DD2427 SPORT UNITES Sport Tech: Using Open Data for Social Prescribing

Sport Unites

Sport Unites is the Mayor’s three-year community sport investment programme, designed to help London become the most active and socially integrated city in the world. The programme, with funding of £5.8m approved under cover of MD2244, launched in March 2018 and is structured as follows:

• Theme One: Sport for Social Integration;
• Theme Two: Active Londoners; and
• Theme Three: Workforce and Capacity Building.

A fourth theme, Young Londoners Fund, was subsequently approved in March 2018 under cover of MD2265 and increased the current programme to £8.8m in total.

Open Data and Social Prescribing form part of the Technology (or ‘Sport Tech’) workstream which sits within Theme 3 of Sport Unites. This theme comprises workstreams that underpin, enable and support the initiatives delivered in the rest of the programme:

• Workforce: supporting those who deliver community sport in London, so they can do what they do best; that is, finding and keeping people active and involved in sport and physical activity for improved health, wellbeing, connections and relationships.
• Sport Tech: making sure the London sport sector is up to speed with digital innovation, discovering and using great ways of engaging Londoners in an active lifestyle with a particular focus on how we can support community sport and social prescribing.
• Monitoring & Evaluation: keeping track of the impact of our work and helping those on the ground do the same.
• Thought Leadership: providing guidance and leadership to the sector; sharing best practice in sport for social integration through research, case studies and the work of community change-makers.

Sport Tech is comprised of workstreams that support digital innovation initiatives that enable Londoners to have a more active and socially-integrated lifestyle and tackle the five key issues outlined in the Sport for All of Us Strategy (Social Isolation, Social Mixing, Inactivity, Mental Health, and Serious Youth Violence). This includes supporting London Sport’s ground-breaking work to boost the development of ‘Sport Tech’ in London.

Social Prescribing

Social Prescribing is Social Prescribing is supporting individuals to improve their health and wellbeing through community-based services.

Mainstreaming social prescribing is a key commitment of the Mayor’s Health Inequalities Strategy, ‘Better Health for Londoners’ in supporting the most disadvantaged Londoners to improve their health and well-being over the next 10 years. This project will inform a larger programme of work to develop a social prescribing strategy for London which is being developed across the GLA and with a range of partners.

This project has been developed by London Sport in consultation with the GLA, Healthy London Partnership and the London Social Prescribing Network, in collaboration with NHS England, local authorities and the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector; and accordance with Next Steps for Social Prescribing in London – a document developed by the above organisations.

Open Data

As a general term, Open Data is data that anyone can access, use and share. Open Data becomes usable when made available in a common, machine-readable format.

For this work, Open Data refers to information about sport and physical activity sessions (e.g. type of activity, time, location) that is created and structured in a way that can be accessed by all.

London Sport

London Sport is an independent charitable organisation established to help make London the most physically active city in the world. It is one of 45 County Sports Partnerships (CSPs) in England – networks of local agencies, staffed by a central team, who receive core funding from Sport England to develop and maintain a detailed understanding of physical activity and sport at a local and regional level.

The GLA works closely with London Sport in a number of areas. For example: they deliver the Major Events Engagement Fund which was approved under cover of MD2353, deliver the Workforce Element of the Workforce and Capacity element of Sport Unites (approved under cover of DD2359) and partner with us to deliver thought leadership events.

Additionally, London Sport helps set the strategic direction for the London physical activity and sport sector. London Sport prides itself in pioneering digital innovation in sport tech, having already established a portal allowing local physical activity providers to publish their session data in open format via their Open Sessions tool. They have also created a user-facing page, Open Active, providing access to the sessions published. As such London Sport have already established a digital framework to accommodate this project, making them uniquely placed to deliver it.

London Sport’s vision, mission and objectives are closely aligned to the Mayor’s strategy for sport and physical activity in London ‘Sport for all of us’ and Sport Unites. Their alignment and that of the Open Data for Social Prescribing project is why we wish to provide the proposed grant funding of up to £76,000.

Project Design

The pilot project will identify the needs of service users, social prescription organisations and physical activity organisations and work with local physical activity providers to publish a range of opportunities which are relevant to social prescription in open data format. Stakeholders will be consulted to filter and adjust the active data feed so that social prescription organisations and users can access a curated list of relevant opportunities.

