What we'll do
OUR THREE KEY OBJECTIVES
We’ll focus our time and resources on three key objectives:
- ADVOCATING FOR MOVEMENT, SPORT AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
- JOINING FORCES ON FIVE BIG ISSUES
- CREATING THE CATALYSTS FOR CHANGE
ADVOCATING FOR MOVEMENT, SPORT AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
Distributing Exchequer and National Lottery money is an important part of our role, but we’re so much more than a funder.
We have a broader responsibility: to advocate for the transformational impact sport and activity can have on the nation’s health and wellbeing.
For us, it’s more than just being a part of the change that’s needed so everyone can benefit from being active – we want to help lead and shape that change.
To do this demands much more from us than our investment.
It’s why we’ve forged great partnerships and built a network of relationships that span national and local organisations far beyond what you might describe as our ‘traditional’ sector, because we know we can make the biggest difference when we share our expertise and experience.
Looking forward, we’ll lead on a common purpose and a common agenda, one that every person and every organisation committed to creating change can get behind.
This strategy requires us to shape the conversation and the evidence on the value of movement, sport and physical activity so that it resonates with partners, both within and outside our sector.
It’s why relationships and influence are key pillars in this strategy, alongside investment.
We know many will share our aims, but not everyone will see how a common agenda for a more active nation can help them achieve those aims. It’s our role to do just that.
In practice, this means we will:
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Continue to build, establish and grow partnerships and a common purpose across both the government and our sector to join up policies, strategies and approaches;
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Continue to develop and deliver behavioural change campaigns, building on
the success of This Girl Can, We Are Undefeatable and Join the Movement, to put movement, sport and physical activity at the forefront of national conversations; -
Keep building evidence that shows the links between the issues we all care about as a nation and the value of movement, sport and physical activity as part of the solution;
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Grow the extent to which we communicate, both to people and organisations, the power of getting active to help strengthen public consensus around the importance of being physically active.
JOINING FORCES ON
The ambitions at the heart of Uniting the Movement, and all the choices we’ve made, are the result of a process that’s involved thousands of people and hundreds of organisations.
In these many conversations, whether they’ve happened in the Houses of Parliament, in a community hall or online, the same issues and opportunities have emerged. It’s this shared sense of what matters to us all that are our five ‘big issues’.
These are the things that will need people to work together to address. They’re some of the biggest challenges to an active nation over the next decade and are also the greatest opportunities to make a lasting difference.
Each big issue is where we see the greatest potential for preventing and tackling inequalities in sport and physical activity. Each one is a building block that, on its own, would make a difference, but together, could change things profoundly.
We’re not starting from scratch here. But we’re now ramping up our momentum and ambition. Building on the work that we, and many others, have already begun, we’ll work over the next decade on these big issues:
FIVE BIG ISSUES
Recover and Reinvent
Recovering from the biggest crisis in a generation and reinventing as a vibrant, relevant and sustainable network of organisations providing sport and physical activity opportunities that meet the needs of different people.
Connecting Communities
Focusing on sport and physical activity’s ability to make better places to live and bring people together.
Positive experience for children and young people
Unrelenting focus on positive experiences for
all children and young people as the foundations for a long and healthy life.
Connecting with health and wellbeing
Strengthening the connections between sport, physical activity, health and wellbeing, so more people can feel the benefits of, and advocate for, an active life.
Active Environments
Creating and protecting the places and spaces that make it easier for people to be active.
RECOVER AND REINVENT
All activity matters, but for tens of millions of people, being active depends on organised sport and physical activity.
By organised, we mean arranged by people - it could be anything from an exercise class or a led walking group, through to a parkrun or a Sunday league football game. Offered by a huge network, they’re the beating heart of communities, bringing people together and providing a sense of local history, identity and pride.
Traditionally run on small margins, minimal cash reserves and voluntary time23, Covid-19 has pushed the resilience of this network to the limit.
Some have quickly adapted the activity they offer, but for many more it’s meant a fight for survival. If these opportunities to be active disappear, we’ll lose much more than the individual sport or activity – we’ll lose many of the building blocks of our communities.
This isn’t about going back to where we were before. As we recover together, we want to come back more inclusive and more relevant. Despite more than 100,000 organisations nationwide delivering a wide range of sport and physical activity offers, many people and communities still feel excluded, often unconsciously but sometimes not. When this happens at a grassroots level, it also means our talent pathways and national teams don’t represent our nation’s diversity. We need, together, to call this out and change this inequality.
Alongside the challenge of inequality and perhaps because of it, many sports and activities are in long- term decline.
This is a particular problem for 16-34-year-olds – declining numbers suggest sport and activity hasn’t evolved enough to meet their changing expectations and lifestyles. We’re competing for people’s time and attention with sectors that have responded more effectively than ours – on-demand streaming has changed the way we watch TV, for example.
It’s not necessarily that providers don’t care or don’t want to change. Investing in new people, skills,
and methods is challenging for organisations that are already stretched.
For those eager to change, we can work together to find ways to help and adapt. For those unwilling to change, we won’t shy away from difficult conversations about what needs to be done differently.
