Australian Sports Commission (ASC) has launched Play.Sport.Australia. – a new national policy platform which aims to improve grassroots participation in organised sport.

The initiative will be built around better engagement with the community, stronger governance for sports and innovative ways to improve their long-term financial sustainability.

At its heart is the aim to paint a “compelling picture” of how sport has changed in the last decade and outline the opportunities the Australian sports sector must embrace and maximise in the years ahead.

The strategy will also provide insight on where the ASC expects sports participation to be in the future. It outlines three key points:

• more people, particularly young people, participating in sport more often

• year-on-year membership and participation growth for all sports• strong sporting organisations that deliver the products and opportunities

While sports participation rates in Australia are far ahead of many other developed countries, there has been a decline in physical activity in recent years.

Of the Australian population aged 15 years and over, 60 per cent (11.1 million people) participated in sport and physical recreation at least once during the 12 months during 2013–14, compared with 65 per cent in 2011-12.

In comparison, in England, only 40.8 per cent of males aged 16 years or over played sport once a week, while the figure is even lower for females – 31.0 per cent.

ASC chair John Wylie said: “Play.Sport.Australia. will help sport collectively to “lift its game” when it came to improving participation rates – and participation still remains the best measure of the strength of our sporting sector.

“Play.Sport.Australia. will give sports a game plan to become forward-thinking organisations that deliver the products Australians want and arm them with the knowledge and practical initiatives such as the Sporting Schools programme to help them to grow.”

He added that the evolution of shorter formats – or hybrid games that were easier to learn and participate in, such as T20 cricket, AFL 9s or FAST4 Tennis – were all good examples of innovative ways sports have acted to bolster numbers and tap into new markets.

Play.Sport.Australia will complement ASC’s Winning Edge scheme, the national high performance plan.