Decision

The Director of Public Health has decided to approve the amendment to the All Together Active 2025-27 grant to reflect the reduction in the total award value from £305,600 to £172,800 and the amended objectives. This is a result of the reduction of funding from the funders NHS Cheshire and Merseyside, the Integrated Care Board for Cheshire and Merseyside.

The services and execution of works for this programme will be delivered by Active Cheshire and MSP (formerly Merseyside Sports Partnership), which together are referred to as the Active Partnerships for our Cheshire and Merseyside (C&M) subregion, delivering the All Together Active programme. MSP is hosted by Liverpool City Council.

This has the support of Professor Ian Ashworth, Director of Population Health, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside, and he has supplied a letter of determination acknowledging that the Active Partnerships noted above are the only such organisations for our Cheshire and Merseyside subregion.

The letter also confirms that the Active Partnerships for Cheshire and Merseyside will lead on the implementation of the All Together Active programme, as part of the NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Population Health programme. The approach for this continued delivery in 2025-26 and 2026-27 would be through a two-year grant agreement, as part of the overall Population Health Programme (see the plan on a page under the Background Papers section below for reference). The grant agreement will be held by Active Cheshire and will stipulate that the Active Partnerships will work together and how the funding to support the programme will be distributed.

The funding is provided by NHS Cheshire and Merseyside for this commission and comes from the NHS England (NHSE) Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board Health Inequalities funding. The programme funding has been accounted for within NHS Cheshire and Merseyside’s financial planning. There are no financial contributions from local authorities.

The table below provides a breakdown of funding available for the All Together Active programme for 2025-27. This has been updated since the first letter of determination was signed and agreed to reflect the changes in funding allocation. The £66,400 in 2025-26 and £66,400 in 2026-27 outlined for programme delivery will no longer be available to the Active Partnerships as it has been agreed that the objective pertaining to the NHS whole system approach to physical activity role will no longer be pursued due to timescales. Therefore this £132,800 has been retained by the funders NHS Cheshire and Merseyside.

Financial Year

Funding for Strategic Leadership

Funding for Programme Delivery

Total Funding per year of the grant

agreement

2025-26

£86,400

£0

£86,400

2026-27

£86,400

£0

£86,400

Total

£172,800

As the Active Partnerships are the only organisations who can complete this work, as outlined above, a direct award approach was taken. The supporting information for this decision can be found in the letter of determination from the Director of Population Health and within the reasons for this decision section below.

This is a non-key decision.

Reasons for the decision

The reason for the decision to reduce the total award value from £305,600 to £172,800 is the reflect the reduction in the funding provided by NHS Cheshire and Merseyside, the Integrated Care Board for Cheshire and Merseyside. The objectives have been amended to reflect what can be achieved in light of this reduced funding and to align more strongly with NHS Cheshire and Merseyside priorities.

Following extensive stakeholder engagement, the Active Partnerships published the Cheshire and Merseyside All Together Active strategy in October 2022.

This strategy informs the implementation of work to create system change by embedding physical activity within communities and NHS Trust settings, therefore encouraging and supporting inactive people to move more, removing barriers to participation in physical activity, increasing opportunities to be physical active, to get involved in sport.

NHS Cheshire and Merseyside are committed to preventing ill health and reducing health inequalities. The Population Health programme has an established Population Health Partnership Board. The main purpose of the Partnership Board is to provide oversight and strategic system leadership to deliver a shared vision for improving the health and wellbeing of the Cheshire and Merseyside population. A key function of the Population Health Partnership is the joining up of the systemwide work on the following Population Health Programme functions (see the plan on the page within the Background Papers section):
Pillar 1 – Social Determinants: This describes how we will deliver the NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership All Together Fairer: Our Health and Care Partnership Delivery Plan.
Pillar 2 Healthy Behaviours: Which includes the Cheshire and Merseyside All Together Active programme.
Pillar 3 Core20PLUS5: Priorities for adults and children and young people.
Pillar 4 Screening & Immunisations: Improvements in uptake and programme coverage and access.

The NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Population Health Partnership is responsible to the NHS Cheshire and Merseyside (the Integrated Care Board for the subregion).

Below outlines the objectives for the 2026-27 financial year:

1. Support the nine Places in Cheshire and Merseyside to further develop opportunities to use physical activity as a way of improving population health, with a focus on tackling health inequalities:
a. Support Place leads and stakeholders with the actioning of their Place-Based Strategies/Implementation Plans.
b. Demonstrate how the Sport England Place Partnership investment is tackling health inequalities in areas of identified need.

2. Support the subregional development of embedding physical activity within health and social care, with a focus on priorities identified by NHS Cheshire and Merseyside (the Integrated Care Board for the subregion), the Population Health Partnership and Population Health Programme for prevention and health inequalities:
a. Work with the Integrated Care System, Champs Public Health Collaborative and Place based partners to strengthen system leadership by adopting a whole-system approach towards physical activity demonstrated through the All Together Active Evaluation Framework.
b. Refresh the All Together Active strategy to reflect the current system context, providing the flexibility to align with key Integrated Care Board prevention agendas.
c. Governance and development of All Together Active.
d. Embed physical activity into health pathways (e.g. falls prevention), within health settings (e.g. hospitals, GP Practices) and within other Integrated Care Board funded programmes (e.g. Beyond, NHS Prevention Pledge).

Alternative options considered

The implications for not commissioning the Active Partnerships to provide the All Together Active strategic leadership include:
• No programme leadership - which would impact significantly the delivery of the programme across Cheshire and Merseyside and then associated public health outcomes.
• There is no additional capacity within the Champs Support Team to fulfil this strategic programme leadership function, and the Active Partnership have the specific knowledge, expertise, and relevant associated connections in the physical activity arena to do this.
• The Active Partnerships are the only such organisations covering our subregion: Note - there is an Active Partnership Network https://activepartnerships.org/ which is a national organisation funded by Sports England to support place based Active Partnerships. The link explains the network and shows a list of the 43-place based Active Partnerships. You will note that for Cheshire and Merseyside we have two Active Partnerships covering our footprint, who work collaboratively across our Cheshire and Merseyside area, these are Active Cheshire and MSP. Sports England About us | Sport England were established by Royal Commission. They invest in sport and physical activity to make it a normal part of life for everyone in England. Sport England funding commissioned the Active Partnership Network and provided funding for key activities to support place based Active Partnerships (Cheshire and Merseyside: Active Cheshire and MSP). Therefore, the physical activity infrastructure is:
o Sports England
o Active Partnership Network
o Placed based Active Partnerships which for Cheshire and Merseyside are Active Cheshire and MSP.