, education to sport, and where are the areas where we could work together—sport and transportation, sport and social care. So, I think bringing those together.

It's not necessarily bags of money and financial investment—of course, that's nice—it's maintaining free swimming, but also—. I suppose, the other side is the school swimming aspect that Carolyn touched on earlier on. That really is going to be the last bastion, because if this continues in the short term—we've had the pandemic, now we've got increased prices and accessibility—if we leave it to just parents and just the affordability metric, and we don't catch all, from a school swimming perspective—. So, supporting headteachers, supporting schools, supporting the education system, and helping them, I suppose, with the decision, not necessarily, 'What do I spend £1,000 on? Is it the IT suite, is it four iPads, or is it 60 kids at the end of term going swimming at key stage 2?' And that's the decision they have to make. Wouldn't it be fantastic if we had a ring-fenced provision for swimming and, as a country, we could look ourselves and each other in the eye and say, 'Key stage 2, every child leaves school at key stage 2 a swimmer'?

Just adding further to Fergus's point there, Swim Wales are one of the key organisations as part of Water Safety Wales. And when you look at the Wales drowning prevention strategy and also the UK drowning prevention strategy, that opportunity of learning to swim is a key objective as part of both strategies. And, like we've said, schools are the places where we are going to have that contact point with the majority of our children. We've got some fantastic initiatives where home-schooled children are getting that learn-to-swim opportunity, but that is our catch all, like Fergus says. It's part of just bringing people together and just making sure that our population is safe in and around water.

Okay. Thank you.

I think that Carolyn wants to come in at this point, and then I'll come to Phil.

The free swimming initiative, do you believe that that is actually keeping swimming pools viable and open as well? That's what I heard from one that was taken over by a local community. So, that's important for the viability going forward. And also, regarding transport, I know when transport providers bid for school contracts—in Flintshire, there were 450 different contracts for taxi and school—there's a social value element for that as well that can be built into it. And so, if that's something, going forward, you could perhaps speak to local authorities and schools if some of that social value could be given to taking children to swimming lessons. That could be something you could look at, maybe.

Yes, I think it's an excellent idea. The more ideas like that, the better, Carolyn. Thank you.

It's used sometimes for community transport, but if it could be used for access to swimming, that might help sustain it, going forward.

Yes. And just quickly on the first one, yes, the FSI, it's not a subsidy, but it does enable local authorities—again, it's a ring-fenced fund to dedicate resources and investment into aquatics and aquatic facilities. They're all different sizes, different programmes, different sized pools, et cetera, et cetera, but every one of them will say that it's a godsend and it just opens the door.

Yes. Okay.

Just, again, adding to Fergus's point, since November 2020, we've trained over 500 swimming teachers, and one of the additional benefits of the free swimming initiative is that for the operators who receive that funding, obviously, there are other things that they can do with their programme. So, it's obviously the free splash, so getting people in through the door, but also, it's those more targeted activities and then getting the workforce that can not only be utilised for free swimming-linked activities, but also wider programmes, such as school swimming and learn to swim. So, without free swimming—. It really is a fantastic investment.

Thank you. Phil, did you want to add anything to what's been said?

Yes. There are a couple of things. I'm not going to add anything; my colleagues have said most of the things that I relate to, as well, and basketball in general in Wales. Alun's question was about what we need support with. I think the idea about how we're linking with the four areas at the moment, with outdoor court initiatives, if that could be taken out into all the county boroughs throughout Wales, I think that would be an initiative, but obviously we'd need financial support and engagement with that, and I think that's a way forward.

The Small Ballers project, which is linked to primary schools, again, that would be a fantastic opportunity. And one of the things that we have talked about and we have to address funding for is for the development of four geographical development workers. So, rather than taking four, six or eight volunteers to run a programme, we're utilising the opportunity of getting some highly progressive people as development workers as well.