This project will be delivered across a 12-month period in three geographical areas within London selected via an open process and varying in the resource available, the staffing mix (paid/volunteer), the systems being used to manage social prescriptions, and the link to local sport and physical activity opportunities. This is to establish the conditions and approaches required to deliver a successful social prescribing offer.

A project lead will be employed by London Sport to deliver the above and support organisations involved in referring and providing social prescription capacity to utilise the feed of open data and to use it in their wider prescription service. There will be scope to learn, monitor the impact and create a blueprint for utilising open data within a social prescription context.

This project will receive match funding and support from Sport England and London Sport. The overall investment plan is as follows:

• the GLA will provide funding of £76,000, contributing to staffing costs (including but not limited to, community outreach, project lead, and digital lead), technical support, and thought leadership work.
• Sport England will provide funding of £38,000, contributing to development of products, services and Open Data standards for social prescription, and project monitoring and Evaluation.
• London Sport will match fund £20,300, enabling London Sport strategic lead involvement and covering development and maintenance of the Open Data Sessions platform.

The project aim is to improve the physical and mental health of Londoners, and contribute to the Mayor’s ambitions of making London the most socially integrated and active city and the world’s healthiest global city.

Project objectives are outlined below:

• to develop a way of harnessing and managing open data on sport and physical activity (in a social prescribing context) in a sustainable and user-friendly way;
• to find out what works, what doesn’t and why by piloting a physical activity providers’ database for social prescribing. This information will then help to mainstream social prescribing by supporting the scaling up the use of open data for sport and physical activity opportunities;
• to direct service users to relevant local physical activity providers by facilitating a social prescription service that leads the users to accessing a relevant opportunity. This will enable vulnerable Londoners to access activities that help tackle the five major issues outlined in the Mayor’s Sport for all of Us strategy: Social Isolation, Social Mixing, Inactivity, Mental Health, and Serious Youth Violence; and
• to support and upskill local physical activity providers by establishing and facilitating appropriate conditions for sustainable data sharing.

Outputs should include:

• 3 key areas pilot this project in a way that would provide a meaningful comparison;
• at least 30 (10 per area) local providers publish session data that is relevant to social prescription;
• at least 90 sessions (30 per area) are published weekly in open format and to make these available to social prescription services once appropriate filters have been applied; and
• establishment of a steering group to monitor the progress of the project and advise on next steps.

Outcomes should include:

• improved understanding of how open data can be used to provide social prescribing services;
• improved understanding of the conditions required to encourage physical activity providers to sustainably open their data and welcome social prescription service users;
• an insight is gained into the requirements to embed open data and physical activity into the work of social prescription organisations;
• improved mapping of physical activity offers within the chosen area with a view of assessing the concordance of demand and offer;
• a blueprint outlining how to sustainably utilise open data to support social prescription is created to consolidate learning from across the project;
• the social prescribing organisations increase their confidence and capability to prescribe physical activity;
• a 20% uplift (from baseline) in service users being prescribed relevant physical activity sessions generated by open data;
• more local providers gain the capability to create and sustainably publish open session data; and
• thought leadership events and shared learnings elevate the tech, digital, and sport profile of London as an innovator in the sector.

Equalities and improved relations between different groups and communities are at the centre of the Sport Unites programme. The Open Data project aims to address the needs of a diverse range of Londoners, including those with protected characteristics, by increasing opportunities to access sport and physical activities.

As mainstreaming social prescribing is specifically identified as a way of reducing health inequality in the ‘Health Inequalities Strategy’, this project will by extension contribute to the same goal. It will aim to a) reduce inequality of access by helping vulnerable Londoners access physical activity opportunities and b) reduce health inequalities. The latter will be done by improving physical and mental wellbeing through prescribing sport and physical activity.

This programme will provide opportunities for both current and potential members of London’s community sport workforce - both traditional and non-traditional, paid and volunteer – to publish information about their sessions on the open data platform. This will be achieved by co-designing the platform with providers’ needs in mind and by providing access to training and development that will broaden and enhance the skillsets needed to publish their session information and to cater to users referred via social prescribing services. This will advance equality of opportunity between persons of difference socioeconomic statuses, who may not otherwise have access to these opportunities.

