24 Accepted

While the Department plays the lead role in increasing physical activity, it told us other...

Recommendation
While the Department plays the lead role in increasing physical activity, it told us other government bodies also have responsibilities in this area: the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities leads on local sports facilities and leisure centres; the Department for Transport oversees the newly established body Active Travel England; the Department for Education leads on school sport; and the Department for Health and Social Care helps promote the role of physical activity for mental and physical health. Recognising this dependency, the 2015 Sporting Future strategy committed departments to work more closely together on delivery and funding of initiatives related to activity. However, by 2018, the Department had stopped publishing progress reports which held other departments to account for their progress against the cross-government objectives. Similarly, a cross-government Inter-Ministerial Group on Healthy Living only met four times between 2018 and 2019. The Department did not evaluate if its 2015 strategy achieved its objectives.38
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and is establishing a new measurement framework with Sport England to provide clear evidence of impact, which includes Sport England's new partner evaluation framework with six-monthly reports and DCMS exploring new data sources for real-time progress tracking, with a target implementation date of June 2023.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government Accepted
6.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: June 2023 6.2 Both DCMS and Sport England believe the barriers to getting active cannot be solved by the sport and physical activity sector alone. Both organisations are committed to working together to build greater collaboration from all parties to support more people to be active, including across government departments. This was evident in the recent joint announcement on school sport which committed to long-term funding for PE, an expectation of 2 hours of PE per week, and parity of PE provision for boys and girls. DCMS, the Department for Education and Department of Health and Social Care all contributed funding to this shared aim. 6.3 In recognition of this, Sport England has made a clear commitment in Uniting the Movement to influence change by connecting with health and wellbeing, creating active environments and creating positive experiences for children and young people. 6.4 Sport England’s partnerships with organisations within and beyond the sport and physical activity sector have played a critical role in increasing population activity levels over the past decade. 6.5 Sport England are working to broaden their network of system partners who they fund on a regular basis. From 2015 to 2022, Sport England increased its number of funded partners from 107 to 135 whilst investing project funding in thousands more. 6.6 DCMS is now working with Sport England to establish a new measurement framework that will provide clear evidence on the impact of Sport England's distribution of public money, whilst also evidencing better the contribution of specific funding interventions. 6.7 This will include working with Sport England who have introduced a new partner evaluation framework which tracks the impact of sector partners and provides six-monthly reports evidencing spend and impact. In addition to this, DCMS will look towards new sources of data which will allow DCMS to track the progress being made in tackling inactivity in real time. 6.8 These changes will improve DCMS’s understanding on what spending is proving effective and when it is appropriate to scale successful projects up. Equally DCMS and Sport England will also be able to identify when they are required to adapt in instances that projects are not succeeding.
Addressee Bodies
HM Treasury
Timeline
Recommendation age 3.6 yrs
Report published 08 Jan 2023