"We have an opportunity to reinvent as more agile, inclusive and resilient."
Our Ambition
We’re ambitious about the role organised sport and physical activity plays in people’s lives at every level, and we want millions more people to benefit from it.
We have an opportunity to use the disruption Covid-19 has brought to accelerate progress - to reinvent as more agile, inclusive and resilient and to change the way we do things so we better meet the needs of everyone, in every community.
We'll focus on
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Responding to the short, medium and long-term challenges of Covid-19 and supporting organisations and people to return to activity that’s stronger, more relevant and more inclusive than before
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Working with partners to help them design and deliver enjoyable and inclusive experiences for people
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Ensuring the people central to delivering these great experiences better reflect, understand and represent the communities they’re working with helping organisations be more agile and resilient by, for example, building their innovation and digital capabilities
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Encouraging and supporting continuous improvement in governance, driving towards more diverse and inclusive practices
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Promoting and sharing insight and knowledge and supporting organisations to use it effectively
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Encouraging partners to work together for their overall benefit rather than competing for the same people
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Making England Talent Pathways accessible and inclusive to everyone with the ability and potential.
Finding new innovative solutions: the open call
A live show broadcast on YouTube, an Alexa skill for older adults and a virtual rehab clinic for Covid-19 survivors are just three ideas we’ve supported after our first open call for innovative solutions.
Babbasa TV broadcasts fortnightly on YouTube and Instagram and is designed with and by young people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds in Bristol.
The show was created to give their peers a voice and a safe space to talk about topics such as racism, business and healthy lifestyles and we’re working with them to reach groups of people who may otherwise struggle to connect with physical activity.
The theme of using developing technologies to reach and influence specific groups is important to us, and we’ve also teamed up with Screenmedia who’ve created an Alexa skill for people with long-term health conditions or at risk of isolation.
This allows many older adults to access interactive content from the comfort of their own homes and gives them the opportunity to keep moving despite their situation.
Along similar lines, Sheffield Hallam University has created a virtual rehab clinic for people recovering from Covid-19. They’ve taken the lessons learnt from elite sport and applied them to those who desperately need the benefits of movement but have few options open to them.
CONNECTING COMMUNITIES
We all want and deserve to live, work or go to school in a place we love.
Our definition of what makes us love where we live may vary, but factors like opportunity, safety, feeling we belong, and that people care for each other are common.
Sport and physical activity isn’t necessarily the first thing that comes to mind when people consider what makes a great place, certainly compared to some of the bigger concerns in life, but we believe it can be a huge force for good.
It can develop confidence and self-worth, and help create more resilient, inclusive and connected neighbourhoods. It can grow the local economy, provide jobs and purpose, integrate different groups, help tackle antisocial behaviour, respond to the threat of climate change and save public expenditure.
It can be a big part of loving where you live – or not.
We believe communities across our nation can benefit hugely by using the power of sport and physical activity – that’s why we want to support national and local decision- makers to do just that to help people and places thrive.
Crucially, we need to make sure we do that in collaboration with each place: the people within them and the organisations relevant and trusted by them. No lesson has been learned more from our last strategy than this.
It’s in communities, and the clubs and organisations within them, where the inequalities specific to that area can be best understood, and where the best prospects of tackling them lie. The ‘level playing field’ is a term originating in sport, and here it means everyone should be able to feel the benefits of an active life.
We know there’s a huge network of trusted sports clubs, community organisations and charities out there striving to create better places to live and work. Some are using sport and physical activity as a tool to improve lives and strengthen communities, or because they know how important it is to tackle inactivity. All know they’re providing a direct benefit in bringing people together to improve their physical and mental wellbeing. With more support, resources and trust, they can do even more to improve their area and the lives of people in their community.
We know there’s a huge network of trusted sports clubs, community organisations and charities out there striving to create better places to live and work.
It’s in communities where the jigsaw pieces can best come together. Investment into an approach that builds on assets in an area like its people and their skills, or buildings and facilities, is important, but it’s not enough: we need the social and physical environment we live in, the organisations that serve us and local and national policies to join up more if we’re to help communities to be active, to thrive and to connect.
Our ambition
We want more communities to enjoy the benefits of what sport and physical activity can do, both for individuals and the place where they live and work.
Those benefits will come from a more bottom-up approach to our work and investment. Working with – not doing things to – communities, and helping those affected to play a role in what happens in their neighbourhood and how it gets done.
Active communities can be such a powerful tool in building great places to live, and we want these benefits to be better understood - more local and national leaders seeing the value of sport and physical activity and investing more in it would have a profound effect.
We’ll build on the successes we’ve seen in the places we’ve worked most intensively in. Through sport and physical activity, we’ll seek to connect other policy agendas in the places we work, with the driving force being what’s right for that place and its residents.
We’ll pay equal attention to how we work and the true power of collaboration, with lasting change the result.
"We’ll build on the successes we’ve seen in the places we’ve worked most intensively in."
