Through this work we have focused on supporting our sector to improve the quality of the data they have about physical activity opportunities (where, when, how much, and what these are) and making it openly available for anyone to access, use and share.
Open data requires different strategies
When we started OpenActive, we acknowledged that this was one of the first risky digital investments that Sport England would support.
But the problem was too important and we needed to be ambitious, so we decided to keep learning about the challenges and benefits of open data, through working with lots of organisations across the sector.
But ours isn’t a simple sector.
Instead we’re made up of lots of moving parts and layers, and helping people find the sport or activity that works for them will require quite significant change in how we all operate.
This might mean investment in research and development for the improved systems or skills to keep data up to date, having conversations about who takes payments, bookings etc.
Navigating these challenges, alongside surviving a pandemic, has made this a longer race than we first envisaged.
Making great strides…
But despite these challenges, we have made great progress as a community, having grown from eight sport sector organisations in 2016, to sharing data from over 5,000 activity providers in 2024.
This means we’ve increased the number of sport and physical activity opportunities for people to find from 76,000 in 2017 to over 2 million in 2024.
This progress is largely down to the dedication and unpaid hours that many in the community have dedicated to solving this problem together.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for that because it means we have a strong foundation and a growing bank of evidence that proves we are on the right path.
We really want to achieve the ambition we set out to in 2016, which is why Sport England has awarded further funding of £985k to the ODI to keep supporting the sector in the usage of data to help people get active in their local area.
… but this year is a critical one!
Just as every marathon runner requires a different strategy, we continue to adjust our focus for OpenActive based on what we learn.
For the next six months, we will be focused on creating and finding funding for an independent organisation who can look after and evolve the data infrastructure that has been created.
We will speak to the government and other funders to help us do this, with a view to seeing OpenActive acknowledged as part of the national data infrastructure for the UK.
And we will continue to work from the grassroots up, demonstrating value and collaborating locally to prove the positive impact that having good quality data and data standards can bring. This includes:
- learning alongside London Sport as they support local authorities with free, OpenActive-compliant search on their websites
- collaborating with Open Referral UK to reduce duplication as local authorities seek to use both data standards
- continuing to enable the delivery of local and national campaigns such as Everybody Moves and Manchester Active.
How different is OpenActive from Moving Communities?
It’s important to remember that OpenActive is different to Moving Communities.
Both are critical for addressing the Big Issues we identified in Uniting the Movement, but they are also complementary and designed to solve different problems.
Moving Communities is helping the sector to understand who is getting active to help us to adapt what is provided locally; while OpenActive is making it easier for people to find relevant local opportunities, so that we can grow the number of people who are getting active.
Tell us what you need
Sport England encourages all our partners to consider how you can use or support OpenActive to increase your impact and the ODI team are ready to help, whether you are publishing data or considering how to use it.
If you would like to get involved or have ideas or connections that could help us use open data to deliver against Uniting the Movement, please contact our team or the OpenActive team and let’s finish this marathon.
