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Analysis has recently been completed which models participation rates at middle layer super output area (MSOA). Active People already provides participation at a local authority level but in recognition that local authority areas are not homogenous and that there will be variation within a local authority, it was decided to model participation down to smaller areas.

What are Middle Super Output areas?

Super Output Areas (SOA) were developed as an alternative to Wards for calculating small area statistics. Unlike Wards and other smaller geographies, all SOA represent a similar number of people allowing for comparability across smaller geographic areas.

There are three levels of SOA; Lower, Middle and Upper layers. For this project, it was decided to use MSOA (Middle layer) information to produce smaller area statistics.

There are 6,780 MSOA in England, each with a mean population of 7,200 people. For each MSOA, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) provides data on a wide variety of topics including educational attainment, housing, crime and deprivation. Further information can be found on www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk.

Why has Sport England produced small area estimates?

Local Authorities are not homogeneous areas.  Within their boundaries are groups of people with differing social and economic characteristics.  These characteristics impact on sports participation.  Therefore the assumption can be made that within Local Authorities participation levels will vary.  This has implications for the prioritisation of resources and investment decisions throughout the Delivery System and particularly within Local Authorities and Community Sports Networks (CSNs). However, the smallest geography which the Active People survey can accurately measure participation in sport and active recreation is at Local Authority level. Below this geography, the number of responses is too small to produce reliable figures. One solution to this is the production of “estimates” at smaller geographies.

Outputs for this piece of work are available to dowload in PDF format and show small area estimates by County Sport Partnership and Local Authority for each region. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat visit the Adobe website to download the latest version.

To view maps for your area, click Here

For detailed information on how to interpret the maps, click here

To read more about how the maps were created and for further information on the modelling process, access the link below:

www.sportengland.org/research