WE’LL FOCUS ON
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Investing in the people and capacity of community organisations such as clubs and charities, who know their area and its needs best.
We’ll also work with national partners and coalitions that have relationships with clubs and community organisations and are able to address gaps in support or knowledge, or help in places where the right kinds of organisations don’t currently exist - this will be to collaborate on local solutions and not default to top-down national programmes -
Expanding our place-based working by collaborating with more places and their decision-makers on their local priorities and partnership opportunities, helping them use sport and physical activity need. In the places we’re working intensely already, we’ll do more to join-up our investment and use what we’re learning to influence others
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Increasing leadership capacity and capability locally to help grow and sustain change. Leadership that can adapt and is spread across communities will be needed to enable system and social change at scale. We’ll expand a system to develop and share what we all learn from place-based working so it can be seen and used by all leaders
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Advocating the value of sport and physical activity as not only an essential tool to improve lives and strengthen communities, tackle inequalities and create great places to live, but as a tool that both national and local leaders can use to confront other issues.
BIRMINGHAM 2022: BUILDING ACTIVE COMMUNITIES
The Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games
is an opportunity to use the inspiration of a major Games on home soil to help build more active communities.
We’ll work with several places across the West Midlands, focusing on supporting people currently inactive so they can become more active.
We want to take what we’ve learned from our local delivery pilots and other placed-based work to help create a network of “active communities”, with great and relevant opportunities to be active.
Key to this will be listening to communities and responding to their priorities on how local neighbourhoods promote physical activity, be it how open spaces and parks can help encourage activity, how people can be supported to cycle and walk more, or something else. No two communities are the same, and their needs, motivations and aspirations will be different.
Building these active communities, with local people at the heart of decision-making, will be a true legacy for Birmingham 2022.
ACTIVE CALDERDALE
Empowering local people who know what their community needs best has been vital in increasing activity levels in Calderdale.
Active Calderdale, the local delivery pilot (LDP), has worked with more than 80 voluntary sector organisations to find practical solutions to the challenges faced by people living in the West Yorkshire borough.
Move the Calderdale Way has prioritised helping people who traditionally face barriers to physical activity, such as those from lower socio-economic groups and people living with long-term health conditions.
The LDP worked with 88 teams that included just under 2,000 residents who were offered regular walking and cycling opportunities.
People who’ve taken part have felt better, happier and more connected with their local community.
Meanwhile, the Basement Project supports clients dealing with drug and alcohol misuse.
It uses easy-to-access local facilities and sports clubs to help change clients’ behaviours through sport and activity.
Investing in activity has changed the culture of the area, with senior leaders building physical activity into local public services in other ways, such as the adult care system.
Those running the service were empowered to redesign the approach, be flexible and put residents at the heart of their thinking. Understanding the richness of a life with physical activity as a part of it has become important for all parts of the social care systems – top to bottom.
This new approach is leading to a change where strong leadership, building the capacity of community organisations and embedding physical activity in services is coming to the fore.
POSITIVE EXPERIENCES FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE
Every child and young person has the right to be active, to benefit from being active in a safe, positive and trusted environment, and to have an equal chance to achieve their potential.
Positive experiences at an early age help build the foundations for an active life. If children and young people have experiences that feel fun, positive and give them a sense of confidence, they’re more likely
to want to be active in the future.
Sport and physical activity can do so much good for our mental and physical wellbeing, and for children this is even more profound: there’s evidence obesity levels
are increasing and mental health deteriorating – rates of 5-16-year- olds who may have had problems with aspects of their mental health to such an extent that it impacted their daily lives, has increased from one in nine in 2017, to one in six in 2024.
Children who are more active are happier, more resilient and more trusting of others, but over half aged 5-16 are not active enough to enjoy these benefits, and activity levels among young adults aged 16-34 have also begun to decline25. This can and must change.
While the current system works for many children, it doesn’t work for everyone. Some don’t have the same opportunities to be active, so they deserve extra support.
This is particularly true for girls, disabled young people, young people with long-term health conditions, those from less affluent families and youngsters from Black and Asian backgrounds. Current inequalities in sport and activity unfortunately start from a young age and they need to be addressed.
Fewer than one in five children consider themselves to be physically literate, and this declines with age as secondary-aged children feel less confident, competent and gain less enjoyment from sport and activity. This often means they spend their time in other ways and there can be negative consequences for their wellbeing.
What’s enjoyable and positive varies for different children and young people, so our aim must be for all
to get an experience which meets their rapidly changing needs.
Some will want to go on to fulfil their physical or sporting potential on the international stage, and that must be encouraged. We need to make sure every young person has the same opportunities to succeed, with equal access to the entry points and pathways that underpin the talent system, and have experiences that are positive.
Our starting point is that all children, irrespective of their abilities, should enjoy being active.
PHYSICAL LITERACY
A combination of a person’s enjoyment, confidence, competence (how easy they find it), understanding (that it’s beneficial) and knowledge (knowing how to get involved and improve). The more elements a child or young person strongly agrees they have, the more active they’re likely to be.
- Asian (36%) and Black (40%) children are the most likely to be less active.
