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On Tuesday, I took part in a cross-sector forum on tackling antisemitism, convened by the Prime Minister at a time of increased violence, harassment and intimidation towards many Jewish people in the UK. 

Sport England was invited to the event at 10 Downing Street because the government wanted to understand what we are already doing to tackle antisemitism in our sector and where more urgent, concrete action is needed.  

The Prime Minister called it a “crisis” and urged us as sector leaders to “eradicate antisemitism from every corner of society”.

Leaders of Jewish organisations then gave examples of the treatment that individual Jewish people have recently faced.

In discussions that followed, chaired by our Secretary of State Lisa Nandy, I was clear that while Sport England stands with the Jewish community against any form of discrimination or abuse, sport can and must do more.

Sport's role in tackling racism

At Sport England we will continue to use our position to demand greater equity, equality, diversity and inclusion at all levels. 

Antisemitism is racism, and there is no place for hatred, harassment or discrimination against Jewish people, or any other group, in sport or society. We will always call it out, challenge it, and stand against it. 

Yet antisemitic incidents remain alarmingly high, the latest taking place only this week. Grassroots sport events and matches were among the examples given, where both children and adults have been subject to abuse because they are Jewish.

Almost half of all faith-based discrimination reported to Kick It Out in the last football season was antisemitic. That should concern all of us. 

What we’re doing 

At Sport England, tackling racism and inequality is fundamental to our role as a public body and as a leader within the sporting system. 

Over the last five years, we’re worked extensively with the other home nation sports councils to embed the long-term, system-wide changes recommended by the Race in Sport Review. 

But the discussions at Downing Street were a timely reminder that we must be explicit as well as consistent.  

While antisemitism is covered within our broader anti‑racism work, we recognise the need for deeper understanding, better evidence and clearer action. 

That’s why we’ve committed funding to research antisemitism and Islamophobia in sport, with a strong focus on lived experience.  

Too much of what we currently know is anecdotal. Listening directly to people affected is essential if we are to design the right interventions and support meaningful change. 

We’ve chosen to consider antisemitism and Islamophobia together because hatred doesn’t exist in silos. Jewish and Muslim communities both face rising abuse rooted in religious and racial discrimination.  

If we are serious about tackling racism, we must take a consistent, credible approach to tackling hatred in all its forms. 
 

As a funder of sport and physical activity in England, we’ll also continue to use our governance role to drive change.  

Through the Code for Sports Governance we developed with UK Sport, funded organisations are required to have robust diversity and inclusion action plans, backed by data, accountability and regular review.  

And we’ve committed additional resources to help partners turn their commitments into action. 

Alongside system reform, we continue to fund projects that support Jewish communities to be active in ways that are safe, inclusive and culturally appropriate, from community fitness spaces to swimming and wellbeing programmes. 

Backing words with action 

But funding alone isn’t enough. As I said at the forum, we won’t be silent on this subject and we will act. 

We’ll continue to speak out publicly and consistently when racism occurs.  

We will convene partners to shape and complete our research on antisemitism and Islamophobia in sport, and share the findings openly across the system, and we will work with colleagues in the arts and culture sectors with whom I spoke on Tuesday.  

Our sector can and should be part of the solution, but only if we’re willing to listen, learn and act with urgency. 

Hatred thrives in silence. Inclusion requires leadership. And stamping out all forms of racism, including antisemitism, is vital if sport is truly to be for everyone. 

Sport has the power to bring people together across communities, backgrounds and beliefs.

At No10 I used the example of the boys’ football team I coach as a place where lads and their families from all backgrounds come together to build relationships. And we know that sports teams, clubs and community groups all over England can do the same.
 

Children and young people today are creative, passionate, and full of potential.

Their energy and ambition feel hopeful in a world that often feels uncertain and unstable.

But they’re also facing new challenges: social media addiction, rising mental health concerns, climate anxiety.

In 2025, parents, teachers, and leaders across the country voiced concerns about a growing disconnect between online and offline life.

School absence is rising; wellbeing is worsening. And physical inactivity remains a stubborn problem: more than half of children aren’t active enough.

The inequalities are stark. Children from less affluent families are far less likely to be active than wealthier peers.

Girls remain less active than boys, and Black and Asian children are less likely to be active than White children.

If these trends continue at pace, we could be heading for a children’s health crisis within a decade.

The Youth Sport Trust’s (YST) Class of 2035 report warns that without robust action, we’ll see soaring screen time, rising obesity, disengagement from education, and more children diagnosed with diseases like Type 2 diabetes – a condition once almost exclusive to adulthood.

But this isn’t a story of despair, it’s a call to action.

And the good news? We are making progress - and 2025 was testament to this.

