Releasing the Power of our Profession
20/08/2024
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Releasing the Power of our Profession – the story so far

In February this year, CIMSPA introduced a new strategy which sets out to establish a recognised, achievable career path for everyone that is in or wants to be part of our sector with entry routes, progression and status recognition that meet the needs of the individual and the employer.

Releasing the Power of our Profession, is a declaration of CIMSPA’s intent to ensure that the great contributions that those working in the sport and physical activity sector make to the health and wellbeing of society and the economy are recognised and celebrated.

In the six months since the strategy was launched, we’ve been working in collaboration with our partners and professionals across the sector to achieve greater professional recognition for our workforce through the key interventions that the strategy sets out.

Read the strategy and find out more about the intention of these interventions.

Local Skills Plans and Local Skills Delivery

Ensuring that the right training is available at the right time in the right places to ensure that local economic, social and health and wellbeing priorities can be achieved.

Over 30 Local Skills Accountability Boards (LSABs) have now been established across England, Wales and Scotland. These are bringing together employers, education providers, health commissioners, local authorities, business representatives, employment support agencies and community groups, to determine how skills provision and delivery can align with local priorities.

Two LSABs have published their skills plans, Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, and Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. These areas are now implementing their plans with other areas soon to complete the creation of their plans.

Over 600 skills diagnostics have been undertaken with employers, including those not involved in LSABs to ensure that skills development priorities in each area are aligned with the needs of the broadest possible range of businesses.

Training Academy and education ecosystem

Ensuring that learning and skills development demands across the sector can be met through high-quality education provision that is aligned with the needs of employers and professionals progressing their career.

The Training Academy for Sport and Physical Activity has been launched as the place for employers and individuals to find the highest quality training and development opportunities. Content within the Training Academy is focused on the outcome of skills gap analysis undertaken with hundreds of employers, meaning that it is helping to deliver the skills that are in the highest demand. All providers within the Training Academy have achieved the highest three-star quality assurance rating.

Over 180 training providers have successfully completed the new quality assurance review process with 58% achieving the top three star, Enhancing outcome. Providers with a two or one star outcome (Enabling or Emerging outcomes) are being supported with a plan to develop their quality in relation to learner journey, quality of education and marketing and promotion.

The quality assurance framework will shortly be rolled out to further and higher education partners and awarding organisations.

Through our partnership with Loughborough College, who have become our national further education partner, curriculum development and support across the sport and physical activity FE network is being accelerated.

The first micro-credential course for the sector has been launched in conjunction with Cardiff Metropolitan University. The course provides a development opportunity for managers and aspiring managers in the sector through accredited modules which can build into a recognised qualification.

Careers support

Ensuring that clear pathways are showcased so professionals working in the sector can plan their progression and that the opportunities that exist are better understood by those exploring career options, aiding the recruitment and retention of great talent.

A new Careers Hub has been created to help professionals working in the sector to develop their career and to support those aspiring to start a career.

With information on career options and pathways, supported by professional standards and a jobs board listing opportunities with quality employers, the Careers Hub is establishing itself as the source of reliable careers and labour market information for the sector.

By showcasing professionals working across the sector in a variety of roles, we hope to inspire people who might never have considered a career in sport and physical activity to find out more, as well as busting myths that a role in the sector is only suited to certain people. Highlighting the great opportunities that exist and the impact that they make is integral to increasing the diversity of our workforce.

In addition, we’ve created a Careers Guidance Course designed to support tutors, lecturers and careers advisers to ensure that students in schools, colleges and universities understand the career opportunities available in the sector.

Business support hub

Ensuring that micro enterprises and SMEs have the support that they need to make their businesses resilient and sustainable.

Work is underway to establish a comprehensive resource for the 91% of sector enterprises that have fewer than 50 employees. The focus of this is on ensuring that there is support available in relation to HR, finance, management and marketing, to help these SME businesses to improve their resilience.

The Digital Marketing Hub, which has helped over 8,000 people improve their marketing skills has now transferred to the CIMSPA website ahead of becoming part of the Business Support Hub.

Workforce governance

Ensuring that the sector is working towards understanding how workforce governance can be a driver for supporting, safeguarding, and regulating the workforce to allow everyone taking part in sport and physical activity to enjoy safe and high-quality experiences, and to be supported in achieving their goals in a positive environment.

Following in depth analysis and consultation with over 40 national governing bodies of sport, we are now moving into a simulated pilot phase as part of the workforce governance and national workforce registration scheme pilot project.

Research undertaken has helped to develop a deeper understanding of the systems, processes and structures that sports currently have in place to manage the coaching workforce within their eco-systems.