- 43% of girls are active, compared to 47% of boys26
OUR AMBITION
We want every child and young person to experience the enjoyment and benefits that being active can bring. Their needs, expectations and safety should come first in the design and delivery of activity.
WE'LL FOCUS ON
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Putting an even stronger spotlight on safeguarding, so children and young people feel and are safe when being active, and parents are confident it’s a safe choice with the welfare of their children paramount
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Putting children and young people first, involving them and their families in decisions and designing relevant opportunities
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Improving physical literacy, so children and young people have a great experience which builds their understanding and knowledge of how to be active, their confidence and competence, but above all their enjoyment
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Improving the mental wellbeing of children and young people through sport and physical activity, by working with and alongside those who want to do the same
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Transforming the way people, paid or unpaid, who help children and young people get active
are developed, recognised and empowered to deliver quality experiences
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Creating and protecting quality and safe places and spaces for children to play and enjoy being active outdoors, and helping create more choice and better access to inclusive opportunities to get active in the community
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Influencing the design and delivery of physical activity in education settings by building
on key relationships, including
with the Department for Education, so every child and young person has a great experience and a broad choice -
Transforming the experiences of all children and young people and ensuring there’s equal access to England’s Talent Pathways, so our national teams truly represent the diversity of our nation
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Supporting parents and carers to understand the importance of movement and enjoyment for children and young people, because of their important role as enablers, decision-makers and role models
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Embracing technology and the digital world so being active is easier, more attractive and more relevant to the digitally- savvy, while being mindful of potential negatives.
DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY: FRINDSBURY TENNIS SATELLITE CLUB
Loud pop music isn’t the first thing you think of when you picture people playing tennis.
But that’s exactly what you’ll find at Brompton Academy, where Frindsbury Tennis Satellite Club offers these fun and innovative weekly sessions to pupils.
By mixing the latest chart hits and sport, the sessions allow young people to try tennis in a more relaxed, less structured way than they’d normally encounter at a specialist club.
As the school is based in one of the most deprived areas of Medway in Kent, this unique approach also takes the sport to those who may otherwise not have the opportunity to take part.
This example, from just one of the satellite clubs we’ve funded, shows how we can help and inspire children and young people to be physically active by working together and connecting schools with their local sports clubs.
This different approach also aims to improve the physical activity levels, mental health, wellbeing
and social development of young people, change their perceptions of sport and physical activity, reduce antisocial behaviour and enhance their local environment to create happier and healthier communities.
Each tennis session embraces a ‘just turn up’ approach to welcome less active young people into a relaxed and friendly environment that breaks down barriers to activity.
The impact has been significant, with nine out of 10 young people taking part saying they enjoyed doing exercise and sport after three months of the programme.
9/10 young people taking part said they enjoyed doing exercise and sport after three months of the programme
CONNECTING WITH HEALTH AND WELLBEING
Our physical and mental health is our biggest asset. Being physically active can be described as a ‘wonder drug’ - it unlocks so much that’s good for our health and wellbeing.
But despite this and amid a backdrop of health inequalities, not everyone’s currently able to enjoy the benefits of an active life.
The scale of the challenge is significant. Evidence suggests an increase in depression and anxiety amongst 5-15-year-olds27; that one in three working age adults now live with a long-term health condition, predicted to rise to 40% by 203028; and despite life expectancy increasing over the last 20 years, people are spending more time
in poorer health.29 The complexity and severity of health needs is also increasing for some groups.
This impacts everything from the quality of our lives to the health of our economy.
There are also stark health inequalities among both children and adults. For example, people living in the most deprived parts of the country typically have two
or more health conditions a decade earlier in their life than those in the least deprived30.
There’s a growing trend for wellbeing and looking after our own health, and a rising interest in people quantifying their health through things like apps.
Changing demographics also present opportunities: ‘Baby Boomers’, for example, are approaching older age and we anticipate they may want to stay active for longer than previous generations.
We know too that there are many organisations working to improve health and wellbeing, from the NHS to those in the voluntary and community sector, local authorities, employers and the commercial health and wellbeing sector.
By using the power of sport and physical activity alongside the work of all these organisations, there’s huge potential to improve existing work and explore new areas to help strengthen people’s health and wellbeing, from childhood right through to older age.
Our ambition
We want sport and physical activity to be at the heart of how we all think about the nation’s - and our own - health and wellbeing. But we can only do this if we effectively respond to changing demographics, trends in health and the things that can make it even harder to be active for people with poorer health – for example, limited inclusive or accessible opportunities to get active.
It shouldn’t matter that you’re 35 or 65, live with two health conditions or are in perfect health – the right range of opportunities, experiences and support should be available and for everyone.
We must also recognise when people with more challenging health needs may need extra support or new and different ways to take part.
If we do this right, we can stop health problems arising in the first place and help people to age well. We could also then support people to manage problems when they do arise and be active for as long as possible.
We also want to harness the collective power of all the organisations focused on health outcomes. If health is everyone’s business, then so is sport and physical activity.