Promising Signs of Progress

In December 2025, Sport England data shows children’s activity levels are now at their highest since the first Active Lives Survey in 2018.

Half a million more children are meeting the UK Chief Medical Officers’ guideline of 60 minutes of activity a day compared to seven years ago.

That’s thanks to the incredible work of schools, clubs, and community organisations and the people that run them.

Government action has also been integral.

The National Youth Strategy can be a landmark moment, creating more opportunities for young people to connect offline - and sport has a huge role to play.

Its emphasis on being shaped by young people is vital: policy done with young people, not to them.

The commitment to halt the decline in PE and ensure at least two hours of reimagined PE each week is another big step forward, as is the ambition to increase access to enrichment activities.
 

The new PE and School Sport Partnerships Network can build on past progress.

Campaigns like Let’s Move from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and YST’s Inclusion 2028 programme (funded by the Department for Education) show what’s possible when national leadership meets local delivery.

Let’s Move is inspiring families to get active together.

Inclusion 2028 is empowering children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) to thrive through PE, school sport, and physical activity.

These initiatives prove that inclusive change is possible - and it’s already happening.

All this is happening against the backdrop Sport England’s £250m investment in place-based partnerships across more than 90 communities.

Why Movement Matters and Our Vision for 2026

Physical activity is often called the 'miracle cure' by medical experts - and for excellent reason.

It boosts physical and mental health, reduces stress and improves mood. And it’s a social salve too, helping to forge friendships and build connection across communities in the face of the polarising online world.

It’s also fantastic for people and the public purse; every £1 invested in community sport and activity generates over £4 for the economy and society.

School and community sport aren’t 'nice to have'; they’re essential for healthy development.

Research consistently shows us that active children are happier, more resilient and perform better at school.

And building good activity habits young is key for our country’s future health and wealth: active children are more likely to become active adults who enjoy better health, greater productivity and place less strain on the NHS.

That’s why we need to make movement easy and normal everywhere: in schools, communities, families, parks, and urban spaces.

This means working with partners beyond education, like UK Youth and community sport organisations, to embed activity into where young people live and socialise.

Sport England’s place partnerships have some fantastic examples of this happening from the ground up – from JU:MP in Braford to Move Together Blackpool.

Young people must be at the heart of this change. They want experiences that are fun and engaging; not just minutes of activity to be ticked off to hit targets.

Here’s what we think just some of the opportunities to achieve getting every child active in 2026 are:

• a return to longer school breaks to give children more time to move and play.
• increasing uptake of Always Active Uniform, building on new national guidance and making being active easier and more comfortable – particularly for girls and children with SEND.
• greater restrictions on social media use for children, to free up time and attention for real-world play.
• protecting the real-world places and spaces that children get active and play in
• advocate for child-first coaching: supporting coaches to give children and young people voice and choice in physical activity. The Play their Way campaign is a fantastic example of child-first coaching in action.  

By rethinking existing policy and being bold, we can create system-wide changes that deliver a healthier, happier future for every child.

Our Mission and Call to Action

Our mission is clear: to inspire a generation that loves to move by making physical activity and everyday movement a normal part of life - giving every child 60 minutes of PE, sport, and play every day.

This is a cornerstone of Youth Sport Trust’s Inspiring Changemakers, Building Belonging strategy and Sport England’s next phase of Uniting the Movement. Working with schools, communities and families, we will redouble our efforts to create experiences that build the foundations for an active life.

Together, we can create a future where every child and young person has the opportunity to move, connect and thrive through sport and physical activity.
 

The publication of Youth Matters, the Government’s first national youth strategy in 15 years, sets an important direction for how we support young people over the next decade.

For us at Sport England, it also reinforces a clear message: if we are serious about improving young people’s wellbeing, connection and opportunities, sport and physical activity must be central to that ambition.

This response is not simply a welcome of the strategy, but a statement of intent.

It sets out why Youth Matters is important to our work, what young people have told us they need, and how our sector can help turn the strategy’s ambitions into meaningful change in places and communities across the country.

What young people are telling us

The strategy reflects what young people themselves have been saying for some time.

Many feel increasingly socially isolated, are worried about their mental wellbeing and financial security, and want to feel safer and more connected in their communities.

Crucially, they are also clear about what would most improve their daily lives: access to affordable, welcoming recreational and leisure opportunities, and the support of trusted adults.

These insights matter.

They underline the importance of spaces where young people can come together in person, build confidence, develop relationships and feel a sense of belonging – particularly at a time when pressures on services, families and communities are growing.

Why sport and physical activity matter

Sport and physical activity are not a 'nice to have' in responding to these challenges.

