Memorandum by Sport England (WP 34)
INTRODUCTION TO
SPORT ENGLAND
Sport England is responsible for providing the
strategic lead for sport in England to deliver the Government's
sporting objectives. Our vision is for England to be the most
active and most successful sporting nation in the world. Our mission
is to work with others to create opportunities for people to get
involved in sport, to stay in sport, and to excel and succeed
in sport at every level.
We develop the framework for the country's sporting
infrastructure and distribute Lottery funding to where it will
deliver the most value for sport. There are nine Regional Sports
Boards, focused on supporting delivery, with a remit to prepare
Regional Plans for Sport, develop partnerships, and secure and
target investment to make the greatest impact in local communities.
OVERVIEW OF
THE PUBLIC
HEALTH WHITE
PAPER
Sport England welcomes the Government's recognition
of the unique contribution that sport and active recreation can
make to deliver public health targets. The Chief Medical Officers
report in 2004 outlined the conclusive evidence supporting the
vital contribution that physical activity can make in both the
prevention and treatment of a range of diseases. We can no longer
ignore that those who are active have up to a 50% reduced risk
of developing many of the chronic diseases. In his report, the
CMO drew parallels with the smoking epidemic over the past 50
years and in his "Call for Action" asked government
to set in place "key strategies" to bring about similar
changes in physical inactivity. Many of the commitments set out
in Choosing Health are a positive step towards addressing this
and will help to make England a more active and healthier nation.
However, without proper resourcing and continued investment beyond
the White Paper there will be little change.
Sport England looks forward to working with
the Department of Health and other partners to effectively deliver
the physical activity commitments but to also continue to develop
and extend this important and previously overlooked area of work.
Sport England submission will focus on the physical
activity and sport related announcements set out within the Public
Health White paper.
Will the proposals enable the Government to
deliver achieve its public health goals? Are the proposals appropriate,
will be effective and whether they represent value for money?
MARKETING HEALTH
Sport England welcomes the recognition of the
need to better market health through a series of campaigns. It
is suggested that a physical activity related campaign either
developed as part of the obesity campaign or a stand-alone campaign
is prioritised as an early focus within the marketing health strategy.
An imaginative, consistent, sustained and well-funded multi agency
physical activity marketing campaign is needed drawing on the
lessons from past physical activity campaigns.
Sport England has been working with partners
to better market sport and physical activity. During the summer
of 2004, we ran a pilot campaign in the North East of England
called, "Everyday Sport—every body feels better for
it." Campaign messages and activities focused on promoting
sport and physical activity as a fun, healthy pastime, with the
intention of capturing the popular imagination and providing a
persuasive and achievable call-to-action. We welcomed the Department
of Health's involvement and support, which included part funding
the campaign's evaluation.
The evaluation has shown the campaign to be
a success in terms of raising awareness of the benefits of an
active lifestyle and has identified Sport England as an important
player in developing and delivering physical activity related
campaigns. The learning from the evaluation will help to inform
any future cross government national campaign which we are keen
to be involved with.
Recommendations for action:
— Government to fund a physical activity
campaign as a priority within the marketing health strategy.
— Government to invest in developing
a PR physical activity message, similar to the Five a Day message
that is easily understood by the general public.
— Physical activity campaign to build
on the lessons from the Everyday sport campaign run by Sport England.
— Provide links to Active Places through
Health Direct, enabling people to access information about the
opportunities.
CHILDREN AND
YOUNG PEOPLE
We welcome the priority given to children and
young people within the paper, in particular the Healthy Schools
Standard and the recognition of the importance of physical activity
within this initiative. Government has done much to address the
sporting needs of secondary and primary school children through
the PESSCL programme. However, more needs to be done to ensure
that a wide range of physical activity and sporting opportunities
are provided that are relevant to young people today and reflect
their choices and needs.
Recognition of the obesity epidemic through
the establishment of a cross government Obesity PSA has been a
very important step. However, the evidence base of what interventions,
both nutrition and activity based, have an impact for the under
11s is extremely sparse. Further investment needs to be made to
test out and evaluate creative approaches to inform effective
delivery. It is important not to delay action because of a lack
of evidence especially given the tight deadline of 2010. However,
nutrition and activity colleagues are beginning to work together
for the first time and we welcome the opportunity to work with
new partners to find innovative solutions.
