The challenge

The national Active People Survey (APS) highlights participation in sport and active recreation activities across the country. Participation can vary considerably by area and this was evident across the two south central London boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark. This variance was significant for the number of people participating at least three times a week for 30 minutes. Divergent results were not expected, given the similar demography of the boroughs. In response, Sport England and Pro-Active Central London commissioned Quadrant to review potential reasons.

What did we do?

We used a combination of Quantitative and Qualitative research methods to explore these issues. Our methodology involved

• Detailed interpretation of the APS data using diagnostic tools, looking beyond the headline figures
• Desk research, across 70 published reports
• 20 Depth interviews and three local workshops with staff and stakeholders
• Field visits to each team and representative localities or facilities

What was the breakthrough for Sport England?

While everybody’s assumptions mainly focused on the variance of participation between Lambeth and Southwark, we discovered that the variance was more within Southwark rather than across. While North and Southern Southwark were in line with Lambeth’s performance, the overall low participation of Southwark could be attributed to the central belt in the Southwark borough. We highlighted several such findings and common themes from the evaluation and summarised the critical success factors for increasing participation into an easy-to-use analysis model for the boroughs.