The opportunity and ambition here is big and success could be things like physical activity in care homes becoming a priority, physical activity being embedded in mental health policy and services for children, physical activity advice being included in the every day conversations of front-line NHS staff, or products that help people monitor their own health becoming more widely available.
We also want to strengthen the connection and collaboration between sport and physical activity and the health system at every level, so more people are recommended or referred into activity. This journey should be easy, personalised
and supported, to increase that individual’s likelihood of becoming and staying active.
These changes could impact greatly on participation and health and play a role in prevention, tackling inequalities and mitigating the impact of Covid-19.
"It shouldn’t matter that you’re 35 or 65, live with two health conditions or are in perfect health – the right range of opportunities, experiences and support should be available and for everyone."
We'll focus on
- Working collaboratively to continuously improve sport and physical activity messaging, experiences and opportunities, so they’re inclusive, irrespective of whether you live with a health condition or what age you are. We’ll experiment with different approaches to tackle inequalities in health or participation in communities and share learnings. The sport and physical activity workforce will also be supported to gain confidence and skills to give people a personalised experience, supporting beginners and people with common conditions
- Working with partners who want to improve people’s health to use sport and physical activity. We’ll focus on those who have trust, credibility and reach among people who are least active, in poorer health or unlikely to have existing relationships with the sport and physical activity sector. We’ll play an advocacy, capacity, capability-building and influencing role, so we can build buy-in over a longer period of time
- Sharing the evidence that physical activity can have a profound benefit on people’s health in a relevant and compelling way that can win both the hearts and minds of those who could strengthen policies, messaging, delivery or investment in support of sport and physical activity
- Supporting meaningful links between the sport and physical activity sector and health systems at every level. We’ll listen to what’s getting in the way of making this happen and drive changes that address these barriers, including using our influence and advocacy to enable policy changes. We’ll also support local solutions, including developing leaders who can spot and respond to local need and help bridge the gap between sport and physical activity and local health systems in a place.
PUTTING HEALTH FIRST: ACTIVE DORSET
These days you can do almost anything with your phone.
You can order a pizza, check your social media and, thanks to the great work of Active Dorset, you can use it to call a public health-funded telephone service that will help you get and stay active.
The support line is just one of the ways they’ve used investment from our Active Ageing Fund to create a culture where helping people to take part in physical activity has become integrated across the health system and wider public sector.
Encouraging and supporting people to move more, and explaining the benefits of doing so, is integral to our ambition and work like this at a local level builds on and informs what we’re doing nationally.
Active Dorset’s ‘whole-system’ approach means advice and support is available across a range of places and services used by people - such as GP surgeries and healthcare pathways - helping support them and reduce demand on the health and social care system. This builds on the We Are Undefeatable campaign, ensuring messages to the public are amplified from a range of trusted organisations.
This also includes training healthcare professionals – through the Moving Healthcare Professionals Programme – so they feel comfortable and motivated to routinely talk to patients about being active in a way that works for them.
It means, as well as prescribing treatments, GPs and nurses can advocate physical activity, which can play a vital role in helping to prevent and manage many long- term conditions.
"Active Dorset’s ‘whole-system’ approach means advice and support is available across a range of places and services used by people."
ACTIVE ENVIRONMENTS
There's no such thing as neutral space’. The places and spaces around us can have a positive or negative impact on whether, how, when, and where we move. We think of these spaces in three broad categories:
Dedicated sport and leisure facilities need to be co-created, well-designed, supported and maintained to benefit the local community and their users.
Dedicated sport and physical activity facilities: i.e. pitches, courts, pools and leisure centres
We’ve historically focused our efforts on facilities like these. Our relationships with local authority and sports club owners of these facilities remain vital, as does the investment in them from various sources, including our own. We also have a statutory responsibility to protect playing field sites in the planning system.
Dedicated sport and leisure facilities need to be co-created, well- designed, supported and maintained to benefit the local community and their users.
What we’ve learned about these dedicated spaces – whether indoor or outdoor - is that they can be more inclusive and more environmentally friendly, which will lead to a more sustainable stock of facilities offering better, affordable experiences for local people. This will be a focus of our capital work and investment.
Other community spaces: i.e. parks and open spaces, village halls, community centres and schools
A huge amount of sport and physical activity takes place, or could do, at these kinds of community spaces.
Not usually designed exclusively for exercise, and certainly not for specific sports, these places are a vital resource for many and the activity they host provides a useful income to the venue. They may never be perfect competition or training spaces, but they attract people who might never go to a sports club, leisure centre or private gym.
The development of community spaces like these is important to people who are regularly or newly active, so we’ll spend time and money working with those who own and run them.
The wider built environment: i.e. streets, housing estates, squares and tow paths
These places and spaces influence how much we move. Good design can help to increase activity levels by encouraging walking and cycling.
We need to work with the public and private sector to influence how neighbourhoods are planned so they create better places to live and work, while making it easy and attractive for people to be active.
The built environment is one of the key factors in the stronger and more connected communities we all want, where local people get a say in how their neighbourhood looks and feels and where their families can live a long and healthy life.