Alongside this, consultation with sports plus strategic stakeholders such as safeguarding organisations and insurance providers has identified key considerations in relation to establishing more effective workforce governance.

Analysis of models of registration and regulation of the coaching workforce in other countries and of other professions in the UK has also been undertaken.

During the next phase of the project, testing will be carried out on model processes with a range of simulated scenarios to establish how a registration scheme might operate. This will allow recommendations to be made when the current project completes in Spring 2025.

Workforce observatory

Ensuring that future workforce policy, planning, development and management is directed by evidence that informs decision-making and actions through harnessing the academic research base that exists in the sector to turn insight into foresight.

The direction and development of the Sport and Physical Activity Workforce Observatory has begun to be defined following the establishment of an advisory board.

The advisory board includes representation from academic institutions across the UK alongside research specialists from the sector.

The advisory board is now working to establish research themes for the Workforce Observatory and to define how these themes will deliver insight and foresight to support workforce planning, management and development.

Professional recognition

Ensuring sport and physical activity professionals are recognised as qualified, experienced professionals who have an immense impact through high-quality practice and continuous professional development and positively change lives and communities.

All of the interventions set out in Releasing the Power of Our Profession will deliver the individual and collective recognition that the sector workforce needs and deserves.

To further support this, professional standards continue to be reviewed and developed, with new standards focused on the needs of particular participant populations, including working with culturally ethnically diverse communities, being introduced. The standards allow professionals to expand their skill set and specialise their knowledge and provision which will help to elevate their professional status.

The ‘More Than’ campaign has been launched to highlight the extensive skills that professionals in the sector have and to challenge misconceptions about roles.

We are piloting digital badging which offers members (currently Chartered members) the opportunity to receive an interactive badge which can be displayed publicly to showcase their professional status and enables clients and employers to verify that status.

Spencer Moore, Chief Strategy Officer at CIMSPA said,

“When we launched Releasing the Power of our Profession earlier this year, we were very clear that delivering greater individual and collective recognition for the sector workforce was essential to fully realise the huge benefits that skilled professionals bring to some of the biggest challenges that society is facing in relation to health and wellbeing, social cohesion and economic sustainability.

The work that is underway in collaboration with partners working right across the sector on a range of interventions is testament to the drive that our sector has.

The local skills collaborations have proliferated. We intended to establish 15 LSABs but that has more than doubled due to the demand from employers, education providers, local bodies and health commissioners who are seeing the power of place based skills development in our sector. With the new government making an early commitment to greater local focus on skills and employment support, the model that has been established in the sector serves as a strong platform which is already creating great impact on local priorities.

And this work is being supported by the drive from education and training providers to ensure that their provision delivers the very best learner outcomes. The response to the latest quality assurance framework has been fantastic with the majority of providers achieving the highest outcome and several demonstrating that they are going above and beyond in their work to support employers and the workforce in developing the skills that the sector needs now and into the future. With the Training Academy set to grow and provide a conduit for workforce development that specifically addresses skills gaps, there are exciting times ahead for learning and development in the sector.

The Workforce Observatory will have a big role in the evolution of both of these key pieces of work, providing research to shape skills policy and curriculum across the sector.

With micro and SME businesses playing such an important role in the sector, we’re working to ensure they have the support that they need because historically a lot of initiatives and policy has been focused on larger, more established organisations. The fact is that small businesses are the engine room of our sector and if we are to really make a difference in the demographics that face barriers to engaging in sport and physical activity, it’s the professionals running and working in these organisations that will deliver it.

As the workforce governance and national registration scheme pilot project moves into its next phase, the learnings will help to shape what the future of the governance of work in the sector could look like. The project has seen huge commitment from sports and other stakeholders and the collective drive to create a solution that showcases the highly skilful, committed and talented professionals that power our sector is brilliant.

The underpinning element of every one of our strategy interventions is that drive for greater professional recognition. With greater careers support for those working in the sector we can retain the best talent as well as attracting those looking for a professional career that really makes a difference to society. Every day we hear about how professionals in our sector are making a difference in communities that wouldn’t otherwise engage in physical activity. Over the coming months we will be showcasing more examples of how those working in our sector are impacting individuals and communities, as well as pushing forward with enabling those professionals to demonstrate and grow their professional status.

Thanks to the fantastic engagement and enthusiasm of professionals, employers, educators and sector partners, the sport and physical activity sector is on the road to greater professional recognition. At CIMSPA we’re committed to fuelling that journey to release the power of our profession.”

Our strategy

Individual and collective professional recognition for the sport and physical activity workforce.

READ OUR STRATEGY