Countless evidence has shown the benefits of physical activity, sport and movement for our physical and mental health, social and community development, and even the economy – according to research done by Sport England in 2024, the annual social value of community sport and physical activity is £107.2 billion in England. But we don’t necessarily need to look to scientific or social studies to know, intuitively, that there are many benefits that regular physical activity can have on our sense of wellbeing, bodies and even our relationships.
However, we are increasingly inactive in a world designed not to facilitate movement. The latest Active Lives data in Greater Manchester shows that only 48% of children and young people are active for more than 60 minutes a week and only 72% of adults are physically active for more than 30 minutes a week.
These patterns of inactivity are often much worse for marginalised groups, such as people from racially minoritised communities, people with disabilities and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds. According to data from 2021, 42% of South Asians in Greater Manchester were physically inactive compared to 28% of White British people, and people with long-term disabilities are twice as inactive as people without disabilities. This is because our health behaviours, including physical activity, are influenced beyond individual lifestyle, biology or genetics, and to wider factors such as socio-economic, cultural and environmental conditions.
Disparities in physical activity exist because these wider determinants vary significantly across population groups. For example, access to green space is not equal; although Manchester’s tree coverage is above the national average, communities that are racially marginalised are twice as likely to live in areas with the least green space.
It is clear that inequalities in sport, physical activity and movement are deeply entrenched, and therefore require a whole-systems approach to tackle. One aspect of inequality in this space that needs to change is the lack of diversity in the sport and physical activity workforce and leadership, which reflects and perpetuates the inequalities that we see more widely in terms of who participates in physical activity. Only 7% of the traditional sport and leisure workforce in the UK is made up of people from racially minoritised backgrounds, which is half the percentage of their representation in the UK workforce as a whole (14%). At the senior leadership level, representation is similarly low at 8.1%.
Research conducted by Loughborough University laid out three broad organisational challenges to establishing ethnically diverse leadership:
- Organisational structures and pathways. This included; existing processes of recruitment and retention, and preferences for leadership candidates from within the sports sector.
- Secondly, organisational cultures and uneven experiences of inclusivity. This included; perceptions and realities of leadership contexts as white spaces, and the impacts of cultures of whiteness on the engagement and experiences of ethnically diverse groups.
- Thirdly, organisational focus, resource and knowledge. This included; the lack of prior strategic emphasis, allocation of funding support, or recognition and understanding of racialised barriers to career progression experienced by ethnically diverse groups in senior leadership domains.
Over the past two years, Macc were commissioned by GM Moving to deliver the Greater Manchester Systems Leadership approach which aimed to support and enable a transformation in the knowledge, skills, and opportunities of people (paid and voluntary) in Greater Manchester to work and lead across sectors and within communities around the shared purpose of changing lives through movement, physical activity, and sport. Systems leadership is about building a culture in which systems approaches can flourish, so that we can bring about the positive change that is needed.
While we had a brilliant cohort of people join us from different sectors and areas of Greater Manchester (and beyond), we noticed that there was a visible lack of diversity amongst the participants, especially when it came to racial diversity, reflecting what is seen on a national level in the sport and physical activity workforce and leadership. We decided to implement an anonymous and optional form to monitor the demographics of our participants to see if our perceptions were correct; we found that 19% of our participants were from racially minoritised backgrounds, compared to the percentage of the Greater Manchester population who are not white being 28.7%.
Source: GM Systems Leadership demographics form
As a result of this data and other conversations in the sector, GM Moving gave us more funding to tackle this issue. While we recognise that we cannot transform the equity and inclusion of people from racially minoritised communities in the physical activity workforce and leadership in a time-limited programme, we can contribute to this change. Our vision is of a racially diverse cohort of people that are encouraging communities to lead active lives through their work, who:
- Have the confidence to influence and have a voice in decision making spaces
- Know and understand ways of working within a system to lead change
- Who can lead and advocate across Greater Manchester for physical activity and sport
We are offering a protected space for 15 people working or volunteering in the area of sport, physical activity and movement in Greater Manchester and from racialised backgrounds to explore leadership, with encouragement and signposting to related leadership opportunities and pathways in the sector for movement, plus access to a mentor and a small fund to help shape their own personal development. Our brilliant sounding board, made up of people who have expertise in equality and inclusion and sport and physical activity, are supporting us with the implementation and design of this programme. There are lots of initiatives across Greater Manchester working towards similar goals, such as the GM Tackling Inequalities Network. Please get in touch with [email protected] to find out more.