Good design can help to increase activity levels by encouraging walking and cycling.
To truly create active environments, we need to look at the big picture – every space and place that we move through in our daily lives, from our front door to the supermarket
or our place of work, and everywhere in between, can have a bearing on if and how we move more.
This means connecting dedicated sport and activity facilities and community spaces, by making it easy for people to walk and cycle, by better design and by using the built and natural environments around us.
OUR AMBITION
We want to make the choice to be active easier and more appealing for everyone, whether that’s how we choose to move around our local neighbourhood or a dedicated facility for a sport or activity.
We also have a contribution to make to tackling climate change by influencing how people live and travel, and through the sustainable planning and design of the nation’s sport and leisure facilities.
WE’LL FOCUS ON
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Protecting and improving the nation’s sport and leisure facilities by using our investment and expertise to revive places to play, and to innovate new designs and operational models which are community-focused, environmentally sound, financially sustainable and contribute to reducing inequalities
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Creating opportunities around community spaces by inspiring local communities to influence owners or increase their own capability to use and sustain these spaces themselves, through advice, training and resources
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Helping to create better places to live by influencing those who develop and manage local environments to encourage both formal and informal activity close to where we live, maximising the potential of green spaces and walking and cycling
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The implications of climate change. The sport and leisure sector must play its part, so we’ll adapt our expertise, guidance, tools and support to help our partners rise to the challenge.
BEING INCLUSIVE TO ALL: GREAT SANKEY NEIGHBOURHOOD HUB
There are many things that can encourage people to be physically active, but sometimes all it takes is a smile at a desk.
That’s what people with dementia can expect if they walk into Great Sankey Neighbourhood Hub, as all of the staff have been trained as the Alzheimer’s Society’s Dementia Friends, which means they have a better understanding of the condition and how they can help those affected by it.
It’s just one of the ways LiveWire, the largest provider of leisure facilities in the Warrington area, has worked hard to make sure all members of the community have access to local facilities and activities.
They know creating the right environment is crucial in making people feel welcome, and their attention to detail has included redesigning everything from the entrance hall to the changing rooms and toilets to make them dementia friendly.
The site has an accessible mixed-gender changing village, which includes shared cubicles for families and carers, while areas of the changing room can be closed off to manage the flow through it. For example,
if a school session is taking place, part of the changing room can be closed to reduce congestion and noise.
The signage is also clear at decision points in the facility so, as an example, when a person exits the lift, the first thing they’ll see is clear signage explaining where they can go, which minimises the risk of confusion.
CATALST FOR CHANGE
If we work together, we believe the five big issues in this strategy will have the most profound impact on increasing and sustaining activity levels across the nation.
"We need to create the right conditions for change: across people, organisations and partnerships."
But we can only give them the focus they need if we also acknowledge how we must change and improve what we deliver.
We need to create the right conditions for change: across the people, organisations and partnerships with the potential to contribute and help turn our shared plans and ideas into action. We know there are specific capabilities, information, approaches and relationships that - used in the right way - will make progress possible. These are:
EFFECTIVE INVESTMENT MODELS
The right kinds of investment, timed well and delivered skilfully can stimulate demand, provide opportunities to get active, enable innovation, encourage collaboration, reduce inequalities and enable greater sustainability.
REALISING THE POWER OF PEOPLE AND LEADERSHIP
The people who spend their time helping others to be active are our most precious resource and their potential is limitless. They’re the key to adopting and achieving the ambitions in this strategy.
APPLYING INNOVATION AND DIGITAL
Times are changing, and so are people’s expectations. In the face of significant opportunity and change, it’s critical innovation, including digital, is applied to the big issues that are holding many more people back from being active.
HIGH-QUALITY DATA, INSIGHT AND LEARNING
Key to collaborative action is a shared understanding of the opportunities and the challenges that we face together.
GOOD GOVERNANCE
Good governance, and a commitment to positive, effective, safe delivery of opportunities at every level is how intentions and ambitions are enshrined into ways of working.
EFFECTIVE INVESTMENT MODELS
The right investment can play a vital role in creating new and improved opportunities for people to be active, enable innovation, encourage collaboration and reduce inequalities across sport and physical activity.
Achieving the ambitions of this strategy will be about more than money, and certainly more money than we’ll have at our disposal.
As well as using our own funds carefully and creatively, we need to attract other sources of investment into sport and physical activity.
Openly available grant funding plays an important role, and so can increasing access to different forms of finance - from loan schemes to crowdfunding - which can be more relevant to new partners and prove more financially sustainable.
Our local delivery pilots have shown the value of us investing in capacity and partnerships.
New ways of distributing funding, and working with partners with the right connections, can help ensure funding reaches places, organisations and people that have not found our previous programmes easy to access or relevant to their needs.
Local Delivery Pilots
We began working closely with 12 places across England in 2017, learning about the unique barriers and inequalities to activity faced in each place, and addressing them together.
Sound investment decisions need to be underpinned by intelligent programme design and an understanding of the partners, sectors, places and context in which investment is being made.
