Written evidence submitted by ukactive

Executive summary:

• ukactive and DataHub research has found that community leisure in the UK contributes at least £3.3bn in social value based on data from over 1.8 million people across 651 leisure facilities over the past two years
• ukactive’s Let’s Get Moving programme has supported 77.3% of its 4,353 participants to increase their physical activity levels – this has led to significant physical and mental health benefits
• ukactive and Sport England have called for the roll-out of community wellness hubs to enable people to access personalised physical activity interventions – existing wellness hubs have had a huge impact on the health and wellbeing of the communities they serve
• ukactive and partners are running a national project to give disabled people better access to physical activity opportunities – six major leisure operators have signed up to this scheme
• ukactive and a major corporate partner are working on a summer programme in 50 schools to pilot a new initiative that targets physical inactivity in the summer holidays, concerns over holiday hunger, learning loss, personal development and mental health in young people. This is based on research which shows that schoolchildren are losing 80 per cent of fitness gained during term time through ‘inactive summer holidays
• ukactive has called for the roll-out of the Workout from Work initiative - a salary sacrifice scheme that employees could use to purchase gym memberships or home activity equipment. An independent cost-benefit analysis estimates it will generate a benefit-to-cost ratio of over 2.6 to 1, and offer the NHS annual costs savings of £210m by 2021.

Introduction to ukactive:

1. ukactive is the leading not-for-profit health body that supports its four thousand members and partners across the UK to get more people, more active, more often.  These include physical activity and fitness operators, equipment suppliers, children’s activity providers, and the third sector - who in sum represent thousands of facilities, employ tens of thousands of activity professionals and deliver activity to millions of people every year.
    
2. ukactive champions the fun, enjoyment and benefits of being active, and campaigns to raise the profile of physical inactivity to policy makers.  Following the publication of ‘Sporting Future’, the government’s strategy for sport and physical activity, ukactive has been working closely with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Sport England, and other relevant stakeholders to collect insight and develop evidence-based policies to realise the strategy’s ambition to create an active nation.
    
3. Last year, ukactive launched ‘Physical Activity: A Social Solution’, which harnessed data from public leisure facilities to quantify the vast impact that activity has on our broader society.  The social value of physical activity stretches across improving our health, our subjective wellbeing, increasing our academic attainment, and reducing crime – and more besides.  Our data confirms physical activity contributed over £3 billion of social value to the UK economy in 2017, and this captures only a fraction of its real impact.
    
4. This report was critical – change requires evidence. To truly tackle inactivity in the UK and promote the social value of physical activity, we need to provide evidence to quantify best practice and grow effective interventions. This is why ukactive has a solid foundation of academic research – completed by the ukactive Research Institute- to inform our policy position. This is also why ukactive has delivered two iterations of the Promising Practice programme - reviews which rigorously examined over 1,000 physical activity interventions to provide important insight into what works in getting people more active, and to encourage activity providers to embed evidence into their programmes.
    
5. The UK is currently grappling with a wide range of political questions: how can we guarantee the sustainability of an over-stretched health and social care system?
    
6. How can we engage with isolated individuals?
    
7. How do we protect the future health and wellbeing of children, in the context of an inactivity and obesity crisis?
    
8. Physical activity is a golden thread which can offer solutions to each of these issues. We would welcome an opportunity to meet with representatives from the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee at your earliest convenience so we can support you with work in this area.

Which programmes best demonstrate the positive social impact that participating in sport and culture can have on the five central themes of this inquiry?

9. ukactive passionately believes that physical activity has a social impact. This consultation response outlines the powerful evidence that ukactive has collected demonstrating physical activity’s impact, as well as a range of policies and case studies that outline how it can be promoted in practice.

Research:

10. A recent ukactive and DataHub report ‘Physical Activity – A Social Solution’ has found that community leisure in the UK contributes £3.3bn in social value[1]. This research used the social value calculator, a tool developed by Sheffield Hallam University and partners, and takes into account improved health, reduced crime, increased educational attainment and improved life satisfaction (subjective wellbeing).
     
11. This report draws on data from over 1.8 million people across 651 leisure facilities over the past two years, and looks at the impact of public leisure on wider society, including calculating the social value of specific activities. Key findings show that:
     

• Swimming provided almost a quarter of a billion pounds (£229 million) in social value in 2017, the most of all activities taking place in leisure centres, which was closely followed by fitness (£202 million).
• At an individual level, members of leisure facilities generate greater social value (£431) than casual users (£424).
• Frequent members (visiting 4+ times a month for 9-12 months in the last year) generate over £1,000 more Social Value per person than infrequent members.
• As an activity, Group Workouts provide the highest social value per person at £431 each year.
• Football is the activity which has by far the largest social impact on education and crime.
• Golf and Group Workouts are the two activities with the largest social impact on health and wellbeing.
• The overall Social Value generated by the 651 sites has increased by £49 million over the last year[2].
   

