Gloucestershire Active Together Evaluation Final Report

Background and methodology Gloucestershire County Council’s (GCC) Active Together (AT) programme aimed to help encourage more participation in sport and physical activity across the county and was open to a range of community groups, from sports clubs to scout groups and parish and town councils, and schools. In September 2014 the University of Gloucestershire was commissioned Public Health Gloucestershire to evaluate the AT programme as a means of establishing evidence of whether the programme is a good way of using funds to encourage greater participation in health enhancing activities. Using a mixed methods approach incorporating a Social Return on Investment framework at its core, the evaluation sought to understand and value the changes that occurred as a consequence of projects implemented with AT funding, and to develop delivery and evaluation blueprint as a resource for other organisations and similar programmes. Findings of the SROI exercise suggest that every £1 invested in Active Together has returned £7.25 to society in the form of social and economic outcomes across the three outcome domains of community connections and resources, education and skills, and health and wellbeing. A number of process factors and participant experiences are discussed, with recommendations made for future commissioning and research