They provide proven, evidence-backed ways to support young people’s physical and mental wellbeing, create positive relationships with trusted adults, and strengthen connection to community and place.
 

Our sector already delivers experiences that young people value: inclusive activities, strong role models through coaches and volunteers, and environments where young people can feel safe, welcomed and supported to be themselves.

When done well, sport and physical activity can be a powerful protective factor in helping young people thrive, not just cope.

Inequality remains a barrier

Youth Matters rightly highlights the need to halve the participation gap between disadvantaged young people and their peers when it comes to enriching activities.

This is an area where urgency is needed.

Our latest Active Lives Children and Young People survey shows that while overall activity levels are rising, stubborn inequalities remain.

Young people from the least affluent families are still the least likely to be active, and too often face barriers related to cost, access, safety and whether opportunities feel designed for 'people like them'.

Less than half of young people say they are happy with the activities and services in their local area, and even fewer feel those opportunities reflect their needs and expectations.

Addressing this must be a priority if the ambitions of the strategy are to be realised.

Alignment with Uniting the Movement

The emphasis in Youth Matters on putting young people and communities at the heart of decisions, shifting from fragmented to collaborative working, and empowering local delivery strongly aligns with our long-term Uniting the Movement strategy.

Our Place Partnership approach is already focused on tackling inequalities, working alongside local partners and investing in long-term, community-led solutions.

Youth Matters validates this direction and reinforces the importance of sustained, place-based action rather than short-term interventions.

Our commitment

Delivering the ambitions of Youth Matters will require coordinated action across Government, sectors and communities.

Sport England is committed to playing our part: working with partners nationally and locally to ensure sport and physical activity are accessible, affordable, welcoming and shaped by young people themselves.

By listening to young people’s voices, focusing on the places facing the greatest challenges and continuing to address inequality head-on, we can help ensure this strategy delivers lasting impact over the next decade.

We look forward to continuing to work with Government, the youth sector and partners across sport and physical activity to turn this ambition into action for young people.
 

On 26 November the Chancellor will deliver a much-anticipated budget.

In her pre-budget video message, the Chancellor has described the pressure on the NHS and the challenge of increasing growth, but among all the uncertainty, one thing is clear – finding the right package of measures will not be easy.

Against this backdrop, it feels timely to be publishing an update to our social value of sport and physical activity work. 

The new and expanded information shows what a positive force community sport and physical activity are.

A great cure with many benefits

The health and wellbeing benefits of sport and physical activity are well rehearsed and the UK Chief Medical Officers have previously described physical activity as the closest thing to a “miracle cure”, but based on the information we’ve published today, even that high praise seems to sell its value short.

Here are a few of the headlines from our latest data:

• Sport and physical activity are good for the nation’s wellbeing and health. In 2023/24, the wellbeing value of sport and physical activity was estimated at £107 billion, and it prevented over 3.3 million cases of non-communicable diseases or chronic health conditions ranging from depression to heart disease. 
• A more active nation means a more productive workforce. In 2023/24, £5.8bn of productivity losses due to morbidity were avoided due to sport and physical activity. 
• A more active nation saves the health care system money. In 2023/24, sport and physical activity saved £8bn in direct healthcare costs through disease prevention and reduced use of health services. 
• Community sport and physical activity is a net contributor to the public finances. In 2023, our sector generated tax revenue of £14bn for central government, compared with £2bn of public sector funding. This means community sport and physical made a net fiscal contribution of £12bn.

Furthermore, we know that sport and physical activity is a significant part of the economy. In fact, the Department for Culture Media and Sport’s 2024 Sport Satellite Account for the UK show that the direct contribution of sport and physical activity the English economy was £47 billion of gross value added and supports one million jobs.

So, from a public policy perspective, what’s not to like?!
 

The value of sport and physical activity is significant and wide-ranging but with the right support it could be even greater.

The information published today also includes our estimate of the social cost of inequality in sport and physical activity, that is the amount of social value we miss out on because some groups of people are less likely to be active than others.  

We estimate this to be £19.6bn a year.

Tackling inequality in sport and physical activity, and realising this value, is at the core of our long-term strategy, Uniting the Movement, so I’d like to end by paraphrasing the Chancellor: “I commend the value of sport and physical activity to the House.”

It’s been just over a month since the 10 Year Health Plan was published – a key milestone in the government’s commitment to create an NHS fit for the future.  

It’s taken me time to navigate the headline ambitions, shifts in language, structural implications and, critically, what this all means for physical activity. There are 160 pages to get through, after all… 

There’s lots to unpick and this post from the Medical Consulting Group includes a visual that usefully summarises the key points.

For patients, it’s a positive and empowering tone, underpinned by a digital revolution and receiving care closer to home.  

