Regionalisation - Change in the Amateur Swimming Association

Abstract

At the ASA Annual Council in 2002, a paper was presented which dealt with the government’s commitment to the regionalisation of government in England. This paper set out an intention to decentralise Sport England. The most significant impact of this to swimming was that most funding would subsequently be devolved to, and allocated by, the Sport England regions. ASA Council recognised that the ASA districts were not aligned to Sport England regions and in order to maximise direct and indirect benefits of funding, it was felt necessary to review the Boundaries of the then existing districts. The review process led to a proposal of 8 new regions. These were: South East South West East London East Midlands West Midlands North East North West It was proposed that each of the new regions would be coterminous with a Sport England region with the exception of the North East Region which would reflect two. A 12 month ‘shadowing period’ was proposed and regionalisation became operation on October 1st 2005. This report sets out the process followed and evaluates this process and the initial impacts of regionalisation from a variety of stakeholder viewpoints. It is recognised that regionalisation is in its infancy and the intention is not to determine whether regionalisation has been successful, rather to provide an evaluation of the process followed.