Sector leaders in the UK have collaborated to create the Physical Activity Leadership Network that aims to raise physical activity levels, address inequalities and create an Active Wellbeing Service.

Local government’s role as place leaders will be at the heart of the network which has all of the main organisations on board: Chief Cultural & Leisure Association (CLOA), Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE), CIMSPA and the Local Government Association (LGA), there is also representation from Active Partnerships, Community Leisure UK, District Councils Network, The Sport and Recreation Alliance and Sport England.

The movement started in May when Martyn Allison, founder of Management Improvement Services, facilitated a meeting of the Local Government Physical Activity Partnership to review the progress made implementing Sport England’s 2022 report, Future of Public Sector Leisure.

Since then the vision of an Active Wellbeing Service has been created, which is laid out in the report, A Movement for Change.

Allison says: “A change of government always brings optimism and opportunities to change things, but the window to influence and get involved is often small as reality soon dawns. We've produced this document to demonstrate to the government, councils and Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) that our priorities are their priorities and we are ready to deliver by scaling up our current good practice.”

The report looks to the new government to influence future policy and – when things improve economically – to deliver additional resources. It also looks to the cross-sector local leadership to drive the changes and knit together place-based preventative solutions.

“Preventative and impactful approaches are now happening, but are restricted to isolated pockets of good practice,” says the report. “If only these could now be scaled up and expanded, we could see real change everywhere.”

Recommendations include calling on Parliament to develop a Preventative Health Strategy and ensuring the Office for Health and Improvement Disparities names physical activity as an inhibitor of major chronic disease and embeds this at the heart of the ICS mission.

It also suggests the creation of a prevention precept that will enable local authorities to generate an additional two per cent of council tax revenues for service transformation linked to prevention.

There are calls at a more local level for greater collaboration and aligning capital to achieve the goals of boosting physical activity and reducing inequalities.

The report emphasises that the sector cannot rely on the government to drive all the changes but must lead the change process and demonstrate value and worth to government and public funders.

Julie Russell, chair of both CLOA and the new network, says: "Physical activity isn’t really a sector any more, we know that change relies upon many different parts of a system, from how communities and streets are planned, to active travel, parks, playgrounds, schools and curriculums, to social care and health arrangements and of course to activity providers in leisure, wellbeing and more.

"To create a movement for change, we need to involve all parts of the system and the bits between the parts too. A network approach enables us to draw on all the expertise we need to finally tackle health inequalities.”

You can find the full 57-page report here.