Taxonomy term

This week is National Inclusion Week, an initiative started by our friends at Inclusive Employers to celebrate inclusion and to make changes that build workplaces where everyone can thrive.

This year the theme is 'Now is the time', but what does this mean exactly?

Basically, that there’s no moment like the present to take action and to make those practical steps in your organisations that embed inclusion and create a sense of belonging.

This really is one of my favourite weeks of the year!

‘Being inclusive’ is one of the guiding values for the work we do at Sport England and it highlights a collective commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in sport and physical activity.

But we don't approach our commitment to EDI alone, because Moving to Inclusion is an initiative by all the home nations sports councils.

Its purpose is to provide resources and support for physical activity and sport organisations moving towards a more diverse, inclusive and socially responsible sector.

These commitments include an opportunity for self-reflection and continual improvement, which is key in our compromise to keep progressing and living by the values we want to promote.

A bit of history

The Moving to inclusion Framework was created to replace the former ‘Equality Standard - A Framework for Sport’ following a review and consultation with the sport and physical activity sector back in 2021, and it was later soft-launched in Autumn 2023.
 

The Framework guides organisations on developing inclusive practice through self-reflection and continuous improvement using the Moving to Inclusion Diagnostic Toolkit.

Through this self-reflection tool, our aim is simple: to embed equality, diversity and inclusion through incorporating action planning, implementation and review into an organisation’s everyday work.

It is important to note that the diagnostic tool is not mandatory to complete, or part of any performance management for partner-organisations' funding conditions in England. 

Benefits for everybody

In any case, and whichever way you choose to start your inclusivity journey, we believe there are benefits to joining our Moving to Inclusion community:

• This framework enables your organisation to break down the areas around inclusion to make it more manageable and realistically achievable to embed change.
• The process is broken down into five pillars: Culture, Leadership, Experience, Relationship and Communication.
• The self-diagnostic tool within the Moving to Inclusion Framework will help you assess where your organisation is now on its EDI journey and consider where you might need to focus effort and make further improvements.
• The Framework provides practical suggestions and resources to help you drive continuous improvement in your organisation. The reason for this is that a greater focus on EDI will benefit the whole business, including staff satisfaction and retention, reputation, diversity of workforce and thought, growth in participation and membership, innovation, better resilience and increased business opportunities.
• Partners who are funded by Sport England may be able to access mentor support upon completing their diagnostic.  
• As Moving to Inclusion evolves, it will create a learning culture and community to be part of.

Any organisation (either inside the sport sector or outside) can undertake the self-reflection process and benefit from the online resources that support it.

To get an idea of the impact it is currently having, check out this infographic for April 2024-March 2025.

Leading change on EDI in our sector

Sport England (and UK Sport) have introduced Diversity and Inclusion Action Plans (DIAPs) as a mandatory requirement of the Code for Sports Governance.

DIAPs set out the ambitions and practical steps that organisations in the sport and physical activity sector will take to achieve greater diversity and create inclusive cultures.  

The plans are applicable to Tier 3 organisations, with the aim to improve representation and inclusion on boards, in senior leadership teams and throughout the wider organisation. 

To date, Sport England and UK Sport have signed off 116 DIAPs that are now with partners to deliver on the actions within their plans and to improve diversity within their organisations and beyond.  

Organisations funded by Sport England will find that Moving to Inclusion provides additional, complementary and enduring support for their DIAP processes.

The themed pillars within Moving to Inclusion will help those organisations refresh their DIAPs and they may choose to incorporate the actions arising from their self-assessment within their own plans.

This National Inclusion Week (and every other week in the calendar, if you ask me) we all have a role to play in changing our behaviour, championing inclusive practices and challenging discrimination.

Collectively, we can create the conditions that support a kind, welcoming and nurturing environment for everyone to lead healthier and happier lives and we hope Moving to Inclusion can help you in that journey.
 

I’ve lost count of the times people assume better inclusion means compromise or something that’s expensive, difficult or time-consuming. It doesn’t.

What it really means is changing how we think and design spaces, activities and experiences so they are built with everybody in mind.

It also means not asking large parts of society to work around barriers that shouldn't be there in the first place, because 24% of the population are part of the disabled community and, what many don’t realise, is that any one of us could join them at any point in our lives.

