Sport equity : benchmarking the performance of English public sport facilities

In the UK, public sector sport plays a potentially important role in promoting the inclusion of all groups in society, but inequalities have existed traditionally within sport, typically across social class, age, ethnicity and disability. Using the database of Sport England's National Benchmarking Service, this paper aims to investigate how public sports facilities were used by five disadvantaged groups over the past ten years. Research data were generated by user surveys at a total of 408 facilities in the years 1997, 2001, 2006 and 2007. The statistical evidence demonstrates a consistent pattern of numerical under-representation of the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups and people aged 60 years or more. Furthermore, there are significant and linear decreases in participation by young people aged 11–19 years and disabled people aged <60 years. Finally, facility type, location, size and management type were found to be major sources of performance differences for certain indicators. The variation across type of facility is greater than the other three structural influences.