Pressures on sports volunteers arising from partnerships with the central government

This paper uses results of two research projects investigating the pressures on volunteers in UK sport to illustrate the implications of partnerships between national governing bodies of sport and the central government. National governing bodies of sport receive funding from the central government via Sport England and UK Sport. This funding has conditions attached. The conditions will affect volunteers at the national level of the NGB, but will also cascade down to volunteers in the sports clubs. Thus, they add to the complexity and scale of tasks performed by club level volunteers, who require additional support to perform them. For most NGBs, this external funding is a very significant proportion of their income, so it may have a corresponding impact on the development of the sports and the work of volunteers. The conditions attached to support can be understood in the broader context of a professionalisation of sport in the voluntary sector. As such, the pressures from the central government are inevitable, but volunteers can also be supported by their NGBs and Sport England.