With Neighbourhood Health a cornerstone of the Plan and elected mayors playing a greater role in prevention, combined with Local Government Reorganisation and Devolution, this all presents big opportunities to align with Sport England’s investment into communities that need it most.
 

Since publication, much commentary has reflected that the Plan could have gone further in utilising physical activity’s preventative powers.

It’s true: the evidence and opportunity for impact at scale are significant. I have two glass-half-full thoughts on this:

1. This Plan feels like it goes further on physical activity than any previous national NHS/health strategy. Whilst we can go (much) further, this is progress to build upon.
    
2. Rather than considering ‘potential’ purely through physical activity’s reference, there are numerous levers throughout the Plan to capitalise upon. We’ve learned that framing physical activity’s role in supporting wider, shared outcomes is key – whether that be tackling health inequalities, preventing and managing multi-morbidity, falls/frailty or social isolation… the list goes on.
    

After a suicide bomber attacked concert goers at the Manchester Arena in 2017, it was plain that a change was needed in how we protected people visiting public spaces.

In particular, there was widespread agreement that security and safety wasn’t just a matter for the police and emergency services; event organisers and the venues they used had to have a larger role in prevention and planning.

That realisation led to the campaign for Martyn’s Law, which is currently going through Parliament.

Officially known as the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill, it will place a duty on premises and events to have security procedures in place to reduce the risk of harm if there’s an attack.

Some larger events and premises would need documented measures to reduce their vulnerability but it may well be some time before it fully comes into force as organisations and premises will need time to prepare.

As explained on ProtectUK – the dedicated website of the Home Office on counter-terrorism security information, training and materials – it will only directly apply to larger events and premises.

Yet we know that the people who want to do harm are just as capable of targeting small venues and small organisations.

Attacks on high-profile events or locations are getting harder to pull off, so how can we ensure people are protected everywhere they play, compete or train?

Luckily, we’re a society where voluntary associations have always taken responsibility to look after their people.

UK sports clubs and teams are exemplars of good practice in introducing safety and safeguarding protocols, and doing it with only the goodwill of volunteers to draw on.
 

At the National Counter Terrorism Security Office we have been developing simple and easy-to-follow tools that are intended to demystify the steps needed to make people safer.

As well as working with some of the country’s biggest sporting organisations with large security set-ups, we’re conscious that security and terrorism are often the last thing on the mind of a club secretary who has to organise coaches, book referees, sweet talk parents into overseeing the car park or finding someone to collect the weekly subs.

Few people probably want to worry about having a plan to stop an intruder with a knife or think through how to manage multiple casualties caused by a rogue vehicle, but they want to know that someone has thought about the risks and that there are procedures in place.

Those procedures may be as simple as making sure you know who is coming into the building, organising the car park to limit the risk of an attacker getting up speed in a vehicle or having a protocol for getting people to safety inside a clubhouse, the changing rooms or the equipment store.

Or they might just involve regular volunteers by asking them to do a short free online security-awareness course.

Working with security experts across Government, industry and a number of national bodies, we’ve built a number of free tools on the ProtectUK website that clubs and teams are welcome to use.

You’ll find advice and resources covering subjects including identifying risks, event safety and eLearning for staff and awareness posters.

And if you can’t find what you need on our website – please, tell us. If it means that people can go about their sport in safety, we’re listening.
 

They say time flies and while this is a cliché, it is one that’s undeniably true. 

It’s certainly the case when it comes to our Place Partnerships, because as we celebrate a year since we kickstarted our Place Expansion, a lot has happened!

Back in November 2023, our Place Expansion programme committed to investing £250 million of National Lottery and Exchequer funding into local communities across England in the following five years, to ensure those in greatest need were able to get active.

We've had a busy and positive year

In the past 12 months, and through this first phase of this Place Expansion, we’ve invested in 53 new places across England, partnering with 27 Active Partnerships and the dedicated organisations they work alongside.

From Swindon to Stoke-on-Trent, Blackpool to Brent and Walsall to West Norfolk, we’ve been partnering with key stakeholders in each of these places to establish what the local ambition and approach will be.

Our support will ensure all places across England will gain access to the tools, resources, learnings and capabilities to help them work more collaboratively and achieve the systemic change that is needed at a local level to address the barriers to getting people active. 

By galvanising the system in this way, we know we can bring about lasting and sustainable change to every part of the country.

Working together for local change

Since launching our place-based expansion last November, we’ve invested nearly £20m to help each of our place partners develop their individual approach.

This way of working – ground up and rooted in the needs of local communities – is contributing towards achieving a positive impact that we have not seen previously. 