At the heart of Accessible Outdoors Month is a simple message: being active outdoors should be for everybody, in whatever way works for each person.

That could mean simply stretching in a quiet garden and moving through a local park, or taking on something more high-energy like skateboarding or climbing.

The campaign returns this July for its second year as part of ParalympicsGB’s Every Body Moves, powered by Toyota.

Closing the gap for an accessible outdoors

Too often disabled people are left out of the picture when it comes to getting active, particularly outdoors.

There are different reasons for this: the terrain’s wrong, the facilities don’t meet the community’s needs, signposting isn’t accessible or access just wasn’t a consideration. 

When access isn’t considered, people are excluded. Not because of their ability, but because the environment wasn’t built with them in mind.

According to Activity Alliance's research, only 44% of disabled people say it’s easy to access outdoor spaces, compared with 78% of non-disabled people.

And yet, around three-quarters of disabled people want to be more active and many of them want to do that outdoors: on beaches, in parks or through forests or towpaths, to name just a few.

So the demand is real but it’s not always being met.

Accessible Outdoors Month is our way of showing how, together, we can start to close that gap between demand, provision and uptake.

It’s a social media-led campaign platforming real people and real experiences that launched in 2024 with community-led content showing accessible beach days, inland water sports, inclusive cycling, adaptive mountain biking and all-terrain wheelchair walks.

We didn't use glossy ads on our campaign, but simply honest, joyful stories rooted in lived experience.

Since 2018, we’ve worked with Sport England towards a healthier, more inclusive society.

Becoming a system partner in 2022 has allowed us to develop a more direct relationship with local communities, which in turn has help us create stronger partnerships and drive large-scale impact.

Through collaboration, Beat the Street evolved from a game into a community tool, improving public health through cross-sector partnerships and local engagement.

Beat the Street allows partners to engage across a community by working closely with people, local organisations and assets, such as parks and canals, to make a shift in behaviours and attitudes in order to deliver positive, lasting change.

At its core, Beat the Street is a free, real-life game designed to encourage people to move more, explore their local areas and connect with their communities.

Its purpose is to connect people to each other and their place and it works as a major event where the participants are the residents – whether these are adults or children.

We also believe that health is created in and by communities and that our role is to create the supportive conditions to enable it. 

We use our Sport England system partner funding to champion policy asks to improve health through movement, using insight to make the case and working closely with many partners to build a unified voice.

For 2025, our policy priorities are underpinned by these beliefs and the vision for a better future that must include children’s voices.

In a nutshell, our policy focus includes:

• creating healthy childhoods
• activating healthy and engaged communities
• designing healthy places
• nurturing thriving, natural environments
• walking, wheeling and cycling towards an active nation.

Driving systemic change at scale

We use our delivery funding to unlock local funding and support from public health, transport and integrated care board partners for places. 

With at least 10% of the local population taking part, Beat the Street builds a narrative on how good health could be, with everyone working together with a clear purpose, using the programme as a platform to prototype new ways of working in a place.

The evidenced behavioural change continually benefits the participants well beyond the intervention, with positive outcomes lasting at least two years and possibly longer.  

There is so much positive activity already happening in place, but it often is in siloes.

We now see that Beat the Street’s galvanising mechanics bring partners together, supporting policy and professional practices.

The programme also surfaces rich data and marginalised voices tackling structural inequalities by working with local institutions and assets, plus it enables people to act in ways that strengthen them both as individuals and their roles in the community.  

We understand that Beat the Street's real impact is in social connection, increased feelings of belonging and trust across a place.

Ultimately, the programme has shown that even small, sustainable steps toward active living can have lasting impacts on community health and social connectedness.

This sustainability manifests itself in three key ways:

• Shared purpose – there is value and energy in bringing partners and community together, developing collective purpose.
• Insight-led direction - using insight to inform next steps.
• Behavioural change - building trust, sense of belonging and agency for citizens that enable small changes in daily behaviour, now and in the future.

We're really proud of what the programme has achieved so far. To date, Sport England’s Beat the Street has engaged 754,000 participants.

