Disabled sports participants are a small proportion of sports participants at English public sports centres; but they are important to the social inclusion agenda. This paper aims to provide a detailed insight into the preferences and behaviour of disabled sports participants. It investigated whether there were statistical differences: first, between the disabled sports participants and the non-disabled sports participants in terms of (1) social demographics, (2) patterns of participation, (3) travel, (4) sports activities and (5) customer satisfaction; and second, between age, ethnic, socio-economic and gender groups of their subsamples, on (2), (4) and (5) again. Disability is defined as having any long term illness or health problem which limits a person's daily activities or the work that a person can do. The data collected through the National Benchmarking Service, for 458 sports centres from 2005 to 2011, revealed that about 9% of over 150,000 sports participants were disabled. Swimming, using fitness equipment and keep fit related exercises were the top three most frequently stated main sports activities by the disabled. It was also more likely for the disabled to participate in organised activities, own a leisure card and participate regularly when compared with the non-disabled participants. In addition, the disabled were also more likely than the non-disabled to travel to the centre by public transport, from home and travel a longer journey time. The industry weaknesses as identified by the disabled relate to physical evidence of the sports centres, particularly cleanliness attributes. Measures that can be taken to increase sports participation by the disabled include competent support at sports centres, promotions through discount schemes or leisure cards, and free transportation to sport centres in catchment areas with high proportions of disabled in their population.
There has been a change in the management of public sports centres in England, with significant numbers being transferred to non in-house operators. This paper analyses the consequences of this change, by evaluating the variation in public sports centre performance by different management types. It uses data on 260 sports centres that undertook the National Benchmarking Service, which has indicators on access to centres by different types of user, finance, utilization, and customer satisfaction. The results show that local authority in-house management achieved higher customer satisfaction but worse financial performance compared with commercial contractors and trusts. Trust management is positioned between in-house and commercial contract management in terms of service satisfaction. Therefore, the preferred operators for public sports centres depend on which performance dimensions are the priorities of local authorities.En los últimos años se ha producido en Inglaterra un cambio en las técnicas de gestión de los polideportivos públicos, con la decisión de externalizar los servicios a operadores privados en un número creciente de dichos centros. Este artículo analiza las consecuencias de estos cambios. El artículo evalúa las cuentas de resultados de polideportivos públicos que han seguido distintos métodos de gestión. Se usan para ello datos de 260 polideportivos recogidos por el Servicio Nacional de Calidad, que incluyen indicadores sobre los tipos de usuarios que acceden a los polideportivos, la situación económica de los centros, el nivel de uso de los polideportivos y la satisfacción de los usuarios con su experiencia en los centros deportivos. Los resultados indican que aquellos polideportivos que aún son gestionados por las autoridades públicas locales obtienen un mayor nivel de satisfacción de los usuarios, pero sin embargo presentan un peor rendimiento financiero comparados con los centros cuya gestión es mixta o ha sido externalizada. El modelo de gestión mixta a través de fundaciones o empresas públicas se sitúa a medio camino en niveles de satisfacción del usuario, entre los centros de gestión pública y los externalizados. Por lo tanto, la conclusión de nuestro estudio es que la decisión sobre el modelo de gestión a elegir dependerá en qué tipo de rendimiento (financiero o satisfacción) prefieran centrarse las autoridades públicas locales.Palabras clave: Servicio Nacional de Calidad; indicadores de rendimiento; fundaciones; empresas públicas; contratas privadas de servicios públicos; gestión pública de servicios; satisfacción del cliente 英國公立運動中心在大量的非內部經營者加入下,管理方式有了改變。本文旨在
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