Agenda item

M Rawdon introduced C Foster who presented the Physical Activity and Sports Action Plan then asked Committee for any comments.

Cllr England thanked C Foster for a very enjoyable 5K run and mentioned that what’s been said is really good and didn’t want to take away from that particularly it was good to hear that 790 children, that’s the kind of number that I’m really looking for all over this plan, it harps back to what was said in the summer.  It’s also good that you have a good relationship with DST because they are still around and clearly they are going to continue to be involved in doing some good stuff and we should make use of that.  Cllr England mentioned that the figures in the sports strategy, which this document supports, and there is a figure that the number of inactive people in Dacorum was at the writing of the strategy 21.2%, so I checked the most recently available figures, to see what progress we’ve actually made and was a little bit shocked to find that we’ve gone backwards, the latest figures, although these are in November 17/18 figures, show that we’ve gone from 21.2 to 22.1 so the number of completely inactive people in the Borough has actually gone up by nearly 1 percentage point.  1 percentage point on about 20% is a 5% increase in inactivity, that’s quite a dramatic figure.  The question is looking at the initiatives to reduce inactivity these don’t appear to be working yet, is this something which is a work in progress but what really worries me is we do seem to have gone backwards since we created the measuring a certain number of inactive people and then trying to reduce that.  If that strategic number is down what are the specific actions in this action plan which we are sure are going to restore and grow activity. 

Cllr Banks confirmed that the 5K was a spectacular day, we didn’t have the weather, but it was great.  She added that she totally agreed with you and you are always going to need to do more, I think one of the issues is your starting point in those figures are old details and appreciates that is the latest figures that are released but they are not current.  We are evolving a plan to tap into people where they are at.  We are not trying to deliver in gold standard high end sports activities for everyone, some of it is very low key, that’s how we will engage with people, the information as you’ve presented it is disappointing but I think your starting block is old information and I would expect that as later figures become available you will see that we have made significant improvement.

Cllr England advised that the figures also show that at the same time the comparative figures for the south east have improved, so Dacorum has worsened but the figures for the south east have improved, which makes me glad that we’ve still got the relationship with DST because I believe that was an important part of Dacorum having its own approach to local sports.  If we are in the same boat as Watford, St Albans and Three Rivers with Everyone Active, then we’ve got to make sure that the non-Everyone Active stuff is where we are getting our marginal improvement from, because otherwise we’ll always going to be lagging behind the rest of our local region.  M Rawdon would be keen to understand where the figures come from, if we could and confirmed we have a quarterly meeting with all the key stakeholders and DST are a part of that, the relationship is really good, but within that project board we are looking at how we can make a difference together.  For us it’s not that we are working in insolation, we are working with our key sports stakeholders to understand how we can improve, this is work in progress, it’s a five year strategy, as you can see in the action plan, there is some significant important projects, not just about numbers but also supporting the demographics in our society that may need additional support in terms of becoming more physically active and being a part of a sport. It is a work in progress and he is personally is very proud of the team in terms of the action plan that we put together with a resources that we have.

The Chairman would also be interested to understand where the figures have come from, because I think there has been some quite exciting new initiatives in the report here and also my role as Chair of Dacorum Sports Trust, they are very happy with the way the relationship is building but in particular thinking outside and where you’re partnering with Police and doing things at XC to help prevent crime etc, that was something the Borough wasn’t hot on up until recently.  I know London Borough’s have been doing it for a while and I can’t understand if you’re doing things like that, why there’s a drop in activity, because surely those types of things would mean that people who wouldn’t ordinarily be participating in sport now are, so it would be good to identify if there’s a particular group within Dacorum that is affecting those figures.

Cllr Mahmood said there was lots of initiatives in there which is good news, it’s a very active group, he did find that Yoga classes are missing, it’s very good if you can cycle and run, but there is very little things to do with mental health or if people aren’t as active. The other thing really lacking is that there is no initiative to reach the hard to reach communities and he would be more than happy to help in any way if required.  Otherwise there is a lot happening which is great and a testament to the Officer, she has done a lot to develop areas and they need to be looked at, we’ve got so many communities in the town, they just need to be engaged in the process.  C Foster replied that with regards to Yoga with the action plan, there’s only so much you can put on the action plan, it would be pages and pages long, but there is a lot of yoga going on, we are working closely with Everyone Active on the outreach programme, which is in the community, so they go to local community centres, town halls and village halls, to run various sessions and there’s lots of independent organisations that I’m building relationships with, who also offer such activities, such as Boxmoor Yoga who will be part of our wellness event, there is a lot of that going on, you just can’t always display everything.  If there is more we can do to promote local organisations I would be happy to do that.  With regards to the mental health, one the latest projects is the healthy hub, we are building a really close relationship with Mind and will be setting up some activities specifically focussing on mental health.  It’s a really important audience to target which is increasing in priority, that’s definitely something we are looking to work with this year.  Finally part of the harder to reach community groups, definitely think this is very important, throughout the action plan, some are touched with regards to the disabilities and the anti-social behaviour, we are really trying to work with, thinking outside the box, the likes of the Police and the Fire Service to really engage with the right people.  Part of the Everyone Active outreach programme, they have to engage with some harder to reach groups as well, so there is a lot of work going on, but can’t display it all, but if that’s what you would like to see I can definitely include more of that.