The programme has:

• achieved 10% of population engagement on average, comprising 48% adults and 52% children.
• reached a third of participants (27%) belonging to areas of Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) 1 and 2 (the two most deprived areas in a classification of five areas in England). Out of the people reached, 69% are women and 19% have disabilities or a long-term health condition.
• engaged with 1042 schools, 1133 community groups and workplaces.

In terms of behavioural change, the data from 31,461 matched pairs across 31 Sport England games shows an average 9% decrease in adult inactivity and 7% reduction in proportion of less active children.

However, the greater change was seen in adults with a disability or long-term conditions, showing an 18% decrease of inactive adults and, for girls, a 9% decrease in less active.

But the impact goes beyond just physical activity as Beat The Street fosters social interaction, strengthens community ties and improves mental wellbeing.

We will also continue to work across the country, including a return to Burnley for the third time as they use Beat the Street to drive forward their collective Outdoor Town vision.

It’s been an incredible journey and eight years in it feels like we are only getting started!
 

When we are travelling it is easy to get impatient and start wondering how long we’ll still have to go before we reach our destination.

And this edginess often appears even more so when we are on a long journey – like our quest for sustainability in the sport and physical activity sector.

But it is not just sustainable sports centres (to name one example) that we’re after.

We also want more sustainable homes, more sustainable businesses and more sustainable communities – so we are in for a long ride!

Looking back as we celebrate

And just to finish with the journey metaphor, it’s true that sometimes a trip can take you through breathtaking and inspiring places, while other times it drags on with no apparent progress being made.

The efforts around the sustainability journey are no different.

Cynics amongst us may say we are not making any progress with our sustainability efforts but I’d like to disagree.

At Sport England sustainability is a key part of our work, so I thought that as we celebrate the fourth anniversary of our long-term strategy, Uniting the Movement, it’d also be a great moment to reflect on the steps we’ve made so far and how we can keep moving ahead while ensuring we make the most of our natural resources without damaging or limiting our environment.

In 2022, we committed to ‘stepping up on environmental sustainability’.

Back then we highlighted three key points:

• We recognised there was considerable work to do not only to reduce our negative impact on the environment but also to prepare our sector for a changing climate.
• We committed to being clear on what actions we needed to take and to improving Sport England’s own environmental performance.
• We said we’d collaborate with other organisations to make these things happen across the sector.

So, can we say we are nearly there? I’m afraid not quite, but we we’ve taken our first steps and we’re not alone, so we can’t stop now.

Plus we’ve done what we said and more. Much more!
 

We listened to our partners and our internal teams and produced an environmental sustainability strategy and action plan, which we called Every Move.

We have a small team to deliver the action plan and embed sustainability across all our work but we can see people across the sector getting constantly involved with our efforts, like when almost 200 organisations signed our Going for Green Pledge last summer after our our Chair Chris Boardman cycled for eight days from Manchester to Paris to inspire action for climate change.

But perhaps the biggest change I’ve noticed is the cultural attitude to sustainability across the sport sector.

Our partners have embraced sustainability and a sign of this is that the language around sustainable development is dropped into everyday conversations.

As a collective we’re really beginning to understand the inter-connection between climate change, inequalities, participation in sport and our role in tackling that.

Environmental social governance is now included in the Code for Sports Governance, setting out levels of transparency and integrity for our funded partners.

Working together for everybody's future

In addition, many of our partners have developed, or are developing, their own sustainability action plans and these recognise the importance of tackling climate justice - addressing the unequal impacts of climate change on disadvantaged communities.

There are shining examples of projects across the country which reduce emissions, increase biodiversity, improve the sustainability of the things they buy and improve the accessibility and quality of our natural environment.

Projects include recycling, second-hand buying or looking at repairing broken items before buying brand new ones, using LED flood-lighting and solar panels on facilities, improving access to natural environments, purchasing goods without plastic packaging and medals made from bamboo, re-distributing good quality kit, cleaning up our natural surroundings or sowing wildflower gardens around cricket pitches.

These initiatives invariably make sport more accessible and appealing to a wider audience by creating inviting natural environments, reducing utility costs or providing the kit to enable sport to happen, plus these are ventures most of us can get involved with.

