We’re here to invest in sport and physical activity to make it a normal part of life for everyone in England, regardless of who you are.
Because it’s not always a level playing field.
Right now, the opportunities to get involved in sport and activity – and reap the rewards of being active – depend too much on your background, your gender, your bank balance and your postcode.
We’re determined to tackle this and unlock the advantages of sport and physical activity for everyone.
This isn’t just about our long-standing purpose of helping more people to enjoy playing sport and being physically active.
We believe that by removing existing barriers to sport and activity, we can be part of a bigger picture of work that helps to address many of society’s biggest challenges.
Sport and physical activity makes people happier and healthier, and movement is the lens through which we can make that happen. It does the same thing for our communities, with life-changing, sustainable benefits that have huge economic and social value.
That’s why we want sport and physical activity to be recognised as essential to help overcome these national challenges.
We recognise the need to invest in sport and physical activity through national governing bodies, other sports bodies and local sports clubs, organisations and community groups to increase engagement for different groups as part of our core purpose. But we need now to go further in promoting movement in general as the means to unlock sport and activity for some people.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, we were achieving record levels of activity in England. Now we’re working tirelessly to get that momentum back, and crucially, to reach people who’ve traditionally been excluded across the country.
This isn’t an individual pursuit. We want to work with other organisations, locally and nationally, who can see the enormous untapped potential of working together – whatever their sector or industry.
Sometimes we’ll lead. Sometimes we’ll follow. We won’t have all the answers, but we’ll share valuable knowledge and bring together expert voices.
It'll mean doing some things differently, and there'll be tough choices to make.
But if we can continue to champion the role of sport and activity – and ensure funding and resources reach those people and organisations who are struggling to access them – we can fulfil the true potential of movement. Together, we can change lives for the better in every home, and in every community, right across the country.
There are deep-rooted inequalities in sport and physical activity, which mean there are people who feel excluded from being active because the right options and opportunities aren’t there:
This data only tells part of the story. In reality, each of us is a mix of these characteristics, and this leads to our diverse identities and communities. We’re not defined solely by our gender, our ethnicity, or our income. But for too long there have been clear patterns in the characteristics of people who feel less able to get active.
These inequalities are at the very core of Uniting the Movement – we’ll have a laser focus on tackling them in all that we do, because providing opportunities to people and communities that have traditionally been left behind, and helping to remove the barriers to activity is vitally important.