The report consequently produced, published on 9 May 2024, addresses this face-on. The document does not shy away from exploring the challenges faced over the past few years and that still exist today.
While national health crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic, rising cases of diabetes and the continual struggles of the NHS to meet demand have affected people around the UK, the report focuses on the local effects of these issues.
It also examines the current financial landscape, providing additional context in this respect by putting a spotlight on nine diverse towns, cities and regions within Devon to highlight the differences in their population, current facilities and how services in these micro-localities operate.
In spite of this brutally honest dissection of the obstacles that the sport and physical activity sector faces in Devon, there is a definite tone of positivity and readiness to overcome them. With a clear vision of what needs to be achieved, the report frames distinct opportunities for improvement with the ten ‘emerging themes for future focus’.
This manifesto of sorts sets out a broad range of actions that will allow sport and physical activity to progress and flourish as a sector in Devon. Covering a wide range of topics from leadership to sustainability, they all have an underlying theme of future-proofing facilities, services and careers across leisure, sport and physical activity to ensure that the people of Devon can benefit from all the sector has to offer for many years to come.
Active Devon Director and report author Gareth Dix said:
“We’re really pleased to produce the ‘Future of Public Leisure in Devon’ with the core message that the public sector leisure has considerable hidden potential to positively impact the health, well-being and vitality of our communities.
Only by working together with health partners and wider, growing leadership and workforce capability within the sector and initiating a new shared narrative across local systems will we see this potential released.”
The organisation is optimistic that the report will inspire new ideas as well as spark opportunities for sector players to collaborate. With the backdrop of transitioning towards an integrative system that tackles inactivity, addresses social needs and delivers community services, cooperation is essential.
This is highlighted in the report, with attention being drawn to how the county can and should work with national partners such as CIMSPA. Active Devon has positioned itself as a strong role model in this respect by explaining how CIMSPA and other national partners played a part in putting together the report.
Dix was keen to express his thanks for the support:
“We are grateful to our local and national partners such as CIMSPA in the production of this report where we were able to draw data from their Insight Hub and connect locally with their local skills hub manager to understand some of the challenges and opportunities around sport and leisure as a valid career path.”
In return, Simon Barnes, Skills Hub Manager for Devon, shared his view on the report and CIMSPA’s collaboration with Active Devon:
“In the recent report, ‘The Future of Public Leisure in Devon’, released by Active Devon, CIMSPA is quoted for the insightful data gathered on the sport and physical activity workforce across Devon. This collaboration highlights the strong partnership between ourselves, Active Devon and numerous other stakeholders across the region.
The report, along with the efforts of the Devon Local Skills Accountability Board, marks a significant step towards developing a comprehensive Local Skills Plan for Devon. This provides employers in our sector with the opportunity to make recommendations to education providers and other stakeholders with the aim of creating a more diverse and professional workforce.”
The collaboration will not end here, as many of the report’s emerging themes tie in with the CIMSPA 2024–2030 strategy, ‘Releasing the Power of our Profession’. Notable points include ‘initiate a new focus on leadership’. This centres around creating awareness of leisure as a valid career path and aligns strongly with the CIMSPA initiative to create consistent professional recognition in our sector.
Many parallels can also be drawn between emerging theme ‘prioritise sharing of data, insight and technology development’ and the CIMSPA strategy system intervention of creating a UK sport and physical activity skills observatory. Both initiatives encompass the need for more high-quality data to understand landscapes and provide foresight to improve both careers in the sector and services provided to communities. This will require collecting and sharing data between organisations in order to succeed.
With Active Devon’s findings and strategy well aligned with CIMSPA’s own, the sport and physical activity sector is working ever more collaboratively to achieve a brighter future across the UK.
