Short Abstract

The West Midlands Combined Authority and Sport England is investing in new Policy Officer posts to lead on the development of a Learning Evaluation and Evidence Plan to capture the impact of Sport England’s investment into whole-systems and place-based approaches.

Description

The West Midlands Combined Authority and Sport England has taken innovative steps towards reducing physical inactivity in the West Midlands through investing in new Policy Officer - Health Inequalities (Monitoring and Evaluation) posts to lead on the development of a Learning Evaluation and Evidence Plan to capture the impact of Sport England’s investment into whole-systems and place-based approaches. The LEEP uses realist evaluation methods to enable places to listen to communities, understand local priorities and identify where investment is needed most.

While the Sport and Physical Activity sector has historically measured success with traditional monitoring mechanisms like programme participation numbers and budget profiles, the West Midlands Learning Evaluation and Evidence Plan (LEEP) pulls focus towards identifying the commonalities, strengths, weaknesses and failures that influence the conditions needed in a place to shift physical activity levels and enable sustained behaviour change in place-based contexts. This approach aligns with and supports several key UK Government initiatives including the WMCA’s West Midlands On The Move strategic framework, the Get Active strategy, and Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) objectives, which embed physical activity into public health workforce practice.

This work is currently being applied to a range of projects including the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games legacy work funded via a WMCA and Sport England MoU grant and Sport England’s Place Expansion Partnerships to extend the LEEP approach in four Commonwealth Active Communities. The Commonwealth Active Communities were cocreated with local people to address physical inactivity levels through a £4 million investment from Sport England into the West Midlands.

The Policy Officers are responsible for guiding local staff through evaluation and learning processes, unpicking the complexity of place-based working by uncovering how, why and for whom approaches to reducing physical inactivity are working in a place to build a knowledge base of actionable insights that can be used to inform future projects making them more effective, sustainable and replicable.

This work is supported by academic partners from the National Evaluation and Learning Partnership, also funded via the WMCA and Sport England MoU grant, who validate and support the evaluation process and coach the Policy Officers through providing guidance and resources on realist evaluation. By working closely with community partners, local authorities, universities, and system stakeholders, the LEEP ensures that learning from place-based approaches inform region-wide projects, processes, and strategies.

This new approach to evaluation not only provides the Commonwealth Active Communities with dedicated time and capacity to devote to embedding learning processes in work to reduce physical inactivity, but it also demonstrates to organisations, like the West Midlands Combined Authority, that adopting a realist evaluation approach can lead to more evidence, learning and insight needed to create and embed conditions that will enable policy formation and system-wide change.