Place partnerships

The role of places is instrumental in our ability to create the conditions for change at a local level and help people to be physically active.

Our Uniting the Movement strategy has made a bold commitment to work in areas of greatest need to tackle inactivity levels and the associated inequalities that compound stubborn trends.

Taking our learning from the 12 local delivery pilots (LDPs) and other place-based work, we're expanding our approach and investing up to £190 million of National Lottery and Exchequer funding into more than 100 new places across England.

And a further £60 million will also be invested - £35m of which will be used to strengthen existing work with place partners, while £25m will go towards ensuring every area of England receives support through our Place Universal Offer.

An instructor stands on a stage holding glow sticks as participants follow along with aerobics in front of her

This place-based systemic work will see us work through our existing 12 Place Partnerships (formerly LDPs) and network of 43 Active Partnerships across England, to foster relationships with local organisations and leaders to overcome the specific barriers to physical activity that exist in their communities.

This new way of working directly supports the government’s Get Active strategy, which set ambitious targets of getting 2.5 million more adults and 1m children active by 2030 to tackle the disparities in activity levels across society.

We’re targeting the greatest resource to areas with highest inactivity levels and other social need indicators as this is where this commitment can have the biggest impact on our key outcomes.

And we’re using a range of data sources to inform this approach, including physical activity data from our Active Lives Surveys, as well as wider social data including the index of multiple deprivation (IMD), community need and health inequalities data.

A further explanation of our analysis can be found in our 'Identifying priority places' guide below.

Identifying priority places for expanding our place-based partnerships 2023-28 Download the file - 1.88 MB

What is the Place Universal Offer?

The Place Universal Offer is a collective term for guidance, tools, forums, communities of learning, leadership support, insight, case studies and frameworks, plus much, much more.

The offer will be a central point of access to our tools and resources and will be a useful starting point for all partners who are working or starting to work in a place-based way.

It will provide a proportionate way of supporting the entire sector to increase physical activity, reduce physical inactivity, reduce inequalities and promote positive experiences for children and young people by building on the already developed extensive tools and resources we have.

A group of older people perform seated exercises while in a circle in an exercise studio

Our existing offer

We already offer a suite of resources that cover a wide variety of themes and topics, including:

support to local clubs and national governing bodies (NGBs);
guidance for local authorities on creating and protecting the places and spaces that make it easier for people to be active
a suite of resources from our learning-to-date from our local delivery pilots; data, insight and learning to help everyone better understand what's going on
various learning and development opportunities that support sector leadership of Uniting the Movement.

Many of these resources offer immense value to our partners and are well established, well regarded and utilised by many.

Help us shape the Place Universal Offer

Thank you to all those who participated in the initial Universal Offer survey. We are currently reviewing the feedback shared to build and improve the Place Universal Offer.

We want to continue to engage with partners and organisations, both from within and beyond the physical activity sector, to understand what's needed, what already works and what's missing, to co-create and develop a Place Universal Offer designed and led by its users.

Following our initial survey, we will be diving deeper into your responses through a series of focus groups and online forums, to understand further and create the offer collaboratively.

Please look out for further engagement opportunities to help shape the Place Universal Offer in the near future.

The story of doing it differently

When we began our journey with the local delivery pilots, we didn’t know what the answers would be but what we were sure of was that local people held the keys to unlocking long-lasting, positive change in their communities.

We still don’t have all the answers about how to use a systemic approach to tackling inactivity. But we’ve learned a huge amount about the conditions, principles and practical considerations needed to influence positive change at every level of the systems we live in.

We’ve learnt that ‘how’ the work is done is what unlocks progress.

Our LDP story will take you on our journey sharing the challenges and milestones of implementing a new place-based way of working across 12 local communities.

It’ll show you why we thought this approach was so important, the amazing people that’ve helped us every step of the way.

People and Places: The story of doing it differently Download the file - 5.44 MB

People and Places: The story of doing it differently - summary Download the file - 55.49 KB

Putting it into practice

Are you working in a place trying to influence and activate change that will support communities to live active, healthier lives?

Are you looking for practical approaches, models and tools that can help to support this change?

Our resource, ‘Putting it into practice’ brings to life some of the approaches, models, and tools that have been used by places to:

identify relationships, map progress and identify gaps
embed sport and physical activity in the system and identify change
develop community insight and understanding.

You’ll be guided through each tool explaining why, how and with whom you might use it.

You’ll also find examples of how the tool’s been put into practice, what partners have been involved in the process, its impact and what people have learnt along the way.

How can I find what I’m looking for?

The full resource can be found below, and the sections of this resource are organised by what we’ve found to be some of the practicalities of system change.

One of the best ways to navigate this resource is to start with the questions that you find yourself asking about the work.

Take a look at the full list of questions below, find those that you’ve been asking yourself and dive into that section to take a look at some of the approaches, tools and models places have been testing and developing.

Putting it into practice - full resource Download the file - 3.63 MB

Common purpose/shared value

How can I grow common purpose and understand progress with the partners we're engaging with?
How do I embed physical activity in the system through supporting others to recognise and value physical activity to deliver their priorities?

Putting it into practice - common purpose/shared value Download the file - 564.92 KB

Understand the lived experience

How can I better understand the lived experiences of local communities?
How can I have meaningful conversations?
How can I identify patterns between stories that can inform change?

