The Black Country Sports Partnership was formally launched in 2005. As a new strategic partnership, seeking to place sport at the heart of the regeneration of the Black Country, the Partnership quickly identified the importance of implementing a performance measurement system.

KKP was appointed with a wide ranging brief to develop a system to demonstrate how sport contributes across a number of areas, including the Black Country Framework, the Regional Plan for Sport and meeting national targets.

Working closely with the core partners of the Black Country Sports Partnership, KKP developed an innovative system that not only meets the requirements of the brief, but also adds significant value to the work of local authorities in meeting CPA and other requirements.

At the core of the system is the role of the Partnership; taking data and turning it into ‘intelligent information.' This is built on the collection of standard data across all four local authorities, leisure card systems and the introduction of a series of surveys designed to measure participation for both young people and adults.

The ‘intelligent information' produced will lead to more effective targeting of programmes. It also allows, simply by collecting greater detail about individuals, for the impact of sport on, for example, health and workforce development to be directly tracked and assessed. In future it is anticipated that data will be collected via the Black Country Smart Card and that incentives such as free transport can be incorporated into its use.

The system developed by KKP places the Black Country Sports Partnership at the forefront of performance measurement nationally and gives it the data to both influence local delivery and clearly demonstrate the impact of investment in sport.