12. The findings of this report are supported by further ukactive research. In 2017 ukactive worked with Precor and Scottish Student Sport to survey 5,178 Scottish students to examine how much physical activity students were doing, and what impact this had on their everyday lives, specifically looking at attainment, employability, personal wellbeing, mental wellbeing and social inclusion.
     
13. Key findings include:
     

• A higher proportion of active students (93%) than inactive students (81%) expected to achieve a high grade
• The student group with the highest percentage expected to achieve high grades was those who were members of gyms and sports clubs (92%)
• 47% of students believed participating in physical activity would increase their employability quite a lot
• A higher percentage of active students (64%) were confident they would be employed six months after graduating compared to inactive students (51%)
• Active students were above the England 2011 mental wellbeing average, and inactive students were below this figure
• Active students scored better than inactive students across all metrics measuring personal wellbeing
• Nearly three quarters of active students felt their feelings about their futures had positively changed a little or a lot as a result of physical activity
• Active students had a greater sense of belonging at their university or college than inactive students[3]

Case studies:

      Let’s Get Moving:
 

14. Delivered by ukactive, Let’s Get Moving is a personalised behaviour change service providing evidence based support and guidance to improve health through physical activity.
     
15. Let’s Get Moving works with local authorities and operates within GP surgeries offering patients with a high Body Mass Index (BMI) a free consultation to kick start a healthy lifestyle through physical activity. It supports patients throughout a structured 12-week programme with peer-to-peer sessions and individualised communications.
    
16. So far, 4,353 people have participated in the Let’s Get Moving programme, and 77.3% of people have increased their physical activity levels. In Essex, 64.1% of participants increased their mental wellbeing. Participants have stated that:
     

• “Let’s Get Moving came up at just the right time! After taking part in the programme, my blood sugar levels, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels have gone down. And what’s more, I now don’t have to use insulin!” Albert, Canvey Island, Essex
   
• “When I started Let’s Get Moving, I suffered with depression – to a point where I would find it a struggle to get off the sofa to do everyday things. Being more active has really helped with that – I feel so much more motivated to do more and get on with everything. Each day I feel more and more motivated to do things – even things that I’d never normally do, such as walking for that bit longer or actively taking the kids outside to just do something. I’ve been feeling so much better in myself that I’ve started to cut down on my antidepressants! The extra bits of activity that I’ve been doing has also meant that I’m losing weight, which is really good.” Georgina, Jaywick, Essex
   

      Wellness hubs:
 

17. At ukactive’s National Summit in 2016, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson called for the Government’s Industrial Strategy to lead a £1billion regeneration scheme to transform the UK’s ageing fleet of leisure centres into new community wellness hubs and the preventative frontline of the NHS. The wellness hub model, pioneered by Sport England, combines swimming pools, gyms and sports halls, with GP drop-in centres, libraries and police services, to create a one-stop-shop for public services. The wellness hub model can leverage a 10:1 ratio of private sector funding for public investment, a 30% reduction in capital build cost, 40% improvement in efficiency averaging c.£750,000, and a 35% uplift in usage by the public[4].
     
18. Community wellness hubs are not a conceptual idea, but a reality with a number already established across England. One example is The Graves Health & Sports Centre in Sheffield. The Graves Health and Sports Centre recently underwent a £16m transformation to become the headquarters of the National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine (NCSEM) combining fitness, swimming and sports facilities with on-site clinical facilities staffed by clinicians, allied health professionals and researchers[5].
     
19. The wellness hub has a strong neighbourhood focus, and is strategically located to ensure that it is accessible for all of Sheffield’s residents and families. It supports communities which have higher than average health inequalities in Sheffield– the life expectancy gap can be as high as 25 years[6]. It also addresses the requirements of those people in Sheffield who are living with poor health and long term conditions, including weight management and fall prevention.
     
20. This wellness hub has had a significant impact on public health, with an 82 per cent increase in visitors to the site[7]. This is partly driven by a significant jump in the number of people being prescribed tailored exercise programmes at the site under the Fit4Health Exercise Referral Scheme. Over 700 people attend exercise classes each month to manage the symptoms of conditions such as cancer, Parkinson's and heart disease[8]. This wellness hub is also a dementia friendly centre, and is fully inclusive to disabled people.
     

