Press Release

The Missing Piece in the Jigsaw - Getting more children to learn to swim

28 August, 2008

Following the euphoria of Team GB’s success at the Beijing Olympics now has never been a better time to encourage young people to get more involved in sport and get active.  Swimming in particular is riding high as a result of double gold medallist Rebecca Adlington, so the Government’s £140 million investment to make swimming free for all by 2012 could not of been better timed, and should provide the much-needed catalyst to promote further active participation in swimming, not only for sport and London 2012, but for health, fun and safety reasons.  But will it?

As Local Authorities prepare the first stage of their funding submissions for the 15th September deadline, Steve Franks, STA’s Operations Director questions here if the Government has missed one fundamental piece of the ‘free swimming’ jigsaw by not understanding that swimming is unlike any other sport, in that it requires a person to learn a skill before they can participate.  

The proposals to introduce free swimming form part of the London Olympics legacy plans to get 2 million people more active by 2012.  The important words here are ‘more active’.

Swimming is unlike any other sport. It is unique in that it requires a person to learn a skill before they can participate in the sport. Therefore, to encourage people to become ‘more active’ in swimming, more people need to be given the opportunity to learn how to swim.  The proposals under the £140 million free swimming programme have failed to address this fundamental point – ‘learning how to swim’ is the missing and arguably the most important piece of this jigsaw.

Parts one and two of the funding allocation* only relate to free admission into public swimming pools; the STA would have preferred to have seen some of this money allocated to providing free or subsidised swimming lessons to enable those who can’t swim to also benefit from this programme. This could also have been matched with some type of imaginative grant aid scheme to enable individuals to access funding to train to become swimming teachers, therefore building on the potential to create a meaningful and sustained legacy. In essence, yes this funding will make those who can already swim more active; but sadly the Government appears to have missed an opportunity by failing to fully appreciate that the teaching of swimming is significantly different to the sport of swimming, and that the feeder pathway into the competitive swimming structure and/or a local swimming club is linked directly to a learn to swim programme. Without any learn to swim programmes there are no future swimming Olympians and therefore consideration should be given to allocating part of this funding to support more sustainable swimming teaching programmes and training of volunteer's to encourage even greater participation in swimming, particularly from those who are unable to access the sport.   

Already Local Authorities are beginning to expressed their concerns over the free swimming scheme, saying that if they sign-up for the funding, they could be left having to find a considerable amount of extra money to fund the scheme. One senior councillor even expressed his concerns publicly; speaking in the Shropshire Star, Councillor Peter Nutting, leader of Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council said:  “We’ve got to think about it comprehensively across Shropshire.  There are some opportunities, but also some difficulties.”  “I am really worried that the cost of actually implementing the scheme, which sounds a wonderful idea, will be quite expensive – between £200,000 and £300,000 annually across Shropshire.  That’s money that has got to come from the taxpayer.  It does seem another case of the government putting forward a scheme which looks good, but taking money away with the other hand.”  
 
The announcement by government of £140 million sounds like a significant amount of money, and it is for swimming which should be applauded, however, it is so vitally important that this one opportunity for investment over the next four years is spent wisely and is used to break down the barriers to participation, and to encourage and help more people to learn how to swim so they too can benefit from the opportunities this investment presents - thus becoming ‘more active’.