I think schools are extremely important. Basketball was strong in schools—I've mentioned this to Carolyn before, when I met her—I remember when I first started playing basketball in school, I'm talking about 60-plus years ago, but you had fantastic support from the teaching staff. If we can kind of try and drive that forward once again within schools, I think that that would be an important provision to move our sport forward. I look forward in earnest to working with Welsh Government and anybody else who wants to work with us to enhance the opportunities for children and young people and our senior players. I was in a cup final event this week—there were three games—and it was fantastic to see the support of the parents as well and the volunteers who are in the clubs. So, I look forward to working with everyone.

Thank you, Phil. Carolyn, did you want to come in on that?

Yes. Just to declare that Phil and I met when the final was played in Wrexham, so that was the first time we met, which was great. I learnt so much, and my son plays basketball, so that's how I got involved as well. So, I am concerned about the waiting lists. I know that there are waiting lists for young people. It's one of the fastest growing sports, and it can be played in the community. We've got the MUGAs, haven't we, the multi-use games areas, in lots of communities. But, it's one of the fastest growing games and the fact that there's a waiting list is a concern and also, basketball coaches. Like you say, we've got volunteers, but we need coaches to come through as well, so how do you think we can address that, Phil?

With regard to the coaches, we obviously publicise as much as we can through the clubs. I think it may be a development where that can be linked through to schools as well, particularly at primary school and at comprehensive school and secondary education. I think that's a move forward that we could re-address. But again, that comes down to having someone there to drive that forward. I know that we've got a schools development worker who is employed not by Basketball Wales, but employed by an authority to drive sport forward. But his love is basketball, so he moves that forward as well. Can I ask Carolyn what the first question was?

It was about increasing provision. I know you said there are waiting lists; I'm aware there are waiting lists as well, so it's a concern, really. So, increasing provision, how can we do that?

On that one, really, it's facilities then, as well. If I use Pontypridd Panthers as an example, if we had two, maybe three courts, rather than just having one court, or one sports hall that we could utilise, like you just mentioned about coaches as well, we could utilise those coaches externally and drive that forward. And the facilities might be the best way forward as well. And I presume it's working together, you know. And if we can do that in some mode, then I think we'll get there.

Thank you.

Great. Diolch yn fawr iawn. We've got less than four minutes left, I'm afraid. Time has been against us, and so we will be writing to you with some further questions. Could you just outline briefly—and, again, in this time, I'm sure you won't be able to do justice to this—whether there are particular ways in which you use data to map out how you can challenge or combat deprivation with sport, and is there more that you'd like to be telling us in terms of how you use data? If I can go to Fergus and Hanna first, and forgive me, I know that there's not much time.

Yes, there is, and yes, we do it, and we're very grateful to our local authority partners, and again, the 37 leisure operator partners that we have. They're not compelled to share data with us and, obviously, you've got the whole minefield of general data protection regulation, personal data, extraction and sharing of data. So, what we do is to remove names and use geography, and what we can tell is, of those 100,000 children who are in learn to swim lessons, where they're coming from, more importantly where they're not coming from, and we can do the same for adults, et cetera, accessing free swimming, et cetera. So, we do have that data and we can pinpoint on the map where we need to affect and the areas that we need to affect.

The customers, like I talked about getting our arms around everyone—aquatics for everyone for life—so, the people who aren't coming to our family, to the aquatic family, we can target those through data. So, we're lucky that we've got that, and we've got a great team back at base that work on that stuff. Of course, we need to do more on it, and we need to link with Data Cymru and other organisations. I will say at this point that Sport Wales have been extremely helpful with their surveys and their data over the past several years. So, their insight and data team are crucial to this.

Thank you. Phil, is there anything you wanted to add about how you use data?