       Getting more disabled people active: 
 

21. Research shows that disabled people are twice as likely to be inactive as non-disabled people,[9] contributing to disabled people experiencing worse health outcomes and higher levels of social isolation and loneliness than the rest of the population. ukactive has been working closely with partners to address this, and at ukactive’s 2017 National Summit, the former Minister of State for Disabled People, Penny Mordaunt MP, announced a cross-sector partnership to give disabled people and those with long-term health conditions better access to physical activity opportunities. The aim of this partnership is to create a cultural shift and change in perceptions around disabled people’s participation in physical activity, and to create a national ambition within the physical activity sector to become more inclusive for disabled people. Six major leisure operators - PureGym, David Lloyd Leisure, Everyone Active, Virgin Active, Greenwich Leisure Limited and Places for People – have already signed up to the scheme.
     
22. ukactive’s members are demonstrating best practice in this area, as the below case studies demonstrate:
     

• The Tennis Foundation, ‘Disability Tennis Programme’:
   

23. The Tennis Foundation provides support for local networks of tennis venues across Great Britain, including grant funding, training, equipment, resources and advice to help develop grassroots participation opportunities for disabled people to play and coach tennis.
     
24. In 2016, this programme supported the delivery of tennis to over 11,000 disabled people[10]. This has had a clear impact on the wellbeing of participants, with 68% of people feeling happier, 64% of people feeling more confident, 47% of people feeling less stressed and 63% of people feeling less isolated[11].
     

• Sporting Sense: ‘Rachel grows in confidence’ case study:
   

25. Sporting Sense runs sessions for people with sensory impairments and complex needs to get physically active. These sessions are clearly having an impact, as the following case study demonstrates: “When Rachel began attending sessions at Rotherham Leisure Centre she wasn’t feeling very confident…. Now she takes part in group activities. She works really well with the others and has learned the concept of turn taking, even shouting people’s names when it’s their shot. She is also much more confident on her feet when throwing and catching, and no longer looks to her staff to support her balance and stability. This has improved her mobility, posture and balance and she is now confident enough to try a bit of jogging too. These sessions also have an educational benefit and help individuals to practice things like counting, recognising colours, identifying shapes, Makaton and BSL and, exploring new sounds and textures”[12].
     

      Active Summer Holidays:
 

26. ukactive research has shown that British schoolchildren are losing 80 per cent of fitness gained during term time through ‘inactive summer holidays’[13]. Children who took part in a fitness measurement programme were able to run a further 120 metres in July – before the summer break – than in the same test in September, suggesting that term-time improvements in physical activity were being eroded by sedentary school breaks.
     
27. These findings also demonstrated that the poorest 25 per cent of primary school children experience a drop in their fitness levels 18 times greater than the richest 25 per cent over the school summer holiday[14]. Factors such as the prohibitive cost of many school holiday activities, such as summer camps, mean that many of the poorest children are left with limited access to physical activity opportunities.
     
28. As a result of this research, ukactive and a major corporate partner are working on a programme this summer in up to 50 schools to pilot a new initiative that targets not only physical inactivity in the summer holidays, but also addresses major concerns over holiday hunger, learning loss, personal development and mental health in young people.
     

      Workplace Health:
 

29. Inactive offices are deadly. Research on more than one million adults found that sitting at a desk for eight hours a day could increase the risk of premature death by up to 60 per cent[15]. Sedentary lifestyles don’t just cost lives – they cost profits too. The impact is widely felt in business, with PwC estimating that workplace absenteeism costs the UK around £29 billion per year[16]. 
     
30. To combat this, ukactive proposes the roll out of the Workout from Work scheme. Workout from Work would offer employees a salary sacrifice scheme that they could use to purchase gym memberships or home activity equipment. A cost benefit analysis reveals that, by 2021, Workout from Work will cost the government and businesses £145m (annually). Workout from Work will, however, also generate £385.4m in annual benefits for the UK economy by 2021, including annual NHS costs savings of £210m. Overall, Workout from Work is projected to generate a benefit-to-cost ratio of over 2.6 to 1[17].
     
31. As a result of Workout from Work, 209,000 Britons are expected to become physically active by 2021. This includes 158,000 Britons who are expected to join gyms on the scheme and a further 58,000 Britons who are expected to purchase home fitness equipment.[18]

Recommendations:

32. The above case studies and research help to demonstrate the impact that physical activity can have on a range of societal issues. ukactive will continue to champion physical activity, and make the case for it to be integrated into all aspects of UK policy.
     
33. Key policy recommendations are for:
     

• The government’s Industrial Strategy should lead a £1billion regeneration scheme to transform the UK’s ageing fleet of leisure centres into new community wellness hubs and the preventative frontline of the NHS.
   
• Funding from the soft drinks levy should be used beyond the school gates to offer accessible physical activity sessions over holiday periods.

• The government should utilise the tax system to expand upon the successful Cycle to Work scheme with the introduction of the Workout from Work scheme. This would create an economic incentive to encourage people to get active and reduce the barriers to doing so.
   

34. ukactive would welcome an opportunity to meet with representatives from the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee at your earliest convenience to discuss how ukactive can support your work in this area.

February 2018