Agenda item

To approve funding of £10,000 per year for five years, from 2021/22 to 2025/26, to support the Active Gloucestershire ‘We Can Move’ project and to agree that, as a condition of the funding, Active Gloucestershire makes an annual report on the ‘We Can Move’ programme to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

1.     That partnership funding of £10,000 per year for five years, from 2021/22 to 2025/26, be APPROVED to support the Active Gloucestershire ‘We Can Move’ Project.

2.     That, as a condition of the funding, Active Gloucestershire be requested to report the progress of the ‘We Can Move’ Project to the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee on an annual basis.  

97.1          The report of the Head of Development Services, circulated at Pages No. 60-64, outlined the ‘We Can Move’ project and the potential impact for the Borough’s communities. Members were asked to approve partnership funding of £10,000 per year for five years from 2021/22 to 2025/26 to support the project and to agree that, as a condition of the funding, Active Gloucestershire was requested to report the progress of the ‘We Can Move’ programme to the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee on an annual basis.

97.2          The Community and Economic Development Manager explained that the ‘We Can Move’ project was an Active Gloucestershire initiative about making physical activity the norm and to reduce inactivity. The Borough would see the impact of the project through the promotion of leisure and sporting activities in the Borough, through marketing, people being encouraged to be healthy and active and through training and support for volunteers. In addition, everyone was aware of the value of activity and the impact on mental health which had been heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic there had been a drop in physical activity across the country of around 7%.

97.3          A Member indicated that, whilst she understood the project aimed to avoid the issues of past health campaigns by encouraging activity in the inactive rather than merely encouraging the already active to be more active, she queried exactly what would be done to make that happen. Essentially, £750,000 across all organisations over five years was the input but she wondered what the output would be other than promotion, networking, events and social media i.e. would it be possible to know how many additional people over 65 years were now walking on a daily basis. In response, the Community and Economic Development Manager advised that Active Gloucestershire would work with the Council and its communities to develop schemes in line with the need in the area; examples of the types of help offered would be influencing the design of new developments, interactive opportunities such as ‘Beat the Street’, help with exercise classes in the community, like paying for promotion, and work with older people to encourage them to be more flexible and help with falls prevention. There was also an annual survey through Sport England which looked at the rates of participation to see if they were increasing or decreasing, the age groups affected etc. Another Member expressed the view that it was not just older people that needed to move more, there was also a lot of concern about obesity in young people and he queried what might be on offer for them. In response, Community and Economic Development Manager agreed that it was vital to engrain good habits from a young age and to that end there would be initiatives in schools such as introducing the daily mile.

97.4          Members generally agreed it was a good idea to encourage people to be more active but there were some concerns about how the impacts in the Borough would be reported back to the Council. It was suggested that it may be helpful to make reports through the Member Update Sheet to all Members rather than just annually to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee. This would ensure all Members were aware and informed of what was taking place. The Chief Executive confirmed this would be possible and, in addition, the Council could also publicise opportunities for Members to engage if they wanted to increase their activity levels. The Head of Development Services indicated that Active Gloucestershire would be working with the Integrated Locality Partnership and the Clinical Commissioning Group and would be trying to understand the reasons for obesity, the low instances of exercise take-up, the additional provision of physical activity etc. and how it could be benchmarked.

97.5          It was agreed that Members were behind the principle to encourage good health in the Borough and it was understood that there were a lot of people who had been less active during the pandemic – the Committee just wanted to be sure the project was effective. A Member suggested that public health was such a huge challenge and it was hard to see where the Council’s £10,000 would impact. However, it could not be the only district not participating so the Council needed to drive the project in the direction that would work best for the Borough. The Community and Economic Development Manager explained that Active Gloucestershire would assign a member of staff to each district to engage with communities, Parishes, Officers and Members. In addition, he would be happy to ask that person to present to Members at a seminar to discuss what they did and what had worked elsewhere etc.

97.6          Accordingly, it was