Really, our situation with data is that we've had to utilise the services of a student. I know that within the school's directorship, which is under Gav Lewis, he's utilised—similarly to what our colleagues have said in swimming, you don't utilise the name, you utilise the geographical areas. And I think if we can work along that pattern, I think we can get to the crux of the matter with regard to what Carolyn's question was about and, you know, cut down on the amount on the waiting list as well. So, I think that's an important role, and I'm pretty certain that Basketball Wales, as a board, would be quite happy to work with the Welsh Government as well to support this initiative.

Thank you, Phil. I'm very sorry that time has been so against us this morning. We will definitely be writing to you, if that's all right, with your permission, to ask you more questions. Phil as well, we'll be writing to you with a few more questions. A transcript is going to be sent to all of you to check that it's a fair record of what's been said today, and as a committee, we're really looking forward to working with your organisations throughout this inquiry, but also over the next few years. So, thank you very much for that, that was really useful for us. Thank you very much indeed. Diolch yn fawr iawn. Thank you, Phil.

Diolch yn fawr. Thank you. Bye bye. Diolch.

Thank you.

We'll now take a short break.

We'll now take a short break in order to bring in the new witnesses.

Welcome back. Good afternoon, everyone, once again. We continue with our meeting of the Culture Communications, Welsh Language, Sport and International Relations Committee. Our final evidence session is on the same topic. I'll ask the witnesses to introduce themselves for the record. I'll go to Victoria first.

If you could just introduce yourself.

Hi, I'm Victoria Ward, and I'm the chief executive of the Welsh Sports Association.

Thank you. Matthew.

Good morning, I'm Matt Williams. I'm the head of policy for the Welsh Sports Association.

Fantastic. It's lovely to have you both with us. We'll go straight into questions if that's all right. Could you set out for us, please, what main barriers you think there are in terms of getting access to sport, looking at the intersecting of different possible ways in which people could be disadvantaged, whether that's their age, where they live, their ethnicity, their race, their gender, all the different possible ways in which disadvantage could be layered?

To begin, there was a really good paper written during the development of the vision for sport in Wales in 2018 on barriers to participation in Wales and intersecting characteristics that sets out what we know about the situation as it stands in Wales. We know that poverty is a really strong barrier to participation in sport in Wales, and that layers across lots of the other intersecting characteristics. You're much more likely to be living in poverty if you are from an ethnic minority background, you're much more likely to be living in poverty if you're a single mother with children, and those kinds of things.

We also have the second layer in Wales of geography, where many of our sporting facilities are in the northern and southern arcs of population centres, with a large gap in the middle of Wales where the population is much more dispersed and it's harder to build sporting facilities to serve that dispersed population. That's probably a tougher nut to crack in terms of policy, simply because you need that concentration of people to make the facilities stand on their own two feet and be able to run sustainable businesses.

Thank you. The ways in which poverty compounds all of these different possible disadvantages in terms of access, that's something that's come up a lot in our evidence already. In terms of the way in which you're aware that your organisation uses data to—what would be the word—try to map out exactly how bad the access is because of these different, layered disadvantages, is there anything you'd like us to be aware of in terms of how data can—what's amlygu in English—highlight the issue, or also where there are gaps in terms of the data that we have nationally on this?

We've got relatively good data for young people as a result the school sports survey. Obviously, there's another edition of that currently ongoing, so we will get further data later this year. That data works relatively well at a national and regional level for Wales. It begins to break down at a local level because the sample sizes become too small, in particular for those smaller sports that have lower participation or awareness levels anyway. The local-level data that we glean from the school sports survey doesn't necessarily work so well.

We know that in the 2018 school sport survey 20 of our national governing body members received individualised insight for their sports off the back of the 2018 survey. Those tended to be the larger sports—they were athletics, swimming, rugby, football. Some of the smaller sports who might have the most potential to grow and might benefit most from having that kind of insight might have missed out, simply because the sample sizes at local levels just weren't big enough. And you can work through how that might work if you start thinking about things like disability sport, where there are relatively few numbers of people in local areas with specific disabilities or doing specific disability sport. You won't pick that up in the way that the school sport survey is conducted. That's just the way it happens.

