Place Expansion MEL Partner Kirklees

The work in Kirklees is vital to aid understanding of what communities really need in order to move around more and gain the health benefits from doing so. This is an incredibly important opportunity to really get underneath the barriers to physical activity and work with communities to design solutions that work for them. The work comes at a point in time with the recent publication of our Director of Public Health’s Annual Report 2024-2025: Physical Activity Matters  [Link]. There is system level support for this work and a genuine excitement about what will be learnt.

Across Kirklees there have been a number of pieces of work in recent years to try to help increase levels of physical activity including:

• The Everybody Active Advisory Group (EAAG) has existed in various forms since 2001. Increasing amounts of partnership work is already taking place, but mostly has focused on the delivery of individual activities and interventions rather than systemic change.
• Whole system approach sessions in December 2019 which brought 30 system leaders to map complex systems affecting physical activity. While this created connections and excitement about potential change COVID came shortly afterwards.
• A wider systems leadership course in 2019 and 2022, for colleagues from across the health and care systems. Although not physical activity specific they align with the approach advocated by Sport England and therefore helped to prepare the ground for this work.
• Leadership Essentials 2 day event in June 2024 which was very successful and helped shape what went into the development award bid.
• A few isolated pieces of funding such as Tackling Inequalities Fund, Active Through Football and We are Undefeatable so keen to look at how longer term, sustainable change can be achieved through effecting systems change.

Click to see Kirklees' Development Award bid      

This evaluation will run for 12 months with the possibility of an extension to be discussed at a review point following the 12 month period to support with the work areas set out below. This support is required during the development award phase, which is expected to last 12 months, depending how quickly the work progresses to submission of the full award. Through this the aim is to seek to begin to understand how working at a hyper-local level within the context of a broader system impacts on better conditions for physical activity for all. It will feed into the national evaluation approach to better understand how we can tackle structural inequalities, strengthen community and individual capacities and integrate physical activity across different but connected parts of the system to achieve more sustainable impact.

The Evaluation Will

• Be simple in its design, adaptive and will evolve as the work progresses. There will be a degree of flexibility around the scope of this work with regular reviews with the evaluation partner.
• Be inclusive of diverse perspectives and include the voice of community partners, internal and external partners.
• Help people to tell their stories and use these to inform the work.
• Have a strong focus on equality and ensuring this is core to the work.`
• Support local capacity and capability in evaluation and organisational learning, which may include facilitating process learning meetings
• Use a broad range of data sources and methods, appropriate for the evaluation questions and audience
• Combine a number of different approaches that will enable learning to be captured at a hyper-local and system level and be put into action as delivery progresses.
• Consider the context including recognising the setting and connected influences contribute to the success of initiatives and approaches.
• Ask why and be critical, supporting with highlighting what may or may not be working and why.
• Will fit in with and support the wider Sport England NELP

Click to see full tender document 

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