The Sport Unites programme is being monitored/measured by a third party who has been contracted to provide independent monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of the programme. This will include the Sport Tech programme. In particular this M&E looks into the social integration measures of the programme, all of which advance equality of opportunity and good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.

1. Mayoral strategies and priorities - This project aligns with one of the strategic objectives of the Workforce stream (DD2359) of the Sport for All of Us strategy, Sport Tech. It will do so by upskilling link workers and VCSEs to publish and access physical activity opportunities in a cohesive way. This will deploy new ways of engaging Londoners in a more active lifestyle and allow social prescribing to use sport to address physical and mental health issues. The key principle of ‘investing to learn’ and pioneering new approaches in community sport capacity building also aligns with the Thought Leadership strand of Sport Unites.This project supports mainstreaming social prescribing which is a key commitment of the Mayor’s Health Inequalities Strategy Better Health for Londoners in respect of supporting the most disadvantaged Londoners to improve their health and well-being over the next 10 years and we will ensure the Health team are kept updated of progress in this project.

Conflict of Interest Mitigation

1. This project was developed by London Sport as a strategic partner, whose priorities are closely aligned with that of the Sport Unites programme. London Sport helps set the strategic direction for the London physical activity and sport sector. Focused work has been conducted to explore strategic synergies and overlaps between the work of London Sport and the GLA, and this pilot project is within areas of strategic alignment between London Sport and Sport Unites.
3. To ensure specific mayoral priorities are respected and upheld, Community Sport Team representatives, as well as members of the GLA Health and Technology teams will form part of the Steering Group overseeing the delivery of the Open Data pilot. Health and Tech teams’ participation will ensure a broader input, separate from the existing relationship between Sport Unites and London Sport.
5. Working on a Sport Tech project with London Sport is a specific mayoral commitment under his Sport for All of Us strategy. London Sport is uniquely placed to deliver this specific project as they are seen as being at the forefront of digital innovation in community sport tech and have already established a digital framework to accommodate this project.

1. Risk Register:

Approval is being sought for expenditure of up to £76,000 to provide grant funding to London Sport to deliver the Sport Tech - Open Data project element.

The above expenditure will be profiled over the following financial years; £30,000 in 2019/2020 and £46,000 in 2020/2021.

This expenditure will be funded from the Sport Unites Programme budget, within the Team London and Community Sports Unit.

The decisions requested of the Director (pursuant to authority delegated by the Mayor under cover of MD2244) fall within the GLA’s general statutory powers to do such things considered to further or which are facilitative of, conducive or incidental to the promotion of social development in Greater London and in formulating the proposals in respect of which a decision is sought officers have complied with the GLA’s related statutory duties to:

- pay due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people;

- consider how the proposals will promote the improvement of health of persons, health inequalities between persons and to contribute towards the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom; and

- consult with appropriate bodies.

In taking the decisions requested, the Director must have due regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty; namely the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010, and to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic (race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity, gender reassignment and marriage/ civil partnership status) and persons who do not share it section 149 of the Equality Act 2010). To this end, the Director should have particular regard to section 3 (above) of this report.

Section 1 above indicates that the contribution of up to £76,000 to London Sport amounts to the provision of grant funding and not payment for services. In the event that the Director is minded to make the decision sought officers must ensure that:

- the funding is distributed fairly, transparently, in accordance with the GLA’s equalities and in manner which affords value for money in accordance with the Contracts and Funding Code; and

- a funding agreement (on the GLA’s standard funding terms) is put in place between and executed by the GLA and recipient before any commitment to fund is made.

As the proposals concern arrangements which extend beyond the GLA election in May 2020 officers must ensure that the funding agreement noted above enables the GLA to terminate the funding at its option so as not to fetter the discretion of the Mayor after the election.

This project was developed with a proposal from London Sport and in consultation with the GLA Health team. Sport Unites leads on this project form part of the Social Prescribing network at the GLA and will be able to share and implement learnings with the other teams in the network. The project Steering group will guarantee regular strategic input from the GLA teams to ensure maximum transparency and alignment.