Agenda item

Cabinet Member for Communities, Councillor Jane Lewis will provide members with a verbal update at the meeting.  In attendance also will be Fiona Hayward - Strategic Co-ordinator, IWIYW and John McLean: Performance and Insight Lead (IWIYW).  Reports attached.

Councillor Jane Lewis, Cabinet Member, Communities attended the meeting to provide members of the Committee with an update in respect of the I will if you will project (IWIYW) an accompanying report had been circulated to Elected Members.  The Report contained the following information:

I Will If You Will (IWIYW) is a project focused upon changing women and girls’ behaviours to take part in sport and physical activity with the aim of getting more women and girls to be more active, more often, and acting as a lever for change to help to improve the health and wellbeing of people in Bury.

The project is hosted by Bury Council in partnership with Sport England.

Phase One of IWIYW was launched in May 2013 and ran from September 2013 to September 2014.  A bridging period followed between October 2014 and December 2014 and Phase Two formally commenced in January 2015 and runs to December 2016 with the commitment from Bury Council to develop a sustainable model with continued delivery of IWIYW post external funding from Sport England through until 2020.

The number of participants in the programme as at 31^st August 2015 stands at 10,723 unique individuals – with 91% of those being female (9693 females).  Since January 2015 when Phase Two commenced, 3,225 of these participants have continued to engage with the programme.

Since the programme began, there have been 7,741 sessions held – averaging 337 sessions a month. 

Bury Council was successful in its bid to pilot IWIYW in May 2013 and awarded a grant of £2,383,778 to lead the campaign.  The project was extended for two years and Phase 2 started in January 2015 and will run to December 2016 with a budget of £2m over 2 years. 

Priorities for the second year of the Phase 2 programme include:

·         Continuing the work on behaviour change priority areas to encourage more regular participation in the programme on a long-term basis.

·         Continuing to work with locality networks and encourage bids to the locality fund and community fund to support new activities.

·         Strong input from volunteers and champions in each locality area.

Those present were given the opportunity to ask questions and make comments and the following points were raised:

In response to a Member’s question the Performance and Insight Lead reported that a street survey had been undertaken to assess in part the impact of the programme as well as the national active people survey.  The survey has shown a narrowing of the gap between activity undertaken between men and women and also that woman are more active than they were previously.

In terms of sustainability, the Cabinet Member reported that lessons have been learnt from phase 1 of the IWIYW programme, there is no further funding available from Sport England beyond 2016, therefore in order to ensure sustainability the aim of the programme is to ensure that the project is embedded in the communities this will be done through engaging with partners and locality networking.

In response to a question with regards to differences in take up across the Townships; the Performance and Insight Lead reported that this could be in part due to ethnicity but also due to the facilities available in each of the Townships.

In response to a member’s question the Strategic Co-ordinator I Will If You Will reported that there are a number of barriers to exercise for women including location, childcare responsibilities, body image issues, lack of self confidence.  The project has identified mentors for the scheme, reviewed timing of events, childcare to ensure there are no barriers to women taking up activities.

In response to concerns raised from members in respect of take up across the age ranges, the Performance and Insight Lead reported that the reason for the large take up in respect of the 14-19 age group was due in part to school swimming lessons.

In response to a Member’s question, the Strategic Co-ordinator (IWIYW) reported that the project would want to encourage take up from younger people aged 20-24, the team has worked with schools and colleges and the zone at castle leisure to increase participation.

In respect of take up of only 4% in the age 60-64 category, the Strategic Co-ordinator (IWIYW) reported that there are disappointed with the low take up in this age group but measures have been put in place to address these issues.

It was agreed:

The Cabinet Member, Communities, the Strategic Co-ordinator and the Performance and Insight Lead be thanked for their attendance and an update in respect of the I Will if You Will project will be considered at a future meeting of the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee.