Agenda item

The Director of Public Health submits an update on the Sport England’s new strategy ‘Towards and Active Nation’.  A presentation will be made to the Board on local proposals being developed by the Council and its partners.    

The Director of Public Health submitted an update on Sport England’s new strategy ‘Towards and Active Nation’.  The Director also made a presentation on the local proposals that were being developed by the Council and its partners.

The following was noted during the presentation:-

a)            Sport England introduced a new strategy on 1 April 2017.  One of the funding streams was called ‘Local Delivery’ which was a placed based fund.  10 local areas would be funded to implement local strategies for physical activities and sport.  There was £130m available for this funding stream and there was a particular focus on addressing physical inactivity and working with under-represented groups.   Sport England were not being prescriptive and were seeking genuine innovation and wanted to see a whole system approach in proposals put forward.

b)            The Council had formed a coalition with 4 professional sports clubs that had existing public community projects and engagement in community.  The coalition would provide leadership and oversight of project management as well as identify target communities and provide ‘needs’ information.

c)            Both local universities were engaged to provide support to the Expression of Interest and the bid preparation and would undertake research regarding interventions.

d)            A stakeholder workshop included membership from NHS, the 2 local universities, staff from the Council’s parks, active transport, leisure and public health services, community groups and Voluntary Action Leicester.  Other sports clubs and community groups would provide support and enable access and potential delivery of some initiatives.

e)            Sports England did not require well defined plans at his stage but wanted details of the prospective proposals to address the locally identified needs through engagement with community groups.

f)             The short term outcomes of after the first 2 years (2107-19) were expected to be:-

·         Development of evidence based plans.

·         Identification of priority audience groups and local challenges/goals.

·         Building deeper understanding of audience and needs.

·         Genuine engagement and consultation.

·         Change in ways of working to increase collaboration.

g)            It was already known that a third of the local population exercised for less than 30 minutes a week and Leicester’s performance was worse than many other places with similar characteristics.  The trend had changed little since 2012.  Surveys had shown that many were motivated to change their lifestyle and exercise regimes but felt there were numerous barriers preventing them from doing so.  If the right solutions could be found, there was a existing cohort of people who were willing to make a change.  There was good information on what people had identified as the barriers stopping them from changing their routines. These included:-

·         Too busy/no time – 42%

·         Ill-health – 17%

·         Work commitments – 17%

·         Laziness – 16%

·         Weather – 8%

·         Tiredness – 7%

·         Affordability – 5%

·         Disability – 4%

·         Nearness to facilities – 2%

·         Afraid of injuries – 2%

h)           The challenge was to normalise exercise and build it into people’s lives.  There were specific challenges around older people but lots could be done to achieve light exercise through swimming and GPs would need to be involved to inform patients of the exercises that were available.  Other exercise could also be provided by activities such as gardening or heavy house work.  Currently brisk walking was the most popular form of physical activity in the city (59%) compared with heavy house work (18%) gym/outdoor gym exercise (15%), Sports (12%) and jogging (12%) 

i)             Data collecting from schools indicated that 15% of primary pupils were exercising at the recommended levels and there were considerable variances across different areas in the city.   Promoting active travel by encouraging pupils to walk or cycle to schools could be an important means of encouraging further physical activity.

j)              There were many assets in the city and these needed to be developed as part of the strategy.  The use of social media and technology such as ‘fitbits’ could also be part of initiative to drive change.

k)            The sports sector was currently a growth sector for employment and local pilots could provide a useful source of intelligence on what we know already works or doesn’t.  Sustainability presented a real challenge in using existing assets differently and sport and leisure staff had an important role in getting over other messages on exercise to people. 

l)             Proposals would be based upon how many people locally needed to get up to the national average levels of exercise per week.

m)          Leicester already had initiatives such as the Active Leicester brand and the outdoor gyms programme was now fully installed and people were actively using these that didn’t normally go to gyms for exercise.

n)           The aims of the proposals were to increase physical activity in 20,000 people in Leicester over the next four years by:-

o   Supporting over 2,000 5-15 year olds and 5,000 people aged over 16 years to become active.

o   Helping over 2,000 5-15 years old and 11,000 people aged over 16 years to change from doing some activity each week to levels of activity recommended to maintain a healthy lifestyle.  

o)            The timescales for the process was:-

·         Workshops held during February and March and the Expression of Interest (EOI) had been prepared and submitted by 31 March 2017.

·         The  EOIs were being assessed by Sports England and the selection of partners for the 10 Pilot were expected to be announced on May 17 2017. 

·         Sports England would then work with the selected partners to prepare their detailed bids.  Should Leicester be successful, further discussions would need to take place with NHS partners to identify potential resources for the detailed bid.

AGREED:-

That the Expression of Interest be supported and a further report be submitted to the Board on the outcome of the initial assessments, if successful, proposals for developing the detailed bid.