We’ve seen that baking in physical activity into local, long-term strategic and policy commitments is a key solution to driving change within wider outcomes such as health, environmental sustainability and community cohesion.

Take Exeter as an example.

They have embedded our Active Design principles into their Liveable Exeter strategy –  a 20-year housing plan – by which they will build 12,000 homes where giving people chances of being physically active are at the front and centre of those developments.

We’re also seeing greater connection and collaboration amongst partners within a place than we’ve ever seen before.

At the end of September, the Greater Manchester Memorandum of Understanding brought together the combined authority, integrated care partnership, the transport, voluntary and community sectors, leisure providers, the GM Moving Active Partnership and Sport England. 

Through this collaboration, we will see resources aligned to support the integration of physical activity and sport at the highest decision-making levels in the city and region. 

And within these communities, we are seeing that this work is contributing towards positive signs of inequalities reducing and the inactivity gap closing. 

The contribution of the work and the focus of partners in Greater Manchester has seen year-on-year reductions of inactivity levels in children and young people and, for the first time, this is lower than the national average.

Meanwhile, in Pennine Lancashire, direct engagement and collaboration with the Muslim community has seen over 5,000 young people increase their daily activity levels through the Active Madrassahs programme.

More positive change to come

Impact like this is being felt up and down the country and this work really does speak for itself with a robust message: together we are stronger. 

Our Place Partnerships will see us work in every corner of the country, partnering with organisations in areas that face the biggest barriers to a more active life. 

Together we will create lasting change within the communities that need it most to ensure that more people can live active and healthier lives for longer.

So, looking forward to reaching new places in the next year and to keep celebrating across the country.
 

World Mental Health Day brings a welcome opportunity to shine a light on mental health awareness.

With mental health issues on the rise, action is needed now.

But how can we deliver this change through a system that, as outlined by the Darzi report, is on its knees after years of neglect?

This is the genuine challenge that the Government and policymakers face, and while work on the future of the NHS continues, I believe we still have an incredible opportunity – through sport and physical activity – to deliver real change for mental health outcomes.  

Earlier this week I sponsored a roundtable meeting in Parliament which focused on the role of physical activity in supporting improved mental health – and how the healthcare system can do more to support people to be active as part of their treatment. 

The evidence shows that being active has a profoundly positive impact on mental health. New research from an upcoming Sport England report has found that in 2022/2023, 1.3 million cases of depression were prevented through active lifestyles.

And being active can save our services money too; the report also calculated that reduced mental health service usage, thanks to sport and physical activity, saved £780 million. 

The annual Active Lives Survey demonstrates a clear positive link between activity levels and mental wellbeing.

While some activity is good, more is better.
 

Adults with higher wellbeing scores and without a diagnosed mental health condition are more likely to be active than others.

In fact, nearly two thirds of people (65%) without a mental health condition are active – but just over half (53%) with a mental health condition are active. 

The NHS, despite the challenges it faces, remains a deeply trusted organisation; more than half of adults say they look to the NHS for advice on how to be active.

Our health system and the dedicated people that run it is uniquely placed to support and encourage people to be active, and to empower them to enjoy better mental health.

In fact, nearly all (99%) of NHS Talking Therapy staff – those at the forefront of helping patients – say physical activity is important in improving outcomes for people with common mental health conditions, like anxiety. 

So, what can the healthcare system do to improve mental health?

As was done in Parliament yesterday, with a cohort of experts and leaders coming together, better connecting the health system with the sport and physical activity sector is a welcome start. 

From there, we can build meaningful change.

Every interaction with the health system should be seized upon as an opportunity to encourage people experiencing poor mental health to be active. 

We can train clinicians to routinely talk about physical activity within their practices and connect community exercise and activity groups with local health services – particularly in communities that are more like to report poor mental wellbeing. 

We can prioritise and integrate physical activity within mental health prevention and treatment pathways and plans, making it as important as other forms of intervention.

We can encourage and normalise active working cultures so that everyone has the opportunity to be active in their daily life.

When I was a junior doctor, I developed a passion for keeping people well.

When my colleagues were interested in mending a broken bone, I wanted to know how we could stop it breaking in the first place. 

We do not have to accept poor mental health as inevitable.

More movement, more often, to protect mental health from being broken, is my priority as an MP and I will do all I can to deliver this.
 

While England’s men came up short in their quest to bring home the Euros trophy, the competition was a fantastic reminder of the power of sport to unite and inspire us. 

And with the Olympic and Paralympic Games days away, it’s a brilliant summer to be part of sport in this country.

It’s vital though, that we see this as part of a much bigger picture – and I have been heartened to see how much of the government’s response to the football has focused on grassroots and community opportunity.  