In England there’s over 75,000 sports and physical activity centres and, according to our latest Active Lives Adult Survey, our sector is powered by 10 million volunteers.

These numbers show that we have the perfect vehicle to spread the word around sustainable action being able to improve the quality of everyone’s life.

The journey ahead looks exciting but it looks tough too as, let’s face it, we still have a long way to go!

The focus must now be on delivery and ensuring we talk about it and share good work practices.

We need to make sure that we tackle sustainability at place-level, underpinning our actions with sustainable approaches.

Sustainability is inextricably connected to deprivation and will become even more so as our climate continues to change.

We must prepare for the future ensuring the places where we are active do not overheat or flood, have clean air and clean water, and are welcoming and accessible for all.

We also need to ensure energy security for our communities, building confidence in the ability to budget and plan.

So no, we’re not there yet, but will we ever get there? I believe the answer is yes.

Happy fourth anniversary, Uniting the Movement. Let's keep working to ensure we have even more to celebrate for your fifth!
 

The first time the importance of spatial planning in creating population-level increases in physical activity was articulated was through the You’ve Got This (YGT) programme – the Sport England-funded Place Partnership in South Tees.

Sport England has worked on different approaches to capacity and hosting when taking a place-based, whole-systems perspective to work and I'm happy to have contributed to the latest set of resources published by the organisation.

YGT adopted the socio-ecological approach to systemic change, where policy and the physical environment appear as key components of the wider determinants of health. 

These aspects are recognised as carrying a high weighting in this framework – difficult to influence but once achieved, the changes are highly impactful over the medium and long-term.

The need for cooperation and understanding

These considerations resulted in the creation of my role.

My post looks at improving collaboration between public health, transport planning, and planning departments across South Tees to promote health, well-being, and physical activity through the Local Plan, the wider policy framework, and innovative new programmes.

My job looks at improving the collaboration between public health, transport planning and planning departments across South Tees to promote physical activity through the Local Plan and the wider policy framework for local healthcare services in a number of community wards and venues across Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, and Hambleton and Richmondshire.

Previous attempts to enhance collaboration across South Tees had faltered due to time constraints and heavy workloads.

Recognising this, YGT facilitated initial meetings where urban planners, transport planners and public health practitioners could gather away from the office environment.

This process revealed issues such as a limited understanding of each other's roles and decision-making processes, alongside a shared commitment to creating healthier environments and a strong desire to collaborate.

Over the course of a year, three additional workshop sessions were convened to further explore these issues.

Simultaneously, through Sport England's partnership with the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA), YGT established a new relationship with one of their experts, Gemma Hyde, who played a pivotal role in charting a path forward.

The culmination of these efforts brought together senior planners, transport planners and public health practitioners supported by Sport England, the TCPA and The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI).

Despite initial slow progress, participants valued the time for reflection and identified key issues like capacity and staff training.

Collectively, it was agreed that there were specific challenges related to coordinating the work and addressing the need for knowledge and training among staff and elected members.

To support the process, YGT agreed to fund a position initially for a period of two years and that this role would encompass the whole of South Tees, with Middlesbrough Council (MC) serving as the employer.

This is where I join the story.

Reflecting on progress to date

My background as a behavioural scientist and public health spatial planner definitely came together on this project, as behavioural science studies the patterns, motivations, and factors that influence human behaviour across different contexts, using scientific methods to understand why people make the decisions they do and how behaviour can be modified or improved at individual and societal levels.

Our boroughs, MC and Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council (RCBC) are currently at different stages of the Local Plan cycle.

In the emerging Local Plan for MC, I contributed to the Health and Wellbeing Policy and successfully secured an agreement to require Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) for all residential developments that exceed 100 dwellings.

I also devised an additional HIA screening process based on health and open-space ­deprivation on a ward-by-ward basis to be conducted for all major development across town.

There was also the completion of a Health in All Policies (HiAP) assessment of the emerging plan (Regulation 18).

Productive discussions with colleagues in RCBC have centred on the potential for a similar approach in the future review of the Local Plan.

I've also facilitated, with colleagues across public health and spatial planning and other stakeholders, the creation of MC’s first HIA toolkit, which has physical activity at its heart and taking as our primary model the well-respected HIA materials created by John Wilcox and colleagues at Wakefield City Council.