Putting it into practice - understand the lived experience Download the file - 582.17 KB

Distributed leadership

What role could I play in helping to nurture and support leaders across the system?
How can I help to grow sustainable community-driven development?
How can I identify and articulate leadership behaviours that are important to the work?

Putting it into practice - distributed leadership Download the file - 365.7 KB

Capacity and time to reflect

How can individual reflection lead to collective action and change?
How can time to reflect be embedded within and across teams?

Putting it into practice - capacity and time to reflect Download the file - 531.06 KB

Test and learn

How can experienced-based co-design be used to test and learn?
How can test and learn lead to implementation and scalability?

Putting it into practice - test and learn Download the file - 462.86 KB

Power shift

How can I design and embed processes that help to create a shift in power?

Putting it into practice - power shift Download the file - 338.03 KB

Having the right conversations

How can I support partners to identify their level of influence and develop meaningful conversations with key audiences?

Putting it into practice - having the right conversations Download the file - 501.84 KB

Understanding the system you're trying to shape

How can I align physical activity throughout the layers of the system, across system settings, and against organisational priorities?
How can I talk about the system in a way that engages people?
How can I better understand the relationships that connect communities as a network and how these evolve and change over time?

Putting it into practice - understanding the system you're trying to shape Download the file - 854.24 KB

Understanding value

Does the way that you are asked to measure what you do, miss out the value that you create?
How can I find a way to evaluate progress in a way that was consistent with the principles of the work?

Putting it into practice - understanding value Download the file - 547.69 KB

Working with local authorities

In addition to our local delivery pilots, we also work with other local authorities, as councils are key to helping sport become a habit for life in local communities.

Nurturing local leadership

Tackling inequalities and creating positive change in our communities requires leadership at every level of the system.

It’s an activity we all can take part in. We’ve learned that by investing time in developing local leadership skills and understanding, sport and physical activity can be positioned and embedded as part of locally-led solutions to tackle inactivity.

For more than four years, we've been nurturing the collaborative leadership skills of people through our Leadership Essentials programme with the Local Government Association (LGA).

Officers from local authorities, leisure trusts, Active Partnerships and sector partners have taken part in this programme, which supports them as leaders and aspiring leaders to challenge their thinking, practices and create change.

The impact of this programme has been evaluated and shown to be highly valued by the participants, enabling them to be more confident in their leadership approach, in what they do and, importantly, ‘how’ they do it.

The full report can be viewed below, together with stories from participants sharing their leadership journey.

Report and case studies
Sport England and LGA leadership programme - evaluation report Download the file - 1.67 MB See more

Abbeycroft Leisure case study: Warren Smyth - LGA leadership programme Download the file - 233.87 KB Energize Shropshire case study: Laura Kerrigan - LGA leadership programme Download the file - 222.44 KB Greater Manchester Active case study: Andy King - LGA leadership programme Download the file - 239.43 KB Ipswich Borough Council case study: Andrew Wilesmith - LGA leadership programme Download the file - 337.4 KB
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Navigating Local Systems

Understanding the system that exists, or you work within, in your locality, can help you to bring about change that increases physical activity in your communities.

The Navigating Local Systems resource, developed in partnership with the Chief Cultural and Leisure Officers Association (CLOA), shares learning from three places were supported in developing local knowledge, skills and their capacity to drive change in their system.

This report provides tools, techniques and advice – plus video feedback – from the facilitators involved in each of the places – Liverpool, Luton and Wakefield.

The key learnings we found along the way include:

An injection of facilitated support can help to embed shared ownership of an issue or work, identify blockages and drive new ways of working – although change is complex and needs to be seen as part of the day job.
Providing reflective time and space where learning can emerge, and be acted upon, is where change really happens.
Investing time in developing local leadership skills and understanding can help to facilitate lasting change and really helps to get the work done.

Navigating Local Systems Download the file - 3.25 MB

The journey continues

To support the three places continue their system change journey and build on the excellent progress they made during the initial test and learn phase, we made a further small investment.

The aim was for places to further their understanding of the system they work within; help them to develop their collaborative local partnerships; and help drive change across the system and within the place.

This second report outlines the headline learnings from across the three locations, along with personal reflections and where they plan to take the work next.

The Navigating Local Systems approach and investment into Luton, Wakefield and Liverpool has provided some essential learning that fed directly into developing our approach to expanding our Place Partnerships.

Navigating Local Systems - test and learn approach Download the file - 3.56 MB

Keep in touch

If you want to keep in touch with the work of place partners that are adopting a place-based, whole systems approach you can be added to our community of learning contact list by filling out the form below.

Subjects we may contact you about include:

sharing learning, data, and insight information
informing you of events, webinars, and workshops
sharing information on tools, resources and publications to support place-based approaches to tackling inactivity
requesting your feedback on developing work and sharing information on our consultation opportunities
requesting insight and learning coming from your place that you would like to share with the community of learning
sharing information on relevant training and development opportunities.

A group of women do an exercise class in a village hall

Our lawful basis for collecting your information is to assist us in carrying out our public task.

We'll only use this information to:

send you updates about our place partnerships
tell you when new information is added to the website
send you information about webinars and workshops
ask for your feedback about webinars and workshops.

Your information will be held securely in the UK, will only be made available to relevant Sport England colleagues and will be retained for only as long as is necessary to keep you informed about the work of our place partnerhips.

More information about how we will look after your information, including the rights you have in relation to it, can be found in our privacy statement.