TY - JOUR
T1 - The community asset transfer of leisure facilities in the UK
T2 - a review and research agenda.
AU - Nichols, Geoff
AU - Findlay-King, Lindsay
AU - Forbes, Deborah
N1 - Funding Information:
The review group meeting in February 2019 was supported by a grant from the University of Sheffield.
Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank those who participated in the stakeholder discussion. We acknowledge the contributions of Dr Bethany Rex and Dr Katrina Foxton to the development of this paper. We also extend our thanks to the two anonymous reviewers for their comments, and to the editors. The views in the paper are entirely our own. (1) The review group helping identify research issues comprised members of the following organisations. Power to Change is a Charitable Trust operating in England, created in 2015 with a £150 million endowment from the Big Lottery Fund. The trust is solely concerned with supporting Community Businesses in England over a ten-year period, after which it will cease operating. Its vision is ‘to create better places through community business’. https://www.powertochange.org.uk/about-us/ Community Leisure UK is a members’ association that specialises in charitable trusts delivering public leisure and culture services across the UK. https://communityleisureuk.org/ The Community Managed Libraries Peer Network aims to help community libraries share good practice, and is funded by Power to Change. https://communitylibrariesnetwork.wordpress.com/about/ Arts Council England is a non-departmental public body of the government Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Locality are a national membership network of over 500 local community organisations. Some of their research reports have been funded by Power to Change. https://locality.org.uk/about/.
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - This paper reviews recent work on community asset transfers (CAT): a transfer of management of facilities from the public sector to the third sector, largely led by volunteers. The emergence of CATs is placed in the context of the development of community organisations and their relation to the state. Transfer has been stimulated by cuts in local government budgets since 2010. The review focusses on leisure facilities because these are non-statutory and so more vulnerable to cuts in public expenditure. The experience of CATs is reviewed, including: the motivations of local government and volunteers; the transfer process and management of CATs post-transfer; and the market position of facility types. The methodological approaches and theoretical frameworks used in research are contrasted; in particular, how these have balanced agency and structure in analysing a contested neoliberalist discourse. The practicalities of research in this area are considered before concluding with research questions.
AB - This paper reviews recent work on community asset transfers (CAT): a transfer of management of facilities from the public sector to the third sector, largely led by volunteers. The emergence of CATs is placed in the context of the development of community organisations and their relation to the state. Transfer has been stimulated by cuts in local government budgets since 2010. The review focusses on leisure facilities because these are non-statutory and so more vulnerable to cuts in public expenditure. The experience of CATs is reviewed, including: the motivations of local government and volunteers; the transfer process and management of CATs post-transfer; and the market position of facility types. The methodological approaches and theoretical frameworks used in research are contrasted; in particular, how these have balanced agency and structure in analysing a contested neoliberalist discourse. The practicalities of research in this area are considered before concluding with research questions.
KW - Community asset transfer, volunteer, leisure, sport, museum, heritage
KW - volunteer
KW - leisure
KW - sport
KW - museum
KW - heritage
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85090214989&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s11266-020-00263-0
DO - 10.1007/s11266-020-00263-0
M3 - Review article
SN - 0957-8765
VL - 31
SP - 1159
EP - 1172
JO - Voluntas
JF - Voluntas
IS - 6
ER -