Recommendation 2

Sport England’s focus on local initiatives and encouraging those who are least active to take part has not yet resulted in meaningful change in national participation rates. The government’s 2015 strategy for an active nation committed to focusing on those groups who were the least active, believing this would deliver the biggest gains for spending. Sport England adapted its approach accordingly, with initiatives including 12 community pilots with local partners to tackle inactivity. Initial results were positive and inactivity levels reduced at a faster rate in areas with a community pilot than those without. However, Sport England has not been able to translate local results into national gains. Nationally, the percentage of adults who were active increased by only 1.2 percentage points between November 2016 and November 2019, from 62.1% to 63.3%. Nearly two in five adults in England still do not meet the Chief Medical Officer’s guidelines for recommended activity. The percentage of adults who were active then fell to the lowest level on record during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sport England’s new strategy, published in 2021, has committed to understanding how its initiatives can influence change at a national level, but it has not yet set out concrete proposals for this. Recommendation 2: In its Treasury Minute response, Sport England should report back to the Committee on how it expects each of its initiatives will translate into change in participation rates at a national level, and how it will evaluate this.