The other place where we are missing a big chunk of data that we just don't have is adult participation. We do not have data on adult participation related to most of the intersecting and protected characteristics in Wales, simply because the questions that we ask in the national survey again don't allow us to break down to that level. We only ask around 15,000 people the national survey questions every year, so we don't get information on specific sports in specific areas from that data. We get a fairly crude measure of physical activity across Wales. Where some of that information is available, we can try to match across to England, where they do the active lives survey. Wales seems to track fairly closely to the active lives survey, but we aren't able then to get the understanding of where participation in golf might look different to participation in golf in England, for example. We just don't have access to that kind of data.

Thank you for that. Victoria, if there's anything you want to add, let me know, otherwise we can—

Sure. When you're looking at poverty, one of my concerns about the school sport survey is that, often, the children who probably will never have any opportunity to experience these sports won't tick to say they'd like to do it, they probably don't even know what it is or think, 'What's the point?' That is a real concern for me. I think the Summer of Fun and the Winter of Well-being were wonderful programmes, and I know they're looking to continue them, but is there any longevity in that? We've already got a very established structure of sports clubs and facilities throughout Wales, all we need to do to ensure that all of these children, the 200,000 children who are living in poverty in Wales right now, can access it is to have a system in place where cost is not a barrier. I appreciate that's not a solution to everything, but that is a major solution, as I see it, speaking to colleagues in sport, in social services, in housing. I've been working a lot in the last month or so with the Ely family centre, and access to the swimming pool is difficult because they can't afford it and they can't afford the bus fare to come down to use the pools in Cardiff or the facilities in Cardiff. So, it is a huge issue, and if we're going to tackle that, then it's not just about pumping millions and millions of pounds into it, it's about having an infrastructure that works to just lift those barriers, in the same way as we do with free school meals.

Thank you very much. Moving on to Carolyn.

It sounds like what's been said previously there, in that transport and accessibility is something, isn't it—you're repeating that as an issue.

And I don't think they need to be issues. The Welsh Government controls transport—free bus passes. I don't suppose that should be too difficult. Absolutely it comes with a cost, but if that removes the barrier, that's entirely within the gift of Welsh Government to achieve.

Yes. It's something that's being debated. It's amazing; one bus, believe it or not, costs £350,000 to run. I know that from my previous life in the local authority. So, it's always the budget, isn't it, money, and then how it feeds back into later life. We were talking about it in health as well. My question, which was Alun's, has changed, hasn't it, because he was asking everybody what their three priorities would be for Welsh Government. So, I'm going to ask you the same as well. And it was interesting what the responses were from different people. Noel said, with the football, that it was places, programmes and people to deliver. And what's coming through again is the importance of collaborating as well with education, transport, social and healthcare as well. So, you're saying funding for buses is one of them, and transport.

Well, infrastructure, so whether that is buses or that's facilities. We've got an ageing stock of facilities. The commitment in 2016, when we decided not to bid to host the Commonwealth Games, was a commitment from Welsh Government to invest heavily in facilities for our future generations. So, that infrastructure, whether that's buildings or whether that's football pitches or whether that's transport. Those are real challenges. Connectivity, absolutely; ensuring that we're all working together better. Certainly, that's been a benefit from COVID. I think we've all worked far more collaboratively, and I think we need to do that across Government—continue to do that across Government, because we have done that—as well as other agencies as well, so that we've got the intelligence we need, so it's not based on one survey every couple of years, so that we can have referral agents feeding us intelligence and information every day of the year. And then the technology is what would underpin that.

Forgive me, Carolyn, I think Matt just wanted to come in on that.

On the facilities side, it's worth noting that, for some sports in Wales, the average age of the buildings and pitches they're working with is up to 50 years old, and those buildings and pitches were built at a time when we probably were not thinking about the needs of women and girls to participate in sport in the same way as we are now, just as an example. So, that's the reality of what we're working with in some sports.