Public Health South Tees recently completed our Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNAs), to which I also contributed, ensuring that the JSNA is integrated into MC's emerging local plan for health and wellbeing policy.

Once adopted in late 2025 or early 2026, this will provide developers with clear baseline information about our communities and our priority goals for health and wellbeing across the borough.

Looking ahead

The foundational changes we're beginning to implement in South Tees represent a significant shift in how we integrate public health, planning and transport policies to promote physical activity and wellbeing.

However, we face significant challenges ahead.

We'll need to secure sustained funding beyond the post's initial two-year period, maintain momentum across different planning cycles between our boroughs and ensure consistent implementation of our new policies.

Looking to the future, our next steps of sharing best practices through Sport England's expansion process and deepening collaboration with the Tees Valley Combined Authority are crucial for scaling our innovations.

If we succeed, we could contribute to a new standard for how local authorities approach integrated planning for health and physical activity, potentially influencing national strategy and contributing to more active, healthier communities across England.

“It’s like the Olympics but even better” said my 10-year-old, as I watched him and his younger sister glued to the T54 marathon on the TV, not long after I had returned from four days in Paris.

They had fully engaged with the Paris 2024 Paralympics from the get-go and not just because it was constantly on our TV in the lounge.

They were not afraid to ask the usual questions about the sports, the athletes and the countries represented, but I also heard (and welcomed) the inquisitive questions around inclusion, adaptations and the different equipment used, and I was embracing the teachable moments with them!

A true game-changer

I echoed their excitement as my short visit to the Paralympic Games in Paris was nothing short of incredible.

The energy, determination and strength that radiated from the athletes made it clear that the Paralympic Games are more than just a showcase of sporting excellence.

They represent the culmination of years of effort, dedication and commitment to their sport.

At the events I went to, the majority-French spectators were generous with their support – even if it wasn’t for their team.

The venues had been dressed for the occasion and tried hard to be as accessible as they could be for both participants and spectators.
 

But what about the public transport? Well, the organisers recognised they couldn’t do much about their old and dense Metro system and the city's sometimes inaccessible street layout, but they focused on what they could change.

So they created more accessible bus routes, shuttle buses and accessible taxis that together with a relatively accessible public transport app, aimed to cater for the 350,000 disabled visitors.

The system was by no means perfect, but it showed progress nonetheless.

During my time there I was lucky enough to see wheelchair basketball, athletics, boccia, para table tennis and goalball.

In each sport the skill level was high, the playing quality was outstanding and I saw records broken. I felt incredibly grateful to be there!

Because in what any other four days can anyone ever see that much live sport and at that level? 

The ParalympicsGB team delivered outstanding results and thrived in a full (and loud!) stadium and, for the third consecutive Games, they were second in the medal table.

And even if you couldn’t attend in person, you could follow the action on Channel 4, from where 20 million people watched, achieving the biggest audience share in 12 years for the channel.

Paris’ were also the most accessible Games ever, as 91% of the presenting and commenting team were disabled – 30% of crew in total.

There were also repeated adverts for Every Body Moves – the inclusive sport and physical activity finder.  

All these elements have truly set the bar for future Games high. Very high.

The main purpose of my visit to Paris was to attend the Championing Change reception with ParalympicsGB.

This was the launch of their new social impact strategy together with the launch of Equal Play –  their campaign and policy paper to garner a commitment to ensuring every child has the same access to PE and sport at school.

The Equal Play campaign’s goal is to ensure that no child is left on the sidelines, as just one in four disabled children say they take part regularly in sport at school.

There are 1.5 million disabled children – 15% of the school population – and so the figures of those who do not participate are stark, but the documentary that goes with it has been brilliantly done.

Present at the event were multiple stakeholders from across the sector, which included a notable visit from UK’s Government Minister of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Lisa Nandy.

She echoed the call to support the human rights of disabled children to play sport, as part of a bold new ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children in our history.

Gathering momentum afterwards, there has now been an open letter sent to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer about Equal Play from ParalympicsGB that has gained significant traction across the sector and on social media, as well as from the athletes themselves.

