Agile Systems is one of the six-strands of the county’s 10-year Let’s Move Lincolnshire strategy, which is supporting everyone in Lincolnshire to lead, and benefit from, active lives.

It’s the only strand that doesn’t directly link back to one of the Sport England Uniting the Movement Strategy’s Five Big Issues. Identified by the 100+ stakeholders and 330+ residents who responded to the strategy consultation in January 2022 this strand is about working together to tackle big issues and inequalities faced by residents in accessing and benefitting form physical activity.

Our agile systems work falls into two main areas.

1) Creating new ways of working across sectors and within systems to break down barriers and create a more active Lincolnshire.

In the last 6-months since launching the refreshed strategy we’ve worked with strategic agencies including the Integrated Care System (ICS) and our 8 local authorities to strengthen their physical activity commitments through policies, strategies and commissioned services including the county communities strategy, the district health and wellbeing strategies, and the upcoming ICS strategy. We also taken an active role on health networks including the South-East Lincolnshire Partnership Healthy Living Executive and the county health and wellbeing board.

We also work within services, sectors, and organisations to explore how physical activity can be built into the way they work with and for residents. Working together we explore the pathway into, through and out of services. Looking at the touchpoints where information is shared, directly or indirectly, in either direction. We consider the settings and environments where people spend time and where interactions take place e.g. waiting rooms or communal spaces. Throughout, we are focused on identifying opportunities to bring physical activity into ways of working. It could be language added to letters and leaflets, questions added to surveys and assessments. It could adding walking or exercises into home visits, or placing equipment into community rooms in social housing blocks. Our aim is to keep the actions taken manageable, timely and the impact measurable.

2) Ensuring physical activity and sport plays its part in tackling cross-cutting agendas including community cohesion, economic prosperity, carbon-neutral targets, and skills and employability.

We seek to understand our sector’s role in these national and regional agendas, ensuring that we identify and share the actions and responsibilities that the physical activity and sport sector could make to play their part. A good example is the work we’re doing on the cost-of-living crisis, where alongside our Together Fund funding, we’ve pulled together the insights on the impact on adults, children and the sector, resources on energy saving measures, hosting warm hubs, alternative funding streams, links to district pages, and case studies of how clubs and community groups have reduced costs and helped participants afford kit, memberships or access training.