It's the same with schools. That's why we had a twenty-first century school building programme, wasn't it? We talked earlier about the community facilities activities grant as well, which helped the rugby club move. So, what collaboration do you have with schools regarding use of school facilities, and with local authorities regarding leisure facilities as well, and introducing programmes?

We work closely with the leisure providers in each of the local authorities, whether that's in-house or with the leisure trust model or arm's-length company model. Those organisations all sit within our membership and we work closely with them to try and connect them to the sports to make sure that the conversations around access are going well. We also know that it was a Welsh Labour manifesto commitment in 2016 to open up school facilities beyond the school day for sports to gain access. Progress on that has been slow, I think it's fair to say, notwithstanding the fact that there's been two years of significant disruption, which will have slowed that down. I know that there are, I think, 12 trials that Sport Wales are leading at the moment. We're looking forward to seeing the results of those just to try and understand what the barriers are and what we might need to do to help our members overcome some of those barriers in terms of providing assurance to the school that the buildings will be looked after properly, that kind of thing. There's a role for us to play there, but we do really need headteachers and governors to be strongly encouraged by Welsh Government and others to make sure that, quite often, the really good facilities that they've got access to and control the keys to are open to the wider community.

So, the 12 trials were regarding extending the curriculum, weren't they?

Yes, and as far as I'm aware, there are other trials going on around access to school buildings outside of the normal school day.

Thank you.

Great. Victoria, was there anything you wanted to add to any of that? No. In terms of the impact of the pandemic that you've just been referring to, do you think that that has widened the gap in terms of people's access when they already face disadvantages? Again, we were talking about the layers of disadvantage; has the pandemic made that worse? Do you think that the situation has been different for different disadvantages? Has it been different for different communities?

It has been different for different communities. People with disabilities have been shielding quite a lot, so that has really limited their access to facilities, and there's the economic crisis that we're currently facing. What COVID did was put a spotlight on the inequalities that already existed, and they've probably been exacerbated by COVID. The research that was done before COVID said that families living in financial hardship had a maximum of £3.11 a week to spend on sport and physical activity, compared to £12.11 for the rest of the population. Whilst I don't have the figures to evidence what that figure is now, anecdotally, we can see that that gap is widening. The Bevan Foundation have done recent research to show that 10 per cent of families that are living in hardship and have more than one child have admitted to feeding their children less, potentially one less meal a day. So, in that situation, sport, new trainers, a bike, is not going to be top of the list of priorities.

Yes. Oh god, that's awful. Absolutely. Do you think that there are—? Quite apart from or set alongside the stark reality of how different disadvantages have been highlighted or made worse because of the pandemic, do you think that the experience of the pandemic has taught Government and society any lessons that you would like to see being taken forward in terms of challenging access to sport for people who face different disadvantages?

The use of technology for me is one of the biggest ones, and is probably the most cost-effective as well. We have just started work with a technologies charity on developing a system that can provide digital vouchers, which we'll be looking at through the Welsh sports foundation. We have put a proposal to the Minister to look to invest in that, and they certainly wouldn't be their only investment. But sport needs to be considered more as a good cause in that way as well, which, culturally, we don't seem to do in Wales, certainly in the UK, whereas the arts for instance are excellent at this because it's been part of their culture and their heritage for so long. So, culture change and embracing technology, I think, are two of the big areas that we could learn a lot from, which are actually quite cost-effective, because I do appreciate that every time someone comes to talk to you, they're talking about money, but there are other ways that solutions can be found.

Thank you for that. Matt, did you want to add anything?

I think it was very clear at the start of the pandemic that Welsh Government placed a really heavy emphasis on making sure that people had time to get outside. We had the protected time outside right at the height of the pandemic to stay active. And, generally, the messaging out of Government has been fairly positive in terms of that it's very important to get out and about, to stay active, to take part in physical activity. That emphasis was really clear all the way through. It's just, now we are emerging from the pandemic, it's important that that emphasis and that messaging is translated into real action in terms of making sure that our partners in education and health invest into sport and physical activity more than they perhaps have done in the past.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you very much. Carolyn, did you want to ask the final question that you wanted to ask?

