Tacking inactivity central to Sport England's 'Towards an Active Nation'

Tackling inactivity has become a reoccurring theme in Government rhetoric and features strongly in various strategies including Sporting Future and Everybody Active, Every Day. The latest is Sport England’s: Towards an Active Nation Strategy 2016:21. You can read an overview of our initial reaction to the Sport England strategy here, however, if you want a more in depth overview of the health elements then you’re in the right place.

Tackling inactivity

Sport England’s new strategy creates a helpful narrative as it wants to move the conversation on from a focus of proving being physically active is good for you, as this is now generally accepted. Instead, Sport England want to focus on making activities easy, practical and attractive, especially for people who do not tend to take part; women and girls, disabled people, older people and those in lower socio-economic groups.

It also highlights that ‘the biggest gains and the best value for public investment is found in addressing the people who are least active’. It is good to see that tackling inactivity is one of Sport England’s seven investment programmes, with a commitment of at least 25% of its resources over the next four years to this area, equating to over £250 million of investment.

In addition to this, Towards an Active Nation sets out what Sport England will do in this area:

·         Create a new, dedicated fund of £120 million to tackle inactivity over the next four years

·         Work with Public Health England to develop clear messages on the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines on physical activity and deliver a national sport and physical activity training programme to primary healthcare professionals

·         Develop a collaborative programme of work with leading health charities to get more people at risk of, or living with long-term conditions taking part in sport and physical activity

Sport England’s work will contribute to the KPIs identified in the Government’s Sporting Future strategy. Specifically in this area:

·         KPI 1: Increase the percentage of the population taking part in sport and physical activity at least twice a month

·         KPI 2: Decrease in percentage of people physically inactive

It’s also worth noting that physical and mental health wellbeing - two of the key outcomes in Sporting Future and therefore central to Sport England’s strategy - will also hopefully be evident under other themes within Sport England’s strategy, such as investing in children and young people and volunteering.

Opportunities for the sport and recreation sector

The Government and Sport England’s approach now revolves around investing in outcomes rather than who is delivering the activity. This opens the door to any organisation who can demonstrate it can achieve any of the five key outcomes of the Government’s strategy.

This provides a huge opportunity for the sport and recreation to build on the great work it already does around getting the inactive moving and improving physical and mental wellbeing.

Partnerships are looked on favourably by Sport England so this will hopefully help to build a collaborative environment, allowing for existing partnerships to continue and new partnerships to thrive.

The Alliance aims to support our members to engage with the health agenda (keep an eye out for a new resource coming soon!). We will also continue our work with Mind and the Professional Players Federation on the Mental Health Charter for Sport and Recreation.

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