Right policy, right place, right time? The contingency of successful implementation

Richard Tacon
Birkbeck, University of London

Go back 25 years and there were barely any books on sport policy – in the UK or anywhere else. Now, there are many. Elite sport policy, mass participation sport policy, school sport policy, sport development policy, the involvement of local government in sport policy, key organisations in sport policy, individual country analyses – with the UK particularly well served – and international comparative analyses. So where does this book sit and what contribution does it seek to make to a now-established field?

First, it is focused on the UK and, within that, primarily on England. Second, it seeks to turn the spotlight on implementation, as opposed to how and why policies come to be made. Third, while it considers both elite and mass participation/community sport, it focuses much more on the latter. The basic organisation of the book is what you would expect from an edited volume: an introductory/overview chapter from the editors; a series of specific chapters from the contributors; and a concluding chapter from the editors attempting to draw the threads together and set out some overall insights. The main editorial decisions here are (i) to analyse implementation on an organisation-type by organisation-type basis, leading to individual chapters on, for example, national sport agencies, national governing bodies of sport, schools and sports clubs, and (ii) to include ‘practitioner reflection and insights’ in each chapter, where practitioners provide their own experiences of working in such organisations and respond to the material in the chapter. (The editors note the use of this kind of practitioner commentary in a previous work – Hayhurst, Kay and Chawansky’s (2016) Beyond Sport for Development and Peace.)

What arguably comes through most strongly is the importance of two things: stability/continuity in policy and funding arrangements and very simple and achievable outcome measures.

In the main, these structuring devices work well. The main chapter authors are experts in the field and clearly know ‘their’ organisation type and the surrounding policy context intimately. The practitioner contributions are welcome and add a good deal of real-life texture. They are typically critical, giving voice to varying degrees of frustration – with the vagaries of politicians and policymakers and internal organisational politicking. It is clear that some practitioner contributors remain more enmeshed than others in personal and professional networks and, as a reader, you sometimes get the sense of punches being pulled and more specific criticisms being equivocated. Then again, in a couple of examples, you get the strong sense of grievances being given an (overdue) airing.

A major theme is partnership working. The editors highlight this as an article of faith for governments from 1997 onwards: a shift towards partnership working as an end in itself, rather than a means to an end. The chapters – and especially the practitioner pieces – present an equivocal picture of partnerships. When they work, they are arguably the key to successful policy implementation. When they don’t, there is duplication, wasted resource and conflict. The editors struggle to draw general insights on partnership working from these various cases, but this is understandable, as the good examples really do seem to be a fortuitous result of right policies, right people, right place, right time. What arguably comes through most strongly is the importance of two things: stability/continuity in policy and funding arrangements and very simple and achievable outcome measures. While many contributors – academic and practitioner alike – are sceptical of the barrage of key performance indicators and often arbitrary-seeming targets that are part of the drive to ‘modernise’ non-profit sport over recent decades, there is recognition that well-chosen and widely-agreed-upon measures of success are necessary, although arguably not sufficient, foundations for successful policy implementation. See, for example, specific medal targets at elite sport level (albeit the editors and authors note the negative consequences of this ‘no compromise’ approach) and the ‘2 hour’ and ‘5 hour’ offers at school sport level.

Who will read this book and how? Most likely, fellow academics and students. It is possible that the implementation focus and the practitioner insights will attract a slightly wider readership, e.g., others working in the sector and even policymakers and politicians themselves. However, my guess is that it will stay within the academic/student core audience. As for how they will read it, it is difficult to say. The organisation-type focus means it is certainly possible to read one or more chapters in isolation and for those doing research or assignments or dissertation projects in this space, that would probably work well. As an overall read, it is certainly rewarding and, by the end, after particular organisations and policy shifts have popped up repeatedly in the different chapters, you feel a deep level of familiarity with this particular field. As for international readers, they should be clear that this book really is focused on the UK (and England especially). The level of contextual detail in each chapter, while an advantage in giving a rich picture of organisational relationships and major and minor policy shifts, very rarely includes any international comparison. Likewise, the introductory and concluding chapters, while providing a wider viewpoint, do not make explicit international comparisons.

There are a couple of open questions about the organisation of the book and the directions presumably given to chapter authors. The first is about theory. The book is quite theory-light. The opening chapter discusses ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ perspectives and then shifts, somewhat abruptly, to an elaboration of ‘policy enactment’ as set out by Stephen Ball and colleagues in education policy. The editors write about this approvingly, argue that it is conceptually superior to implementation and lay out a couple of typology-type frameworks within this approach. It seems at this point that this might provide the organising framework for the chapters and the overall contribution to understanding implementation. As it is, it doesn’t feature at all in the chapters, although it returns briefly in the conclusion. In fact, there is no theoretical direction given – some authors mention top-down/bottom-up, a few invoke other concepts (e.g., street-level bureaucracy) and some mention no theory at all. It is difficult to know whether an organising theoretical framework might have enhanced the overall understanding of implementation/enactment, but it may have better enabled the kind of cross-case comparison that in turn might have yielded some clearer overall conclusions. The other open question is about time period. Each chapter devotes a quite significant chunk to recent history. This is understandable for individual chapters, but does mean that as a reader of the whole book, you find yourself reading many quite similar mini-accounts of a roughly 30-year sport policy period. Again, it is difficult to know how it would have been otherwise, but it is possible to think of a version of this book with a very detailed recent history chapter early on, clearing the way for each chapter to focus much more on what is happening now, with more of the ‘in the room’ insights that the book, at its best, offers to its readers.

Overall, this was a very enjoyable read, with a host of engaged experts bringing you close to the action – even if the action often involves a frustrating amount of inaction.

Copyright © Richard Tacon 2026