Collectively, we must continue to break down the barriers that still exist for too many when it comes to playing sport and being active.

State of the nation

Our latest Active Lives survey found that nearly two thirds of adults meet the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines for physical activity. There are 2 million more adults getting active regularly than there were in 2016.  

That is great news, but certain groups are still more likely to be inactive, like disabled people, people on lower incomes and people from diverse communities.  

People. When I think about sport and physical activity, my mind is always on the people that are supporting others to be active.

That might be a coach, a friend, a lifeguard or perhaps a receptionist that sets you on your journey to accessing a class.

Without them, sport and physical activity could not happen.

No more acutely was this so than during the Coronavirus pandemic and the passion of millions of people that enabled sport and physical activity to return; a passion that remains to this day among those who continue to give up their time and/or dedicate their careers to help others be active.

Celebrating the positive trends

The latest data around the workforce from the newly released Workforce Insight report from CIMSPA, UK Coaching’s ‘Coaching in the UK’ report and our very own Active Lives report, are all showing shoots of positivity, such as an increase in trust and confidence of coaches and a strong demonstration of the transferable skills developed by working in our sector.

Through all of these we are seeing the number of people involved in volunteering, coaching and employment through sport and physical activity recovering and, in some cases, even beginning to grow.
 

This gives us some confidence in the effectiveness of the government’s retention schemes through the pandemic and the impact of the re-training and deployment efforts that were so central to supporting the workforce in being able to deliver again.

Key to all of this was our investment; Retrain to Retain, which we used to support CIMSPA, EMD UK and UK Coaching to minimise the loss of the skills and experience needed as we moved people from lockdown to recovery and movement.

It is encouraging to see that increased emphasis on skill development. But whilst there are common skill sets, we need to increase our understanding and support of the different abilities and talents required for different roles, and how these manifests themselves within a place.

This very much aligns with taking a place-based and community-led approach to enabling sport and physical activity to happen, as they ensure the workforce has the right skills and opportunities to answer its local needs.

This is something that is at the very core of our commitment within our long-term strategy, Uniting the Movement, but it’s also critical in our recent investment into CIMSPA with the establishment of the Local Skills Hubs, driven by local organisations and the workforce.

The challenges ahead

We are still seeing a real lack of diversity within the workforce, showing that we still have some way to go in our ambition to be truly reflective of society and the places in which we live and work.

Commitment to change means taking action and recruiting more people from diverse and under-represented backgrounds into senior and management roles, as this will contribute towards our mission to encourage more of the population to move more.

The lack of diversity across age, gender, disability and ethnicity is also more acute among occupations in our sector than those across the wider UK economy.  

For example, 13% of the sport and physical activity workforce report having a disability, compared with a national average of 16% across all occupations, and 87% are white British compared to 77% of all occupations.

While the report recommends building better talent-retention strategies and clearer career pathways, these efforts need to be looked at through the lens of the lived experiences of people under-represented in our workforce so we can understand and respond to the specific challenges they face.

We must also guard against complacency when it comes to the millions of sports coaches who provide activity sessions for others.

Our own consultation with coaches and instructors across the sector showed worrying signs of a workforce that is feeling undervalued, overwhelmed, demotivated and unsupported by the increased demands of their role.

We need to provide better support while, at the same time, ensuring every coach can be properly identified as being ‘safe to practice’.

Put simply, we must collectively make a stronger effort to engage, involve and empower more people, from more places, to be part of the workforce and make the space much more open and accessible to all.

From all of this, I have hope that we are moving in the right direction and that shoots we see now can soon blossom.

But we cannot take the sport and physical activity workforce for granted and we must ensure we give great experiences, support, opportunities and recognition to all of those that enable others to be active.
 

One year ago, all eyes were on Birmingham.

The city kicked off a spectacular 10 days of sport and culture with an opening ceremony at the newly refurbished Alexander Stadium in Perry Barr.

Sport England invested £35 million into the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games as part of our commitment in Uniting the Movement – our 10-year strategy – to tackle inactivity inequalities. 

Now, as we look back at this momentous occasion, we reflect on the progress we have made in delivering on our ambition with a list that, while may not be exhaustive, will help to highlight a series of areas and examples of how our funding is being used to create new opportunities for people to be more active.

More than infrastructure

Substantial funds were allocated to enhance facilities, talent, volunteering and grassroots initiatives, and through them Sport England has played a pivotal role in laying the groundwork for a more active and healthier region and nation.

Our investment of £2.5m has supported the development of a brand-new state-of-the-art aquatics centre which was designed and built to meet the needs of the residents in and around Sandwell, whilst providing an iconic regional asset.