OUR AMBITION
We want to make it easier for people and organisations with great ideas and significant potential to contribute to the ambitions of this strategy and to access the right forms of investment for them.
We’ll make use of the full range of intelligence and insight available to design and deliver collaborative funding approaches that attract new investment, recognising that sometimes our resources are best applied to ensuring the capacity of others to deliver.
WE'LL FOCUS ON
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Ensuring ‘doing business’ with us is
a positive experience, meaning we’re efficient, accessible, connected and proportionate in our processes and expectations, whilst accountable for public funds -
Simplifying access to available funding, including our open funds
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Continuing to diversify and develop our investment approaches beyond our traditional grant programmes, so our offers reflect the realities of the market, the needs of partners, and understand impact
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Enhancing our understanding of the operating environment and local context of the organisations we invest in
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Taking advantage of this 10-year strategy period to invest in capacity and capability that will underpin solutions to the big issues.
REALISING THE POWER OF PEOPLE AND LEADERSHIP
The people who spend their time helping others be active are our most precious resource and their potential is limitless - they’re the key to adopting and achieving the ambitions in this strategy. Who they are, where they’re from, how they’re recognised and how they’re supported to do what they do matters.
It’s sometimes easy to look past the ‘invisible supply chain’ of people. But evidence shows activity and experience rely on the capacity, connections and support of the millions of volunteers and professionals in our sector and beyond. The capacity, capability and reach of the workforce needs to be supported across the
country and strengthened in the communities that need it most.
That means we need to take on the challenges of now, such as the lack of diversity, falling volunteer numbers, skills shortages, championing enjoyment for children and young people and ensuring safe environments for sport and physical activity.
But we also need to understand and harness the great work and best practice we’ve seen to meet the possibilities of the next decade, including unleashing the power of diversity, ensuring more people have access to help from those who relate to their experiences, training and qualifications fit for the future, better career choices and clubs and groups contributing more to the social fabric of their communities. To do this, the focus on the people within the workforce must be clearer and more prominent.
OUR AMBITION
Movement, sport and physical activity needs to be delivered, supported and led by a diverse range of people, equipped and supported to meet the demands of their role and changing needs of diverse communities.
Being able to innovate, be inclusive and lead must not
be confined to hierarchies or specialisms – these are skills and abilities that exist in people at all levels, from young volunteers to chief executives.
WE'LL FOCUS ON
- An unrelenting emphasis on diversity, inclusion, skills and behaviours, to open up and increase volunteering and employment opportunities for people from a broader range of backgrounds and experiences
- Working with others to take an honest look at the support and experience for volunteers within our sector, focusing on what’s needed to make giving your time easy, meaningful and supported, now and for the future, and in doing so, reducing drop-out rates
- Supporting the development of people and skills, with a focus on networks of clubs, groups and local leaders to realise their community’s ambitions for physical activity
- Working with others to empower children and young people, their families and communities to be part of the changes they want to see for themselves by championing youth social action, creating new youth employment pathways and supporting social entrepreneurship
- Broadening the diversity of leaders within the sector whilst supporting existing and aspiring leaders to develop the skills, relationships and knowledge they need to lead effectively both now and in the future.
- Advocating and supporting the professional regulation of the sport and physical activity sector to ensure it’s respected both domestically and internationally as a safe, credible and well- governed industry.
APPLYING INNOVATION AND DIGITAL
Times are changing, and so are people’s expectations. Innovation, including digital, is key to making sport and physical activity accessible and relevant to many more people. We must ensure that in the face of opportunity and change, innovation is applied to the big issues that are holding many more people back from being active.
This means we need to continue to develop inclusive and sustainable digital solutions that prioritise improving the experiences of people taking part, while being ready to learn and adapt as things evolve.
We’ve already come a long way, with community-developed open data standards and a host of new startups that didn’t exist four years ago. The Covid-19 pandemic has also accelerated progress, with sport and physical activity offers rapidly adapting and moving online to support thousands of people to stay active safely.
But no one can say the journey is anywhere near complete. The task for the next decade is to ensure a sport and physical activity sector that’s connected to, and at ease with, the modern world.
"We need to keep developing inclusive and sustainable digital solutions that prioritise improving the experiences of people taking part."
Our Ambition
Building on the foundations of our work, together with the sector we’ll accelerate progress and ensure that as we innovate, we don’t leave communities and audiences behind.
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Stimulating and actively encouraging innovative solutions focused on people who struggle the most tocbe active. This will include finding ways to encourage a whole range of people and organisations to help us solve the challenges they face
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Helping to tackle digital exclusion through our partnerships and investments
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Continuing to advocate for the importance of digital literacy skills and the adoption and development of data standards by the sector. We’ll ensure a commitment to open data is applied as a foundational block of our work with partners to tackle the big issues
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Collaborating with partners to explore digital solutions that can improve the experiences of people getting active, so they remain relevant and engaging.
HIGH-QUALITY DATA, INSIGHT AND LEARNING
The key to working collaboratively is a shared understanding of the opportunities and challenges we face in getting the nation moving. We all need access to high-quality data, insight and learning, and we need the confidence to apply it, so we can make the most
of the opportunities ahead.
