Transforming governance and processes

We now know that there are the five enablers that create system change.

Over the last few years we have been learning more about how to change systems, culture and behaviour to enable more people to be active. We have developed five enablers of change, these are actions we know need to be taken in order for change to happen.

We will continue to test and refine these enablers to develop our understanding of what needs to be in place to grow change and why. By paying attention to the five enablers of change we can better understand how change happens to enable active lives, but also use them as a framework to plan what to guide our work and shape it.

One of these enablers of change is transforming governance and processes.

Transforming Governance and Processes

Whole system approaches to physical activity should be person-centred, flexible and responsive, promoting joined-up thinking with integrated policy and planning across organisations.

However, much of the local pilot work to date has suggested that current governance processes are not designed for place-based working, shared policies and or/ investing in local Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) organisations, and therefore create barriers to the local pilots test and learn approach.

Changing processes requires clarity of purpose (why you need to change it), persistence, support from senior managers, patience from partners and flexibility within teams.

Learning shared in the latest evaluation and learning report (April 2023), suggests although a number of workarounds to distribute funding were evident initially, examples of principles informing wider public service reform, and Covid demonstrating the possibility for more agile and joined-up working there has been some 'snap-back', highlighting the dominance of certain processes despite active disruption (see example from Manchester below).

Transforming governance and processes in action

Transforming governance and processes through the adaptation of a steering group has led to collective working that has increased collaboration within the VCSE sector across Manchester.

Learn more about what 'transforming governance and processes' means

This short video from Dr Katie Shearn, from the Local Pilot evaluation team, explains how and why existing bureaucracy is getting in the way of collaboration and what local pilot partners are doing about it.

Previously the evaluation had recognised that governance processes within localities were not designed to support place-based working or to distribute resources across sectors or to local people.

New learning suggests that blockages within governance processes are still common, with a few examples of different commissioning models being used. There is a need to build a critical mass of people wanting to work across sectors in order to develop new operating models which support the approach.