This positive view emerges from an article in the April 2019 issue of Sport Bestuur & Management, written by Mark van der Heijden. In the article, the community sports coach, the coordinator and aldermen share their positive practical experiences. “The traditional-style combination functionary connected education with sport or culture,” says senior researcher Caroline Van Lindert of the Mulier Institute. “Now you see community sports coaches also focusing on vulnerable groups. They still organise and carry out activities themselves, but they also need to play a stronger connecting role. They ensure that networks are created. Community sports coaches themselves therefore consider this connecting role to be the most important characteristic of a community sports coach.”
Funding
What has always remained unchanged over the years is the co-financing of the combination functionary. If the municipality benefits from it, it should also contribute financially, according to the idea behind its introduction in 2008. From 2019 onward, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science have made a total of €72.5 million available annually. Municipalities must arrange at least 60 percent of the co-financing: a minimum of €108.5 million annually. Together, this amounts to €50,000 per FTE.
Freedom in determining responsibilities
The freedom to determine the tasks of each combination functionary also remains fully intact. “The national government assumes that municipalities know where the needs lie and where local priorities should be set. It is policy inducement,” Van Lindert explains. “As a result, the deployment of community sports coaches is different in every municipality. The diversity is greater than the similarities between municipalities.” Municipalities are very pleased with the freedom they are given, says Stijn Steenbakkers, alderman responsible for, among other things, education and sport in Eindhoven. “The government in The Hague has handled this very well. Every neighbourhood requires something different. We deploy community sports coaches based on the principle of supply and demand. It must, however, contribute to our objective: getting more people physically active.”
Read the full article in Sport Bestuur & Management here.