Recommendation 24

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