Following the completion of the 3rd incarnation of the highly regarded KKP Strata Survey, with 30,000 year 9 pupils across Greater Manchester and Lancashire, Bolton Council appointed KKP to undertake further analysis of its data to develop a better understanding of the local dynamics of:

• Extracurricular sports participation - highlighting current levels of participation by school and ward to identify schools and areas with high participation rates. This data will be used to identify cases of best practice and to target particular schools for intervention programmes.
• Sports club membership - was also compared to extra-curricular participation at school and ward level. Interestingly, some schools, which fared well for extracurricular sports participation did not reach similar levels for sports club membership and vice versa.
• Volunteer activity - information on the proportion of pupils interested in sports volunteering was used to identify those schools with the potential to have the greatest impact and yield the best results from sports volunteering related initiatives.

Above: Levels of extracurricular sports participation in Bolton, by ward (Click on the image for a larger view of the map)

The study also considered the impact of factors such as gender, ethnicity and coming from a household where other family members participate. Further in-depth analysis was also conducted for those wards with the lowest extracurricular sports participation and sports club membership levels. Data was also compared to the national index of multiple deprivation.

The results are currently being used to help inform a council review of areas of greatest need and highest potential for successful interventions; this will be used to inform policy development and to allocate resources.

Sarah Poole-Sutherland, the Sport, Regeneration and Social Inclusion Manager at the Council who commissioned this additional research said,

"We are pleased with the detailed analysis that KKP have presented in a user-friendly format. This will kick start plans to test appropriate interventions and we will be able to use the baseline information to determine the relative success of any actions we take."

For further details, please contact Peter Millward, Principal Consultant (peter.millward@kkp.co.uk)