We have world-class data, insight and learning, and have begun to apply our understanding of people and what works for them to design and deliver more appropriate and effective ways for people to move more. But there are still significant inequalities in attitude, behaviour and experience of sport and physical activity - not everyone is seen, listened to or served.
Collaboration is essential to unlock the value data, insight and learning can add over the next decade. We need collective access to the most relevant pieces of data and to work together on insight that draws upon different experiences, knowledge and skills. We also need a collective desire, and changes in culture, to embrace the benefits of sharing and applying learning.
This collaboration needs to be with a wide range of diverse organisations who place people’s needs at the heart of what they do. We’re beginning to make these connections, but we need to make more.
The speed at which we learn and apply knowledge is critical - we need to continue capturing and creating data and insight at pace, keeping up with change, otherwise our understanding and ways of working will become obsolete before they’re put into practice.
Our ambition
We want to build a shared understanding of the people and systems where things need to change for the better, with this understanding applied to decision-making. The result will be locally relevant, enjoyable opportunities to move more being created and adapted.
Together, we’ll learn more about what is and isn’t working, while developing our tools and skills so we can continue to utilise new techniques and ways of applying insight. This will mean we can more effectively track change, measure impact and learn together.
WE'LL FOCUS ON
- Building the right connections across a diverse set of organisations so we can learn together and understand what’s needed and what works. We’ll support these communities to build practical skills and the confidence to act on what they learn
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Identifying patterns and issues, addressing gaps in our understanding and focusing on the areas that make the greatest difference to inequalities. We’ll further develop our view of the future and what’s driving changes in behaviour
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Making it easier for everyone to access and use data, insight and learning by creating data standards, tools and processes. We’ll support people to create their own insight, while also improving the guidance and advice we give for
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Building the right connections across a diverse set of organisations so we can learn together and understand what’s needed and what works. We’ll support these communities to build practical skills and the confidence to act on what evaluation and learning
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Being brave and calling out some big issues, especially why some people or parts of society find it hard to be active. We’ll advocate on behalf of those who don’t have a voice and continue to make the case for the value of sport and physical activity at an individual, local and national level, placing movement for all at the top of the agenda.
GOOD GOVERNANCE
To realise the ambitions in this strategy, the sector will need strong, brave, collaborative, empathetic and innovative leadership. But leadership goes beyond those labelled as ‘leaders’ and their daily working practices – it’s also about how ambitions and intentions are enshrined into ways of working.
We’ll need a sector that embraces good governance in a way that goes beyond compliance and ensures
a safe, well-run and enjoyable environment for everyone involved.
Put simply, good governance means not only having a fit for purpose structure and system in place, but making sure those leading an organisation use it wisely and effectively.
One of the greatest successes of the last few years has been our work, jointly with UK Sport, to develop and implement the Code for Sports Governance, which when launched in 2016 set a new standard in governance for sporting organisations.
Since then, we’ve seen hundreds of organisations adapt to meet its requirements in order to receive public money, and in the process, transform how they’re run. We now have more diverse boards, with greater independence and a broader range of skills that are leading organisations being more transparent about what they do and how they do it.
We’re beginning to see more and more organisations taking the Code and applying it, voluntarily, within their own regional, county and local structures. More organisations not formally subject to the Code are deciding it’s in their interests to embrace it and meet its requirements. We want to help support that to continue.
Good governance extends beyond the structures of sport. It should also drive and ensure the creation of a safe, well-run and enjoyable environment for sport and physical activity at every level, where the welfare of everyone involved is the paramount concern.
While we’ve seen considerable improvement and change, we’ve also witnessed continued examples of where this hasn’t been the case. From sports clubs and teams through to informal activity and exercise, everyone has the right to take part safely and be free
from harassment, bullying and discrimination.
Nearly 300 organisations have adapted to meet the requirements in the top two tiers of the Code for Sports Governance (Tiers 2 and 3), while thousands more have met the minimum (Tier 1) level.
"From sports clubs and teams through to informal activity and exercise, everyone has the right to take part safely and be free from harassment, bullying and discrimination."
Our ambition
We want the sector to embrace good governance, moving from compliance with a formal code, to a culture across sporting organisations that embrace good governance and strive to be among the best-run organisations in the world.
This will help build a sector where those taking part do so in a safe and positive environment, whether they’re in the paid workforce, volunteering or being active.
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Completing the first formal review of the Code for Sports Governance by spring 2021, looking across all aspects of the Code but focusing primarily on changes related to equality, diversity and inclusion. This also means ensuring the Code is accessible and usable by organisations at all levels
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Supporting organisations we don’t currently fund
or work with, particularly at grassroots community level, to improve governance and help them become more sustainable, collaborating with others to design and implement support packages -
Prioritising an understanding of safeguarding and the delivery of effective welfare policies and actions - ensuring organisations we partner with and invest in demonstrate a duty of care towards everyone involved in their sport or activity, including coaches, support staff and people taking part.