New sports strategy unveiled but there’s no measure of success

The council is aiming to increase numbers involved in physical activity and sport

The basic message hasn’t changed: if we lost weight, drank less booze, cut out the fags and took more exercise, we’d be less likely to endure long spells of ill health and be less of a burden on the NHS.

If we all dropped dead at 90 after completing our final half marathon, the health service might be half the size. Unfortunately, in modern Scotland women in the most deprived areas can expect 27.6 years of ill health before death at 75, and male life expectancy is just 69, with only 45 years in good health. Even in the most affluent areas women may live to 85 but with 13 years of ill health. For men, it’s 11 years of poor health before death at 82.

Increasing the good years by just one would remove a significant amount of strain from the system, and as well as cutting down the bevvy and avoiding fatty carbohydrates, most people understand that leading a more active life is a good thing.

With that in mind, Edinburgh councillors at today’s Culture and Communities committee are due to approve a new “physical and activity sport strategy” to get us moving over the next ten years.

Ignoring the title’s mangled grammar, the intentions are laudable; to increase numbers involved in physical activity and sport, particularly amongst minorities and in deprived areas where participation is lower, and to make best use of facilities in schools, colleges, universities, parks, sports and leisure centres, and among communities and in workplaces. Reading the 27-page document, and its 11-page appendix, the most obvious omissions are targets, without which it will be impossible to tell if the strategy is succeeding or not.

And sure enough, this is not a mistake, as the accompanying report points out that targets will be worked up if councillors approve the strategy. But by no targets, it means none at all, not even a date by which time goals will be proposed for councillors to sign off. Nor is there much indication about how improvements are to be achieved, just a series of general intentions to improve this and that without specifics.

Perhaps it’s reasonable to agree the broad aims and then sort out the detail, but this is a document which has been well over two years in the making, since a motion calling for an updated strategy was passed in August 2022.

It seems that insufficient activity doesn’t just apply to large sections of the population, but the officers responsible for this strategy too. No doubt there will be the usual thank yous to the officers for their report, but how much more time will elapse before something against which success can be measured will be produced?

Nor is there any budget, but it will take “a partnership approach with key stakeholders will be established with a view to maximising existing resources to achieve the ambitions of the strategy.” Whatever that means. Maybe it’s good no more public money will be spent on something so vague, but at least that’s one target which the strategy can’t miss.