ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how government policy and legislation impacts on the ways in which volunteer activities are undertaken in sport, in particular those policies and legislative requirements that have increased the compliance burden for volunteers and voluntary organisations, or directly impacted on volunteering opportunities or programmes in sport. It focuses on examples from the jurisdictions most active in supporting or regulating sport volunteers such as Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Canada. The chapter explores the nature of the relationship between government and sport and the detail of sport policies that impact on the way in which volunteer activities are undertaken in sport. It considers government sport policies in Australia, Canada and the UK in an attempt to identify the elements of current sport policy that directly affect volunteer involvement in sport. The success of government sport policies is largely dependent on the voluntary sector of sport having the capacity and volunteers with motivation to implement such policies.