It was just about international best practice; we've not got to this one, have we? So, are there any international examples of success in the area regarding encouraging people into sports in areas of deprivation, and how can Wales learn from these?

I think the point I would make on quite a lot of international best practice is that we are quite often compared to Norway and New Zealand; they are two comparator nations that are brought to bear on Wales quite often. There are also other examples, I think in, it's either Slovenia or Slovakia; I forget which one has the highest level of youth participation in the world, I think. But, particularly with the New Zealand and Norway examples, it's really important to emphasise that they spend between five and 10 times the amount that we do on sport. Wales does very, very, very well on participation and on elite performance off a relatively small slice of investment. And our comparator nations often outspend us significantly to achieve similar results.

Yes, that was something—. We had an informal evidence session with Sport New Zealand this morning, and that was something that—. There was lots that we'd like to be able to follow up on in terms of that. Was there anything further you wanted to ask on that, Carolyn?

No, thanks. One of the things we did pick up from that though was the importance of learning through play, through play facilities, having doorstep play that's easy to access, and then keeping healthy and active through that, and making sure there's loads of facilities in the community and then that leading to just keeping healthy and moving, and then maybe leading to sport through that. We have play schemes, don't we, in some areas as well, and we had the Summer of Fun this year, which was really good. So, yes, it's about making sure there's access for all in local communities.

One of the things that I think would make a dramatic difference, which is within the gift of Government to do, is, you talk about play schemes, sport is exempt—I think I've mentioned before—from registering with Care Inspectorate Wales, who, obviously, govern the likes of play schemes, childcare provision, because it's seen as education. And, actually, that works against us in some ways. Because we are exempt, we are not allowed to register, and because we cannot register, then those who are on low incomes from tax credits and universal credits cannot get a contribution from UK Government to pay towards those costs. So, if you are on universal credit and you are putting your child with a registered child minder—so, governed by Care Inspectorate Wales—then you can get 85 per cent of those childcare costs back, but if you put them into a sports sector, you can't.

So, that's what we talk about: this doesn't always need money throwing at it; it's about some change in policy, and actually that is one of the biggest differences that you could make, because that generates income from the sport, to be able to continue and enhance the programmes that it delivers, certainly in school holidays, potentially after-school provision as well, and it provides considerably more opportunities. As I say, we've got the infrastructure, but policy in that context is what's limiting the opportunities for those who are living in poverty, particularly working families.

That's quite important to note. I remember when, in my own local authority, we introduced the play scheme and, in a way, those two hours did help with childcare. Because if you're asking a grandparent or somebody else to look after those children, if they've got those two hours respite, where the children have been outside doing either a fixed play or we also had Dragon Sport—two hours, outdoor, running round—they were ready to settle down inside, quite calmly with the grandparents. And it just helps with that childcare, doesn't it, over the summer holidays? And for many, that was their summer holiday as well, because they couldn't afford to spend money on a summer holiday away—that was that experience. But, I didn't know that about universal credits; that's quite an important point.

And I think that could be a really quick win and something that could make a tremendous difference. The sports, the governing bodies of sports, are ready and waiting to be able to do this. I know cricket, in particular, are looking at this. But, at the moment, we're hamstrung by policy, which I hope can be a recommendation of this report to lift, to ensure that we can access the same opportunities.

Okay.

Yes, that's something that has come out strongly. Thank you for that. Matt, were you indicating you wanted to come in?

No, sorry.

No. Sorry, did you have another question?

No, that's it. Thank you.

We have a few minutes remaining. Was there anything that you had wanted to bring up in the evidence today that we haven't covered?

