Sports Development Benchmarks

Methods

Benchmarks – these are the targets set up which enable different organisations to compare themselves. They are able to make comparisons with other similar organisations or against the standards which are set nationally in order to compare performance and delivery. An example is that a quality system or scheme will encourage the process of assessment, this enables provides to aim to continuously improve their services.

Quest – this is a national quality system that can be used for assessing the management of sports development schemes. It is an industry standard that has been developed by Sport England and it measures the specific elements of sports development work, this includes research, management, customer service and partnership

Its main focus is on organisations attaining the standards needed for training and development of their staff and this helps to achieve the objectives of the sports-development unit. During the process you would expect participants to benefit too. The scheme provides the opportunity to review current policies and practices against a recognised benchmark. Also it provides a framework for planning future strategy and action, it is also a structured way to improve the effectiveness of training and development activities. It is based on a commitment to invest in people such as by providing training and evaluating the outcomes of training and development for individuals’ progress towards

Examples of these include;

● The overall costs of putting a system in place is too high

● It’s hard to get the staff fully involved, they may feel as though they have to work harder or differently without a pay rise or bonus

● Sports development units culture may have to change and move away from familiar working practices

● Everyone in the team needs to be involved, from the top to bottom in the club or facility.

Cost – the overall costs of getting the system up and running; it may range from the paperwork involved to the computer software or new resources.

Time – it takes a lot of time to train up the staff, to plan systems and to implement them and also to resolve any operating issues.

Expertise – it can be a struggle to create expertise where none existed before, such as customer or disability care.

M3 NOT ATTEMPTED- you need to attempt M3 - you have just stated the strengths and weaknesses you need to evaluate the effectiveness of the schemes, what are the strengths and why what are the weaknesses and why? , you then need to make suggestions on how these weaknesses could be improved with relation to the