Public Administration Vol. 87, No. 3, 2009 (678–698) © 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2008.01733.x MODERNIZATION AND SPORT: THE REFORM OF SPORT ENGLAND AND UK SPORT BARRIE HOULIHAN AND MICK GREEN This article evaluates the impact of New Labour’s ‘modernization project’ on two key non-departmen- tal public bodies for sport, Sport England and UK Sport. Our analysis concentrates on identifying the sources of the general momentum for modernization in the sport sector, how it has been interpreted by government in relation to the two organizations, the nature and consequences of modernization for both organizations, and the future of modernization. The analysis is informed by a range of public documents produced by government and by the two sports agencies, together with a series of seven interviews conducted with senior staff and members of Sport England and UK Sport and with senior civil servants in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Our conclusions suggest that modern- ization has resulted in a narrowing of the two organizations’ objectives, the adoption of business-like principles and a ‘command and control’ regime in relationships with key frontline delivery partners. INTRODUCTION Over the past 20 years one of the constant themes in sport policy discussions has been the fragmentation, fractiousness and perceived ineffectiveness of organizations within the sport policy area. While much of the UK government’s focus has been on the inadequa- cies of the national governing bodies of sport (NGBs), the main national agencies of gov- ernment have also been subject to sustained criticism both by the major political parties and by NGBs. The sports councils that cover England, currently Sport England and UK Sport, have been reviewed at least seven times in the last two decades with a new round of criticism, mainly from NGBs, but also from the Central Council of Physical Recreation and, prompted by the award of the 2012 Olympic Games to London, the British Olympic Association. Over the years, critics have accused the sports councils of being: unrespon- sive to the needs of their clients; overly bureaucratic and complex, especially in relation to the accessing of funds; and incoherent due to overlapping responsibilities, the lack of strategic clarity and the generation of an excess of what are often short-term initiatives. In brief, the national sports system has long been seen as in serious need of reform. However, the discussion of reform of the national sports system in general and the modernization of Sport England and UK Sport in particular needs to be located alongside a number of recent analyses of change in domestic sport policy. Macro-level analyses have emphasized variously the significance for domestic policy of globalization (Maguire 1999; Houlihan 2004), the intensification of the commodification of sport (Gerrard 2004), and the symbolic significance of elite sporting success (Green and Houlihan 2005). Meso-level analyses have sought to explain policy change in terms of tensions between national and local policy actors (McDonald 1995), the weakness of the policy community (Roche 1993), the emergence of advocacy coalitions (Green and Houlihan 2004), the opportunities pre- sented for policy entrepreneurs within a policy sector with few interests strongly rooted within the machinery of government (Houlihan and Green 2006), and the interplay of competing policy discourses (Penney and Evans 1999; McDonald 2000). The discussion Barrie Houlihan is in the Institute of Sport and Leisure Policy, School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, Loughborough University. The late Mick Green worked in the same Institute at Loughborough.