Skip to content

Place Need Classification

The Place Need Classification supports our investment decision-making for our Movement Fund and our Place Partnerships.

What's the Place Need Classification?

The Place Need Classification was created to identify the places where investment in sport and physical activity can have the greatest impact. 

It combines physical activity data from our Active Lives Surveys, as well as wider social data including the index of multiple deprivation (IMD), community need and health inequalities data to help us understand the needs of an area. 

This classification considers two key types of need: 

  • sport and physical activity need – Areas where people are less active and inequalities in participation are high. 
  • social need – Areas where health, wellbeing, and economic outcomes are poorer, meaning that increased activity could have the greatest benefits. 

Geographic and age considerations 

The classification identifies need at: 

  • local authority level – where a general level of need exists across a local authority

  • neighbourhood level – where specific pockets of need exist within local authorities

  • adults (16+ years) and children and young people (5-15 years). 

Place Need Classification in action

The Place Need Classification supports our investment decision-making for our Movement Fund and our Place Partnerships. 

Movement Fund

Within the Movement Fund we particularly welcome applications from projects located in, and supporting, places that are in the first quartile of the Place Need Classification.

Learn more about our Movement Fund

Supporting our investments

Building on insights from the 12 Local Delivery Pilots (LDPs) and other place-based initiatives, we're expanding our approach – investing up to £190 million of National Lottery and Exchequer funding into 80 new places across England. 

The Place Need Classification has been incorporated into our methodology to support the data-informed identification of priority places.

The approach to expanding our Place Partnerships has taken place over two phases: 

  • The methodology that was applied to identify the 53 places in phase one can be found here. 
  • Information on phase two – building on phase one methodology, will be shared in the near future.

Place Partnerships

We've also produced a set of Place Needs Assessment resources to help organisations explore how the Place Needs Classification and Inequalities Metric can be used to identify inequalities in sport and physical activity.

Place Need Assessments

Inequalities Metric

Data overview

The tables in the Appendix of the below document provide an overview of the individual data sets currently used within the Place Need Classification. 

The Place Need Classification dataset is available here.

  • Data considerations

    It's important to note that data sources differ in nature and this will affect how we best utilise them to identify places of greatest need. 

    Each source of data has been judged and selected based on the following criteria: 

    • Relevance – the data sources selected are, based on current understanding, the most relevant measures to understand sport and physical activity need and social need. 
    • Data quality/coverage –  we'll use high-quality data that has representative England-wide coverage. 
    • Direct estimates, modelled/inferred estimates and proxy measures – we'll identify places of greatest need based on direct estimates, supplemented with high-quality, modelled data where it can provide a useful, more detailed picture. Proxy measures will be used to provide context and more detailed description. 
    • Geographic detail – most of the data we'll use is available at local authority level. This aligns well with the ecosystem for delivering sport and physical activity in a place. However, in some instances, we've access to data at a more local level (MSOA, LSOA). This can be used to identify specific ‘pockets’ (neighbourhoods) of need, within wider local authority areas, that might otherwise get overlooked. 
    • Timeliness – in most instances we have used the most recent available data. However, datasets are published and updated at different times and intervals.
    • Indices – indices are data sources that themselves draw on a range of data and have made judgements about what to include/exclude, how to rank that data, and how to weight each source of data to provide the basis for an overall assessment. These indices generally reflect a large amount of effort by leading experts and agencies in the relevant field of public policy (e.g. Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the Office for National Statistics). As such, it's considered reasonable to accept the domains and measures, formulae and weighting they've selected. 
     Read less

  • Maintenance of the Place Need Classification

    The current classification reflects our assessment of the best available data upon which to identify places of greatest need and how it's most appropriately applied. 

    Our understanding will be dynamic, developing and improving over time. The classification will be updated as quickly as is practically possible when new data becomes available. This will be reviewed at regular intervals and may include: 

    • When new 24-month Active Lives datasets become available 
    • Updates to other datasets used in the classification 
    • As other datasets are updated or become available (e.g. Census outputs, new measures/indices of sport and physical activity or social need).
     Read less

Frequently asked questions

  • How were the measures chosen?

    We selected measures that directly inform the classification and reflect areas of greatest sporting and social need.

    Other datasets, like attitudes, can be used alongside this framework.

     Read less

  • What are the key components?

    The Place Need Classification identifies priority areas using data at local authority and MSOA levels.

    It includes adult and child activity need and social indicators like IMD, the Health Index, and the Community Needs Index. The Place Need Classification dataset is available here.

     Read less

  • Why use deciles in the analysis?

    Deciles allow fair comparisons across areas.

    We often highlight decile 1 (greatest need), but users can adapt the threshold.

    The supporting data files allow flexible analysis to suit local priorities.

     Read less

Sign up to our newsletter

You can find out exactly how we'll look after your personal data, but rest assured we’ll only use it to make sure you receive our newsletter, to understand how you interact with our newsletter, and to provide administrative information about our newsletter.