Sport and Physical Activity

Strategic Priority

Sport & Physical Activity Sector

This year, Active Essex have continued their work to support the development and growth of the sport and physical activity sector in Essex, to collectively increase opportunities for all.

The People Culture Skills (PCS) Framework, continues to drive the purpose and action of this Strategic Priority. Strides have been made across employability and skills development, organisational development, Equaity Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) , and careers advice and guidance for the sector. The Essex Sport & Physical Activity Skills Advisory Panel has become a critical friend to the PCS Framework and over the past 12 months has seen new members join across the skills landscape.

 
63%
of residents in Essex are active as of 2022-2023 Active Lives data
49,562
people are working in the sector across Essex, Southend & Thurrock
301,400
Essex residents volunteer in the sport and physical activity sector

Read more about the developments of People Culture Skills

Sport and Physical Activity

People Culture Skills Framework

Take a look at the developments of the framework, 2 years on

People Culture Skills

Data and insight, making the case for sport and physical activity

Working alongside CIMSPA, Active Essex have built upon current data sets to ensure insight talks to the skills and education landscape, which better articulates the need to the Local Skills Improvement Plan. In turn this has enabled the team to develop a better understanding of the breadth of the sector and where to target support, helping to influence change through their Capacity Building programmes.

The data below is telling us that a large proportion of our sector in Essex is made up of micro-organisations and start ups. Through the Organisational Development (OD) Programme, Active Essex now better understand the challenges and the support they are putting in place is becoming more targeted to the needs of those organisations.
 
54%
of sport and physical activity organisations in Essex are Micro-enterprises
80%
of sport and physical activity businesses in Essex would be considered as Start-ups
764
Businesses operating in the sector across Essex, Southend and Thurrock
 

Key Learnings

It's important to take time to reflect and understand the learnings from work undertaken, in order to focus on ways to improve in the future.

Trends

Key trends to recognise

Highlighted skills needs of leading small organisations, harm prevention and workforce journey.

Data

Importance of using data and insight

Build upon data collected to best articulate the scale, needs and inform future investment.

Trends

Economic measurements

Understand what standardised measurements inform contributions to the economy and impact.

 

Sector support

Over the past 12 months Active Essex have continued to build resilience and stability across the sector through bespoke capacity building support. The programme of support, includes the Find Your Active Development Fund which has provided aid in learning across Leadership, Business Planning, Learning & Development, Employee Motivations and Compliance & Governance.

The Community Sport network across Essex is represented through the National Governing Bodies (NGB) Forum, Playing Pitch Strategy Meetings and the Find Your Active Networks. The NGB Forum has seen focuses on Cost of Living, Facilities, EDI and Safeguarding and as the team move into the next delivery year there will be some targeted work across these areas. The Find Your Active Small Grants programme has supported hundreds of clubs and groups across the sector to develop their offer, reach new audiences and build capacity.

 
143
Find Your Active grants funded this year (2023)
70%
of grants have supported NGB sports
£350,000
grant money distributed across Essex county
 

The future of public leisure has been made a core focus for this strategic priority. Through a collaborative approach, all 14 local authorities have shared their thinking towards a more diverse and relevant leisure offer, and the very first Essex Leisure Partnership board was formed.

As a part of this work, Active Essex held the Future of Public Leisure ‘share and learn’ event to improve standards of the sector for all communities to benefit. Keynote speakers included; Lucy Wightman Director of Wellbeing, Public Health and Communities; Karen Creavin Chief Executive of The Active Wellbeing Society and Steve Welch Sport England’s Place Directorate. It is hoped that this event will become a standard feature of the sectors calendar and look to build upon the initial thoughts and learnings from this first event.

 
 
As the Board, we champion the People Culture and Skills work and it was incredibly encouraging to see so much passion and energy in the room for systematic change for the future of public leisure.
Emma Lewis, Active Essex Board Member
 

Key Learnings

It's important to take time to reflect and understand the learnings from work undertaken, in order to focus on ways to improve in the future.

Barriers

Overcoming barriers

Capacity of micro-organisations has been overlooked and targeted support must be offered.

Priorities

Defining priorities

Understanding priorities from NGB colleagues helps engage with an ever-changing landscape.

Skills

Share & learn

Localities are looking to arrange their own Future of Leisure events to develop local thinking.

Skills and employability

Active Essex have made great strides in developing relationships across Education, Employment and Skills which has resulted in clearer career pathways to opportunities across the sector. Through these relationships they have supported curriculum reviews, attended career events and raised the profile of the sector.

 
4,116
views on the job opportunities webpage
1,500
young people engaged through events, talks and fairs
6,500
career booklets have been distributed
 

Building upon the career’s magazine, Active Essex have been developing a series of videos which put a spotlight on different careers across the sector, highlighting individuals’ pathways and skills required for different roles. As these begin to launch in April 2024, they will provide an engaging method to showcase how individuals can become more involved within the sector, with a view to diversifying the workforce.

 

Equality, diversity and inclusion

2023 saw Active Essex continue to grow the diversity of its' workforce, strengthening their offer for young people who face additional barriers to gaining employment through traditional routes.

By building upon the Coach Core apprenticeship programme and developing our young leaders programme, Leaders in Training this has helped to ensure more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds have the opportunities to join and work within and across the sector.

Active Essex have continued to meet the Child Protection in Sport Unit’s standards and have developed a strong safeguarding ethos amongst the team. They have developed relationships with the LADO and Safeguarding Children Board and built trust with the network of Locally Trusted Organisations. There are honest and supportive conversations taking place, growing a culture of trust, humility, self-reflection, learning and sharing with shared accountability to support the individual, organisational, systemic and cultural shifts needed.

 

Take a look at our case studies

Sport and Physical Activity

Coach Core in Essex

Read more about the impact of the national Coach Core initiative in Essex.

Coach Core
Sport and Physical Activity

Young Leaders Programme

Read about how the programme was rolled out across Essex ActivAte.

LIT Banner
 
55
young leaders completed the summer LIT programme
12
HAF providers signed up to the LIT summer pilot
73%
of Coach Core apprentices remain part of this years cohort
 

Active Essex have continued to meet the Child Protection in Sport Unit’s standards and have developed a strong safeguarding ethos amongst the team. They have developed relationships with LADO and Safeguarding Children Board and built trust with the network of Locally Trusted Organisations. There are honest and supportive conversations taking place, growing a culture of trust, humility, self-reflection, learning and sharing with shared accountability to support the individual, organisational, systemic and cultural shifts needed.

 

Working with Sport England and the Active Partnerships nationally, Active Essex have recruited two Sport Welfare Leads whose outcomes will focus on;

  • More positive experiences for children, young people and adults to participate in all forms of physical activity and sport
  • The spreading and strengthening of best practice and integrity within clubs, to create safe positive environments for all
  • Creating and supporting welfare networks across Essex, prioritising Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)
  • Developing an effective network of well supported, better trained and connected Club Welfare Officers, in community-based organisations across Essex.
 

Reflecting within

As an employer, Active Essex have actively ensured their workforce reflects the communities they serve, and in doing so, have recognised that this makes them better able to understand residents needs and priorities. Not only did they produce a staff survey, a People Plan was developed as part of their Code for Sports Governance. They recognise that this needs to be a live document, continually updated by internal Stretch Groups, accessing their internal learning culture, and reflecting on feedback received from the team.

Building upon this, a Diversity, Inclusion Action Plan has since been completed with clear outcomes and steps for the year ahead. A Quality Assurance Task & Finish Group, has reviewed and implemented new processes, and will continue to do so in 2024.

 
 
Loading...