Greater attention needs to be given to preschool
and primary school children particularly through supporting parents
to better understand the link between active play and a healthy
lifestyle. A stronger focus needs to be placed on developing young
children's physical literacy skills from a very early age. Sport
England is working with the Youth Sport Trust and other partners
to take forward physical literacy work and we have commissioned
Liverpool John Moores University to undertake a research and mapping
exercise of current physical activity initiatives for the under
11 age group to develop future physical literacy work.
Recommendations for action:
— Re: obesity PSA—commission
action research in the following areas: early year's provision,
the role of play, new approaches to delivering physical education
and school and community sport.
— Explore ways of supporting parents
to build activity into their childrens lives through for example
the development of a resource/hand book.
— Support and resource the proposals
coming out of the children's physical literacy research and mapping
exercise.
LOCAL COMMUNITIES
LEADING FOR
HEALTH
Sport England supports the recognition of the
vital role that Local Authorities play in promoting health within
their communities and the need for Local Authorities and Primary
Care Trusts to work more closely together especially through local
strategic partnerships and local area agreements. More however
needs to be done to forge closer partnerships between health and
sport/leisure through shared budgets and developing appropriate
structures at the local level possibly through physical activity
and health partnerships.
The White paper acknowledges that people face
many barriers to leading active lives such as poor quality environments
and access to sporting facilities. The paper however sets out
few proposals for addressing these problems, which will exacerbate
health inequalities for many communities.
Sport England welcomes the creation of the Physical
Activity Promotion Fund (PAPF) to support the roll out of targeted
evidence based community physical activity interventions. The
fund will build on the emerging learning from the Local Exercise
Action Pilot programme which is jointly funded with Sport England
and the Countryside Agency. It is clear that a creative route
for the delivery of the fund is required and that an outcome-focused
approach is adopted which responds to local needs and priorities.
Primary Care Trusts are not best placed to bring
together partners and lever in additional resources to make a
real difference on the ground. Building on our commitment and
role within the LEAP programme, Sport England would welcome the
opportunity to play a key roll in the management and delivery
of the fund through our existing Regional Sports Boards. The membership
of the RSBs reflect a broad range of stakeholders including the
Regional Directors of Public Health, local authority, the voluntary
and private sector players, who understand regional and local
needs for the effective delivery of community based work. The
Boards have a track record of levering additional regional and
local funding and we would welcome the opportunity to discuss
how together we might boost the current allocation with potential
matched regional funding.
The RSBs membership, role, capacity, expertise
and track record in investing in sport and physical activity interventions
provides an excellent delivery model for government to consider
adopting for the roll out of the Physical Activity Promotion Fund.
The development of the free swimming and PCT
and sport clubs guidance is welcomed although more resources need
to be earmarked to help implement the learning more widely.
Recommendations for action:
— Building on the Local Strategic Partnership
model to develop structures to address physical activity through
the creation of and strengthening of physical activity and health
partnerships.
— Sport England to play a key role
within the management and delivery of the Physical Activity Promotion
Fund.
— More specific proposals to be developed
to create safer and more activity friendly environments.
— Sport and physical activity to be
a core element of the community health initiatives outline in
the paper.
HEALTH AS
A WAY
OF LIFE
AND A HEALTH
PROMOTING NHS
Sport England welcomes the proposals to support
individuals in making the right decisions for their own health
through the creation of NHS health trainers. Physical activity
advise and support needs to be a core element of the role. Sport
England would welcome involvement in the development of core competencies
framework for developing the necessary skills for health trainers.
It is important for health trainers to link with existing services
being provided by the sport, leisure and exercise sector who are
promoting healthy lifestyles through physical activity.
Recommendations for action:
— SkillsActive and Skills for Health
to work together to develop the skills and knowledge required
by professionals promoting physical activity.
WORK AND
HEALTH
The workplace offers a significant potential
setting to promote healthy lifestyles as over half of the UK population
are currently in employment and it is estimated that individuals
may spend up to 60% of their waking hours in their place of work.