I think, from my perspective, this inquiry is quite timely, as we emerge from pandemic into cost-of-living crisis. And we know from speaking to our members, particularly those members who run sporting facilities, that there are currently some really acute pressures on them, relating to energy costs. I know Fergus was here earlier, from swimming, talking about the energy cost crisis facing swimming. There are other crises attached to that. There are shortages of pool cleaning chemicals, there are shortages of other resources that facilities need—they're getting more and more expensive quite quickly. There are also attached costs to the facilities that are becoming more difficult for them to manage in terms of employment. Employment has become more expensive, it's becoming harder to employ people, it would appear; it's disrupted the supply of people coming into the jobs to run these facilities. And the customer base is just returning very, very slowly across their entire estate. Lots of these facilities are looking at a fairly difficult situation over the year ahead to manage, and that is going to result, probably, in costs increasing, or fewer people being able to go and do sports in these buildings, unless interventions ease some of these ongoing issues.

And it will be interesting—. I know the Sport and Recreation Alliance—our partner organisation in England—are looking at what the inflationary pressures on people's wallets will do to their participation in sport, and whether they will start choosing to do other things or choose to do cheaper things, or simply be forced to choose between heating, eating and sport, and more and more people will be put in that situation. There's quite a lot to think about at the moment, but it is really important, I think, that we are aware of what the inflationary pressures on facilities will mean for people participating in sport over the next year or so. We're probably likely to see that the pandemic impact is only now really emerging probably.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you very much. Victoria, was there anything you wanted to add?

Yes. Welsh Government have done a great job of ensuring that we could protect the sector during COVID, and I think we just need to make sure that we don't leave it behind now because lifting the restrictions is only one part of the recovery process. So, the work we've been doing in the past few weeks to look at where are we now in comparison to where we were in 2019 before the pandemic shows that footfall is down by about 30 per cent still across the board, and of course, when you're running on a very limited budget anyway, that is a challenge. Obviously, the hardship fund helped hugely during the pandemic and I know that that has now gone, but has been replaced with an uplift to local authorities. But, of course, there are competing priorities for that money, so sport and physical activity aren't probably at the top of the list of priorities and so that is becoming more and more difficult.

I was at a meeting with some of your officials this morning for events and the new events strategy for Wales and exactly the same is coming through there: yes, we can run events now, but numbers are still down. It's becoming much harder to break even. And again, they were all really complimentary about the support they had in the pandemic, but it's ensuring that there's a transition period to bring us out of the pandemic over the next 12 months, to ensure that we can continue to prosper and thrive. There is certainly fear among colleagues that that's not going to be able to happen, particularly in supply chains, et cetera, and that if we don't provide more support over the next 12 months, then we won't see such a bright future.

No. Thank you very much for setting that out. We're really aware of the—as you both have been saying—context of this work. We think that it is a timely—. We hope it'll be a timely inquiry and that any intervention suggested will be a tremendous help, but we really are very grateful to you for your evidence this morning—yes, it is still morning.

So, a transcript of what's been said will be sent to you to check that it's a fair record of what's been said. There may be some extra issues that we may want to check with you in writing, if that's all right. But for now, thank you very much.

Thank you very much, both.

And we look forward to working with you for this inquiry and over the next few years as well, so thank you very much; diolch yn fawr iawn.

Thanks, Chair.

Diolch.

Thank you. We'll move on. Forgive me for doing this while you're still in the room. We have to move on, but thank you so much.

Members, we will move to item 5, which is papers to note. We do have a long list of papers to note, from item 5.1 in the pack to 5.16. Are Members happy to note the papers all together, or is there anything that anybody wants to raise?

No, I don't see that anyone wants to. Tom, are you happy? Yes. Okay, in that case, we will note those papers.

So, I propose under item 6 and under Standing Order 17.42 that we resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting. Are Members content that we do so? Yes, I see that you're happy, so we will continue now in private and I will wait until I hear we're in private.