It was this sense of place and the importance of working at that level, evidenced in our local delivery pilots, that drove the creation of our substantive community-focussed programme - the Commonwealth Active Communities (CACs).

The CACs are four place-based programmes, made up of a consortia of organisations in Birmingham, Coventry and Solihull, and a collective approach by the four Black Country authorities of Dudley, Wolverhampton, Walsall and Sandwell.

Each place identified its strategic and local needs and developed an approach to tackle inactivity and inequalities via physical activity, through the principles of co-production, collaboration, distributive leadership and a commitment to learning and sharing outcomes.

Across the four places, activity focussed on young people, active environments (including streets, parks and canals), inclusivity and disability, walking and cycling, social prescribing, care homes and mental health.

These elements are now the focal point for other services and organisations for us to connect with, and the programmes and tools developed have added to our learning and informing our future place-based work.

Regarding the nurture of grassroots sports participation on the back of the Games, we focused on the above-mentioned CAC principles and invested £6.5m into the 22 Games national governing bodies of sport.

The aim? To use the Games to amplify opportunities for underrepresented communities to get active and to enjoy the benefits of sport and physical activity.

Some examples of these efforts include:

• British Wrestling - they used their allocated funding to support the appointment of two locally trusted women as legacy leads to head female activation sessions to highlight the barriers women often face in sport, and to further support clubs and groups to challenge these, providing more opportunities for women and girls from culturally diverse backgrounds to be active.
   
• England Athletics - they have developed their Funetics scheme, delivered through engaging with locally trusted organisations and services to better connect with local communities, like with the share shacks I mentioned earlier. Through this connection, the group have provided equipment bags, resource cards and training for community members to use in parks and festivals to engage with families.

With the backing of government, we also distributed around 16,000 items of sporting kit used in the Games, which benefitted 290 community organisations.

This giveaway helped foster a sense of diversity, equality, ownership and involvement and it provided opportunities for people of all abilities from a diverse range of communities.

Beyond the Games

Looking past the immediate benefits of the £870m boost to the UK economy, our investment in Birmingham 2022 has made an impressive impact through initial evaluation.

As we celebrate the one-year-one milestone, it is important to recognise that the journey is far from over.

The impact of the Games and our investment continues to evolve, with ongoing efforts to engage communities, develop talent and promote physical activity nationwide.

Our commitment to fostering a healthier and more active nation remains, serving as an inspiration for future major events and further place-based working.

We want to celebrate but also acknowledge the dedication, hard work, and collaboration that has gone into creating lasting change.

As we move forward, the profound impact of our investment will continue to inspire and shape the future of sports participation, community engagement and overall wellbeing in Birmingham and beyond.
 

In 2015, Sport England introduced a new survey – Active Lives – designed to measure the number of people meeting the new Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines for physical activity.

Between 2015 and 2019 Active Lives showed that, until the beginning of the pandemic, the number of active people continued to rise – with those doing at least 150 minutes of sport and physical activity a week increasing by 1.1m.

The trouble is, this upward movement was anything but universal across our communities and the inequalities that existed in 2012 have remained stubbornly there over the past decade.

The positive is that we now know why that is – and more importantly, how to address it.

Part of which involves the evidence from 2012 telling us that hosting major events alone is not enough to drive a legacy of long-term national behaviour change.

Legacy from big events comes instead from working hard to create the right opportunities and conditions for that to happen.

It requires time, patience, and a deep understanding of the barriers an individual or community might face.

Simply put, it requires more than building wonderful facilities or watching incredible athletes and assuming people will start being active on the back of that.

Above all else, it requires we as sport bodies breaking down the barriers we know to exist, particularly when those very barriers are especially high for groups such as disabled people, those from diverse communities, and those from areas of deprivation.

Our research shows us that affluence and activity levels are closely linked; the wealthier you are, the more active you’re likely to be.

That’s why our 10-year strategy Uniting the Movement primarily focuses on tackling stubborn inequalities in activity levels by targeting our resources and support to those that need more help to be active, and meeting people where they’re at. 

And our approach to the Commonwealth Games is the same. We have invested £35 million of National Lottery and government funding into B2022, with a priority being creating inclusive and affordable local opportunities for people to get active.  

And we’re doing this by working with grassroots organisations who know what the barriers are to getting active for their communities – and how they can be overcome.

Birmingham 2022 offers the opportunity for us to reframe what the true legacy of a major sporting event could and should be.

First and foremost, this means tackling the known inequalities to make it easier for everyone in society to participate at the grassroots.

It was Tanni-Grey Thompson who said ‘everyone has the right to be rubbish at sport’, and while I love watching our very best athletes deliver on the biggest stages, I’d love nothing more than to see the everyday participant thrive.

