ukactive was awarded Trade Body Campaign of the Year for their campaign 'Turning the tide of inactivity' at The Public Affairs Awards on Tuesday 9th December at the Park Plaza Riverbank. ukactive is the trade body for the physical activity sector, with over 4,500 members from sport and activity providers, major corporations, training providers, charities, equipment manufacturers and many more.
David Stalker, CEO, said: "We couldn't be more delighted with this award. This is an emphatic response to a report that has already garnered a huge amount of support from across government, sector, brands and private enterprise. Aside from that, the endorsement of decision makers who recognise excellence in advocacy communications and public affairs it great recognition of the hard work put into this robust report."
ukactive's first local authority report Turning the tide of inactivity covered 2013-14 and defined physical inactivity as a major national public health issue linked to one in six premature deaths. In November, ukactive released a follow-up report Steps to solving inactivity, which conducted the same research for 2014-15. Steps to solving inactivity also presents the findings of the largest review of physical activity programmes to date and says more needs to be done to capture and evaluate programme data.
Below is an overview of their submission for The Public Affairs Awards:
‘Turning the tide of inactivity’
‘Turning the tide of inactivity’ is ukactive’s ground-breaking campaign, aiming to: 1) Increase the profile of the physical activity sector among decision makers; 2) Establish physical inactivity as a top tier public health concern; 3) Achieve commitment from government to tackle inactivity. It began with the release of the Turning the tide of inactivity report which, for the first time, established levels of physical inactivity in the UK and it’s health and economic impacts. To reflect public health structures, information was broken down by local authority. The report called for immediate steps from government, including a cross-government strategy, to prioritise physical inactivity – it received support from the Prime Minister and had a foreword from Lord Sebastien Coe.
Momentum and support for the campaign was significant. We negotiated a strategic partnership between ourselves, Public Health England (PHE), the Local Government Association and County Sports Partnership Network to establish senior level physical activity forums around England. It is the first local network focusing on developing strategies to tackle inactivity bringing together organisations who have existed for many years but never focused on this area. More than 750 senior professionals attended the first forum including Directors of Public Health, Commissioners, Councillors, public health teams, and ukactive members. There were significant wins as a direct response:1) Jane Ellison MP, Public Health Minister, and PHE, has designed, consulted on and is launching their national strategy to tackle physical inactivity. This establishes physical inactivity as a top public health priority. 2) Enormous realignment of public health spending locally towards physical activity: increased investment to £78m by local authorities this year compared with £43m last year e.g. new figures show Sunderland have increased spending from £36,000 before this campaign to £1.8m -an increase from 0.3% to 16% of their public health budget. 3) Andy Burnham MP pledged “I will make physical activity the cornerstone of Labour’s public health policy in the manifesto” at a ukactive event. 4) Sport England will next year re-launch a £25million funding project under a new name to reflect growing awareness on inactivity. Overall, ukactive instigated development of significant new policy, realigning of funding, and ensured physical inactivity is a government priority for the first time. |
Until now, Physical inactivity has been largely ignored–clouded within obesity and overshadowed by other public health concerns. There has been no government strategy on it, no commitment or prioritisation by health professionals towards it and minimal public spend. Yet more than a quarter of the population is inactive, causing 17% of deaths in the UK (equal to smoking) and costing the economy £20bn a year.
Key MPs and all Directors of Public Health were sent the report, highlighting their local inactivity figures and costs. It was discussed in a Parliamentary roundtable event organised by ukactive and hosted by Tracey Crouch MP, and in one-to-one meetings with MPs and ministers. Questions were raised in the House by Parliamentarians. It instigated the Public Health Minister to launch a cross-government strategy – Moving More, Living More.