GM Moving is adopting a system-wide collaborative approach to drive transformational change to build healthier and more active communities

GM Moving is a ‘Call to Action’ based on the Plan for Physical Activity (PA) and Sport in the Greater Manchester City Region for 2017-21 and Population Health Plan themes. With a target of 75% of people being active or fairly active by 2025 its ambition is to get everyone in Greater Manchester more active, to secure the fastest and greatest improvement to the health, wealth and wellbeing of the 2.8m people of Greater Manchester. It is also the largest of 12 Sport England place-based pathfinder 'Local Delivery Pilots' to build healthier, happier communities thereby informing future approaches nationwide.

There is a huge scale and diversity of partners, populations and levels of PA requiring new thinking and approaches. GM Moving require an impact and process evaluation which helps them understand what influence their multiple strands of activity are having on activity rates and captures what is working, for whom and under what circumstances.

The consortium is developing an evaluation approach which involves evolving and testing plausible explanations for the changes we observe and builds a contributory claim for the impact GM Moving and the Local Delivery Pilot is having. This includes a range of research activities utilising qualitative and quantitative methods. It also involves action research and building local evaluation capacity.

Aim

The overall aim of the evaluation is to develop the evidence base around what works - and how it works - in helping to meet GM Moving and the GM Local Delivery Pilot’s (LDP) core objective of achieving population scale change in PA: reaching the target of 75% of people active or fairly active by 2025.

Key objectives

1. To measure changes in levels of PA and inactivity at local and regional levels.
2. To conduct a process evaluation of GM Moving and the LDP to assess whole system change, GM Moving ‘ways of working’ and GM LDP investment principles that support PA.
3. To assess the impacts that specific local projects and programmes have on PA and related areas of behaviour change and to conduct a process evaluation to understand how and why changes have happened.
4. To understand wider outcomes and impacts (including the 5 Sport England Government outcomes) of changes in PA and how these relate to the activities of GM Moving and the LDP.
5. To support and guide ongoing local project and programme process and outcome evaluation to build capacity in the system.

Our approach

Our evaluation is being achieved in three broad phases which are repeated fully or partially over time:

• Developing detailed theories about the pattern of outcomes which are expected and emerging.
• Testing these theories through gathering and analysing multiple sources of qualitative and quantitative data which can be used to measure the changes within the system and assess the validity of the expected assumptions and risks.
• Refining the theories and developing narratives around contribution based on the data.
• The project is driven by an overarching theoretical framework which is aligned with a realist evaluation. This is an iterative process of theory development and testing with the aim for deriving ever more plausible explanations of what is working, for whom and under what circumstances to deliver a whole systems approach to PA.

Impact

This study will provide new knowledge of mechanisms and contexts that support whole system change to enable active lives in Greater Manchester. Understanding how interactions between people, places and policies can influence PA is critical to the tailoring and implementation of effective whole systems change. The outcomes of this study may be of interest to policy makers, researchers, councils, public health teams and voluntary and community sector organisations who value physical activity and see how an active population can support a wide range of goals.

See Greater Manchester Moving for further information.