That truly would be legacy in action.
 

We could say we were inspired by figuring out new ways of learning. But that would be a lie.

For the most part we were inspired by what we read and the shared ideas that came out of our conversations about the reading.

Gradually, and without a plan to do so, these shared ideas were committed to paper, and eventually formed the report we release today.

Our primary conclusion is that we can learn as much, if not more, from our mistakes as from our triumphs, if indeed there are any triumphs.

While we aren’t paid to make mistakes; they do happen. But we are paid to be clear about our choices in making decisions regarding public expenditure.

Clarity about decisions will result in transparency about mistakes. If the mistakes are going to be reported, we had better learn from them.

The learning, by default, becomes as important as the outcomes we are trying to achieve. 

Our report is short and sure. The reality of life is more complicated. That much is clear from the series of podcasts and blogs we will be releasing over the next four months to accompany the publication.

Our hope is you will read, listen and reflect. Write to us and tell us what you think at: [email protected] or on social media using #HowToBeWrong. 

If there is sufficient interest, we may reconvene one more time to reflect on what has been learned.

If not, we may deduce that our ideas, like so many others, are simply wrong.
 

This investment also includes the funding of our Places and Spaces programme across the West Midlands, working with Crowdfunder to support community organisations to raise funding for important community projects.

But as well as inspiring the people and communities of the West Midlands to get active, more importantly we want to work to keep them active.

We are directly investing £3m into a Commonwealth Active Communities programme in the Black Country, Coventry, Birmingham and Solihull.

This investment will put communities at the heart of local action, supporting people to move more on a daily basis where they live. 

There’s no one size fits all approach so, if we want this to be a lasting and meaningful legacy, we must ensure we cater our approach to meet local needs.

That is why we are talking, and more importantly listening, to communities, grassroots organisations, local sports clubs, volunteers and other partners to understand their priorities, what works and where investment is most needed.

We are also investing in the next generation of talent to help national coaches and athletes of the future, with a particular focus on talent from backgrounds that are historically under-represented, so the sport sector and our national teams better reflect British society.

This is also an opportunity to support more children and young people to get active, which is why we’ve invested £4.4m into the School Games.

This will go towards engaging with and encouraging more children to get involved in the School Games, offering a wider range of physical activity by providing extra resources for schools, as well as supporting the national finals to take place in 2022.

With a little over six months to go and our legacy work already well underway, the Commonwealth Games brings with it a real opportunity to both celebrate the now and build for the future.
 

Lastly, NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSEI) is coordinating a deployment service, for anyone holding an active registration with a clinical registration body, directly to vaccination services. If you’re interested in providing assistance as a healthcare professional then you just need to complete the expression of interest form.

Once completed, a NHSEI Improvement regional team member will get in touch to discuss your deployment, and healthcare professionals will also be entitled to more paid volunteering hours.

I know that so much has already been asked of us over the past 20 months, and I’m proud of the work our sector has done to help keep people active during this time.

If you can still offer some assistance now, in another time of need, we can limit the impact of Omicron and hopefully get back to doing what we do best – keeping people active and moving – sooner rather than later.
 

Together, these findings from Moving Communities demonstrate why we must reflect on both the challenge and the opportunity.

We cannot just reopen facilities and expect a full recovery, we must change how we and others invest in them to deliver services that are relevant and accessible.

That is why we were privileged to convene several discussions with our sector in recent weeks to review Moving Communities’ findings and expand on the thinking demonstrated by new reports like the ‘Securing the future of public sport and leisure services’ report produced by the Association of Public Service Excellence, the Local Government Association and Chief Leisure Officers Association, as well as ukactive’s ‘Decade of Change for Public Sector Leisure’ and Swim England’s ‘A Decade of Decline’.

Our sector shares a vision of facilities for sport and activity that drive health and wellbeing within each neighbourhood and is developing ambitious new plans to tackle inequality, support climate targets and level up in our communities.

To safeguard the future of public leisure with a renewed sense of purpose at its heart, we’ve found a strong appetite for collaboration among local authorities, leisure operators, community sport organisations and others to develop new thinking and products, leadership skills and advocacy we’re committed to supporting.

In response, my colleagues and I have been proactive, outlining this vision to government to help inform decisions in their upcoming spending review.

Early in the new year we also hope to publish detailed findings from our work during the pandemic, alongside a unified vision for the future of public leisure that delivers sport and activity’s potential to transform the lives of people and communities.

It will be a key part of how we make Uniting the Movement a reality.

In the future, these services won’t always look the same as they have in the past, and nor should they.

But going forward, I know the Moving Communities platform will help local leaders and champions of sport and activity to not just recover public leisure, but to remake it for their communities.