Cllr Adeleke wanted to commend your efforts, compared to where we were years ago and where we are today, I think done incredibly very well.  Cllr Adeleke admitted he had not attended any of it, but it was mentioned earlier on, I did see some people come last in the race.  Cllr Adeleke asked about press coverage and if we can look into improving that, because everything I’ve seen is what I’ve read in the local paper about what is going on, so it would be good if we could improve it a bit, advertise events on the big screen in the town.  Cllr Adeleke also raised knife crime and asked for more information on what we do, also how much involvement with these groups at present, how much of your activities do you take to the school platforms.  M Rawdon replied that press coverage is always a very difficult one, we often provide articles to the press and they don’t seem to want to publish good news stories, which is disappointing, but we will continue to try.  We have used the TV screens in town, we have launched our social media platform in terms of Active Dacorum and that links into our DBC social media platform as well, however we are always looking to continue to improve that. 

A Care also mentioned an initiative that we are taking on board at the moment was to create a leaflet which would be electronic but will also go out to schools to say over the holidays and coming months this is what’s coming up, but it will also look back to say over the last term we said we were going to do and we did 5 pop ups and 790 children were able to attend, so that’s in progress at the moment.

C Foster added that the Sporting Chance project, what that looks like is I’m working very close with Herts Sports Partnership who initially had some of the funding for these sessions, my role is to go out to local sports clubs and have that relationship to say we’re interested in running a session, is it something you want to engage with this type of audience, to bring them into your sports club or run a session.  We then organise a session and find a date and time, then we work with the likes of YC Herts Family First and teams within DBC on a referral basis.  So it’s not just a turn up and play session, we are working on referrals to make sure we target the correct audiences needed for these sessions, so we can use sports and intervention and engage with them.

Cllr Johnson also thought it was a very useful report and wanted to look at the Fit, Fed and Read programme which is aimed at children on pupil premium, he would like to know how we identify those children who may themselves not know they are pupil premium children and will you be looking at both primary and secondary pupils.  C Foster said this project is on a referral basis, so we work closely with the primary schools, if the children are eligible for free school meals is one of the main indicators and we talk to the parents, with help from other partners, like Families First, to make sure we are getting the right people on the programmes.  Some of the challenges to that is actually retaining the students, getting them to come back every day, but we found when the pupils are attending throughout the summer and Easter holidays, that it’s been really beneficial and when they go back to school they have maintained their skill levels rather than a reduction, which is expected across the holidays.

Cllr Banks advised that she visited the Fit, Fed and Read programme in the summer and it was an amazing experience to see a number of young people who perhaps had some difficulties in their lives, but one interesting anecdote, that was a real shame, was that I was speaking to a couple of young people whose attendance had been a little bit erratic and the reason that they hadn’t come in was because their Mum couldn’t get up to get them there for a 10am start.  Your heart goes out to these people when they don’t have the support at home, we’re trying to help within the wider community, but it was really quite sad poignant moment.  I’m hoping that programme will continue and we will learn lessons from that and it’s around transport and getting the children to the centres. 

Cllr Adeleke asked in this type of situation do you make any efforts to alert Social Services to seek help for these kids.  Cllr Banks replied this was interesting point, because it that really neglect or is just because Mum can’t be bothered to get up.  I’m not suggesting that she’s in bed all day, but she’s on her school holiday as much as the kids are and if she wants a lay in, she’s just not thinking of the bigger picture, but I do agree with you, that it was a really sad reflection on at least one family, in one ward here in Dacorum.  Cllr Banks thought it would be good to explore how we can lay on transport and collect young people and get them onto such a vibrant programme, because the kids that were there were absolutely having the time of their life, they were really enjoying it.

Cllr England said he wanted to be positive about this and knows that he has been critical but wants to be positive and does want to meet with Officers and get into the details of this as he has lots of ideas, but in broad terms he would like to see a how much column, something which identifies how much money is being either attracted or spent so that we can try and put some kind of a number on that and hopefully see that number going up.  There also needs to be a where column, because on some cases identified whereabouts in the Borough this was happening, but couldn’t in other cases.  In some cases the why column, which is the impact/outcome, has incomplete information and it’s quite noticeable that Everyone Active, because everything is central, we do this here and we do that there, they tend to be quite well prepared for this kind of output and you can see that in the report, it’s clear that there is some kind of formula or EA process being used to make sure that these boxes are populated and I’d like to try and see a levelling up on that if we can find a way of doing it economically.  Things like the 790 people, any number that’s like that, that gives us a way of saying this line in the report is actually impacting 790 people in a year, then we can very easily see the magnitude of the different activities, again we will come to a figure at the bottom that will say how many people did this action plan focus on this year and that will be a really good thing to make sure that we are heading in the right direction.  If we try and grab a time to talk about some of the detailed stuff and then you can tell me if it’s all a load of rubbish or if there’s any good stuff.

Cllr Durrant mentioned that this year is also the Herts Year of Culture so there’s going to be lots of events going on locally as well, in fact it was mentioned about Yoga and they come on my farm and do Yoga with my alpacas, so it’s one of the things for example that’s going to be done this year, there’s lots out there as well to encourage people to take part in.

Cllr Oguchi wanted to know how all these ideas are put together.  C Foster said it was a mixture from previous experiences, pilots and what’s worked well in other areas and partnership work is key.  M Rawdon added that it’s important to say that the project board for the key sports stakeholders, a big part of that is ideas around what works and what doesn’t, their expertise and obviously we need to keep bring back to the fact that whatever we do links back to the strategy to make sure that what we are trying to achieve its objectives.

The Chairman confirmed the recommendation to note the report and that we had given our feedback.