Sport England supports the commitments outlined to promote the
work environment as a setting for better health. We are seeking
to be an exemplar employer in terms of supporting staff to be
more active through for example the introduction of a healthy
lifestyle benefit, workplace challenges, free pedometers being
given to all staff and flexible working. We support the call for
the NHS to take the lead as examples of healthy employers.
We welcome the opportunity to work with other
government departments to provide advise on encouraging activity
within the workplace. The intention is to test out this service
in two or three key departments this year, potentially starting
and leading with the Department of Health The resource implications
of providing a free consultancy service needs further consideration
and we call on DH to provide some financial support towards the
delivery of this service.
We are working with the British Heart Foundation,
Department of Health and Business in the Community to create the
evidence base on promoting health and well being through the workplace.
An applied research programme called "Workplace Health"
is being developed. Nine regional pilots will be established during
2005 to test the effectiveness of health promoting interventions
in the workplace relating to physical activity and other lifestyle
behaviours such as diet and smoking.
We support the development of healthy business
assessments to be incorporated into the IIP standard to highlight
to employers and employees the benefits of investing health and
well being of staff. We encourage the Department to learn from
the experience of the Yorkshire region who are looking to test
out the development of a new work life balanced module to be incorporated
into IIP.
Recommendations for action:
— Department of Health to lead by example
as a healthy employer by taking advantage of Sport England's consultancy
service.
— DH to support the testing out of
a new physical activity/work life balance module to be included
into the IIP standard across the Yorkshire region.
DO THE
NECESSARY PUBLIC
HEALTH INFRASTRUCTURE
AND MECHANISMS
EXIST TO
ENSURE THAT
PROPOSALS WILL
BE IMPLEMENTED
AND GOALS
ACHIEVED?
Sport England believes that key to the realisation
of many of the commitments in the White paper is to radically
review the way that public health is planned and delivered and
to consider how best to capitalise on sport's contribution to
improving public health. It is crucial that an outcome-focused
approach is adopted, allowing local determination of priorities,
which reflect regional and local needs, capacity and resources.
A key requirement for the delivery of the national
framework is the need for the Department of Health to demonstrate
commitment and leadership, working more effectively across government
with a strong focus on prevention. DH needs to clarify the role
of the Activity Coordination Team (ACT) and take the lead in coordinating
the departments who share responsibility for physical activity.
We recommend that the core membership of ACT should be rationalised
to key delivery departments and agencies, with other bodies brought
in at appropriate times for specific areas of work.
It is vital that regional delivery is supported
and the commitment to create a regional physical activity post
in each region is welcomed. We would recommend from our own experience
in establishing a strong and vibrant regional structure that the
approach adopted is not overly prescriptive.
Much greater coordination and support for physical
activity initiatives is required at the local level. PCTs should
be given sufficient capacity to enable them to effectively adopt
a lead role in driving the local physical activity agenda, potentially
linked to Local Strategic Partnerships, as they need to work in
conjunction with delivery agents such as local authorities, sport
and leisure providers, social services, transport, environment
and education etc. The introduction of Local Area Agreements offers
significant opportunities for PCTs councils and other partners
to address improvements in the health of their communities.
Developing a local infrastructure that engages
all relevant partners and works in a joined-up way to support
the delivery of physical activity is likely to lead to the establishment
of local physical activity and health partnerships. There is a
strong case for linking these partnerships to Local Strategic
Partnerships and strengthening the role of LSPs. LSPs should be
seeking pooled budgets and joint commissioning for public health
issues such as physical activity. Delivery could then be co-ordinated
through LSPs having structures that address individual areas such
as physical activity.
More needs to be done to incentivise joined
up working at a local level by including physical activity in
appropriate performance assessment mechanisms. Sport England has
been working closely with the Audit Commission to build physical
activity targets into the Local Public Service Agreements and
Comprehensive Performance Assessments for local government. We
also hope to co-operate with the Department of Health and the
Healthcare Commission to develop physical activity criteria on
which PCTs could be performance managed.
Recommendations for action:
— Reduce the membership of ACT to the
key delivery departments and agencies.
— LSPs to develop structures to address
physical activity possibly through physical activity and health
partnerships.
— Additional resources to be deployed
to ensure that physical activity levels can be measured at a PCT
and local authority level to enable impact assessment.
— Develop physical activity criteria
against which PCTs can be performance managed.
January 2005
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