Helping Volleyball England work with CSPs

Once its new 4 year plan (09-13) had been approved by Sport England, Volleyball England was keen to start working as soon as possible to achieve the ambitious targets within the plan.

To make the most of new partnerships, Volleyball England wanted a more strategic engagement with county sports partnerships (CSPs) around the country, particularly in those areas which had been highlighted as priority geographical areas within the strategic plan. They asked Prospects4Sport to help with their engagement with CSPs and planning for delivery in England.

Our work involved:

• re-writing and presenting the plan differently to make sure that it was relevant to and captured the interest of key local partners within CSPs around the country.
• showing clearly what resources Volleyball England may have to offer at a local level to support the implementation of the plan.
• asking all the CSPs about the extent to which the CSP is ready to engage with the plan and what resources they may be able to bring to the table.
• testing this process in 5 CSPs and working up a draft Service Level Agreement between VE and the CSP.
  

Lisa Wainwright, Chief Executive Officer, Volleyball England was extremely pleased with the final report: "thank you so much for the excellent piece of work you have completed for us. It is one of the best pieces of work I have seen any consultancy undertake in a very long career. It is comprehensive, robust and of the highest quality - you have delivered to time, to budget and way beyond our expectations."

VE was surprised by the depth of local knowledge about volleyball development that was demonstrated by CSPs. The information provided by CSPs has really influence the detailed investment planning which VE is now undertaking and VE has a much stronger sense of partnership working with CSPs than it did prior to this project.