Active Bradford is a partnership of agencies from across the District that are committed to working together to increase the number of people being active and playing sport across the Bradford District.

Last year Active Bradford presented to the scrutiny committee the agreed physical activity strategy framework that it would be using to promote and develop physical activity across the District.

The report of the Strategic Director, Place (Document “AD”) sets out the progress that Active Bradford has made over the last year.

Recommended –

That Members of the Committee note the current progress of Active Bradford.

(Phil Barker – 01274 432616)

Active Bradford was a partnership of agencies from across the District that are committed to working together to increase the number of people being active and playing sport across the Bradford District.

In 2017 Active Bradford presented to the scrutiny committee the agreed Physical Activity Strategy Framework that it would be using to promote and develop physical activity across the District.

The report of the Strategic Director, Place (Document “AD”) set out the progress that Active Bradford had made since 2017.

The Assistant Director, Sport and Culture was in attendance, accompanied by the Sports and Physical Activities Manager, CEO of Yorkshire Sports Foundation and the Council’s Consultant in Public Health.

During outset, the CEO of Yorkshire and Sports Foundation gave a PowerPoint. The presentation highlighted the importance of a healthy prosperous Bradford where everyone chose to make physical activity an everyday part of their lives; the partners that were involved in the supporting of driving Active Bradford forward; explanation of reasons for physical activity; national and local survey data including the estimation inactivity levels of Bradford; map of Sport England Local Delivery Pilot; and, the next steps in the 4 year plan.

Following PowerPoint presentation, officers jointly gave a synopsis of the report. It was explained that, in common with many other areas, physical activity levels across the District were less than moderate which was leading to cause harm to people’s health, wellness and prosperity. Whilst partners had been creating many opportunities through events, activity programmes and facility developments, Active Bradford had been laying the foundations for a whole system approach to tackle inactivity. The highlight of this had been the successful bid to become one of a few Sport England Local Delivery Pilots across the country that would bring a significant investment and focus on physical activity across to part of the District.

A question and answer session followed:

·         In addition to the Council helping to drive a positive active change towards lifestyles, how did other statutory organisations come into this agenda?

o   At present, this was a pilot scheme for the sole purpose of learning and the Council had teamed up with other organisations;

·         Was Active Bradford for the whole of the Bradford district or only parts?

o   It covered the whole district;

·         What was the duration of the pilot?

o   4 years;

·         What approach had the officers taken in the delivery of the pilot scheme?

o   It was about learning of different communities and then adapting to deliver a sporting health lifestyle agenda towards each individual community’s needs;

·         What approaches had been taken in order to engage with communities?

o   There was still a significant amount of learning to be done however, it was about adopting new ways of engagement whilst taking into consideration today’s society living a digital world. The pilot was also about learning and developing new ways of interaction with communities for healthy lifestyles, for example and for such reasons being that during a previous programme on obesity, Asian Communities highlighted their unawareness of issues and dangers surrounding obesity;

·         In which other city was a similar framework working effectively?

o   The framework that the Council had taken responsibility was the result of a successful bid to become one of only 12 Sport England Local Delivery Pilots across the country. The Council was in a leadership stage however, the service would be concentrating on the area of engagement in order to roll out this pilot scheme; and,

·         Due to the district’s highest youngest population in the City Ward, how did the service intend to collate the various information to tailor Active Bradford?

o   There circulation of a National Survey targeting 1000 people a year which was self reporting.

During the discussion, the Committee and officers made the following comments:

·         Active Bradford had picked up on work undertaken by Healthy Living and on a whole system approach, was progressing towards education people to understand how easy it was to adopt a lifestyle to remain healthy;

·         That making physical activity becoming part of a person’s everyday routine was the essence of driving forward Active Bradford in the heart of communities;

·         In relation to Asian communities, there were around 84 Madrasas/Mosques in the Bradford district and as they were heavily utilised on a daily basis, it was important to target engagement within this sector;

·         It was paramount that the end policy should be based favourably on the end user in order to get the people to maintain a active lifestyle;

·         This advantage of a pilot scheme was about how Bradford District’s physical activity can be tailored according to different needs of communities;

·         Support organisations, develop new opportunities to be active and promote the benefits of activity; and,

·         Exercising saved lives, made people feel more positive and also prevented people who were under extreme stress to alleviate self harm.

Resolved –

The Committee thanks officers for their presentation and requests a wider report in 12 months to include an update on the Active Bradford Strategy and the pilot scheme, the development of the “Sports Leisure Card” and details of the Olympic legacy.

ACTION: Strategic Director, Place