So much more to come

However, despite all the progress we have seen there is still so much to be done to challenge the many inequalities faced by disabled people in sport and physical activity.

Our Active Lives surveys constantly tells us that disabled people are still twice as likely to be physically inactive.

And of course not every disabled person can or wants to become a Paralympian and it is true that elite sport is only for a few. However, getting society to the point where every disabled person can play sport, be active and move more in everyday life is even more important.

So it’s everybody’s responsibility to step up, to consider our approaches and to provide wholly accessible opportunities for everybody to be able to enjoy the benefits from moving.

In the words of Paralympian Stef Reid MBE: “The inclusion revolution is officially on!” and I couldn't agree more. 
 

He opened the report highlighting how for him, and the rest of our organisation, using a place-based approach is paramount in achieving significant change in our communities.

His vast experience, knowledge and imagination in health, nature, community resilience and physical activity are all having a phenomenal positive impact on the Active Essex Board and the overall team.

The place-based approach signalled by Dr. Bird is especially relevant as we grow our collective place-based work as part of the £250 million investment by Sport England’s Place Partnerships expansion, announced in November 2023.

Learning and sharing our knowledge

In Essex we are carefully planning our transition from local delivery pilot to Place Partnerships.

Adopting a long-term place-based working model has been one of our most fundamental learnings over the past few years.

It ensures a common purpose, secures collaboration between local residents, local voluntary and community organisations, and the networks across the public sector.

The trusted relationships that these create, guarantee that we all understand the unique local conditions and needs, as well as the main barriers and enablers within each place.

Our Impact Report can be easily navigated to look closely at our places, our five strategic priorities and our showcase portfolio programmes, and it underlines our commitment to share and learn.

For instance, since the last edition of this work, we’ve increased our workforce training and system networking and we now produce share-and-learn events to inform and inspire all of us that make up the Essex physical activity system.

We’re excited about what the new year will bring to the people of Essex and how we’ll find new ways of helping them reap the many benefits of being active.

And especially how we’re going to keep sharing all those amazing stories with you all.
 

Day one was about ensuring teams ‘design the right thing’ through the proper research and framing of the challenge.

Teams conducted desktop research and interviews with their target audience and users were placed at the front and centre of the design process.

Specialists from partner organisations Disability Rights UK, Mermaids, Activity Alliance, Street Games, Sport England colleagues and individuals with lived experience provided support, guidance and feedback to the teams (either online or in person).

Teams also took to the streets of London to speak to members of the public: from faith leaders at local mosques, to parents waiting for the school pick-up or at the park.

Day two was all about ensuring teams designed ‘the thing right’, generating ideas and creating prototypes to put the stakeholders to test, learn and adapt.

One team spoke to two PE teachers who were so impressed with the concept, they asked for it to be pitched to their headteacher!

Theories of change, user journeys and pitches were created ready to wow the judging panel.

The ideas

The jam culminated in presentations from all six teams hoping to hit the criteria the judges were looking for: beauty, brains, heart, magic, mastery and bravery; plus Sport England’s values of being innovative, collaborative, inclusive and ambitious.

A whole range of tools including Lego, Canva documents and even pipe cleaners were used to bring ideas to life, always with the user in mind.

Reflections

It is hard to capture the energy, creativity and power of design-thinking that I witnessed over the two days, but my biggest takeaways are:

• Collaboration is key. It was brilliant to see the dynamics of the teams, with students working alongside professionals and service design experts, as well as individuals new to the subject, and all bringing a diverse range of lived experiences. It was this variety of backgrounds, working collaboratively on a shared brief, that created truly innovative magic.
• The power of partnerships. The insights that teams gathered from our partners, in person and online, made a huge difference to really grounding the concepts to build upon.
• The importance of freedom. From live user research, ideation, testing prototypes and forming presentations, it was truly remarkable what the teams achieved in just two days to tackle such complex system challenges when seeing barriers to innovation disappear.

What’s next?

These are truly exciting times!

We will be sharing more information and some of the brilliant ideas and concepts that came from the jam over the next few months, so keep an eye on our channels.

Thank you to all our partners and those who joined our efforts during the jam.

If you want to keep learning about innovation, we’d love to hear from you.