Sport England - Development and delivery of community sport

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SPORTS FACILITIES | DATABASE MANAGEMENT | RESEARCH | HELP DESK

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About Sport England

Sport England is the Government’s lead agency charged with the development and delivery of community sport in England. As part of the ‘A Sporting Habit for Life’ Strategy, Sport England has developed and is responsible for maintaining a national database of sports facilities, named Active Places.
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Active Places was launched in 2004 and currently holds data on over 35,000 sites and 139,000 facilities across England. The data is used to support the planning of sports provision in England, powers the Be Inspired initiative and is publicly available via Active Places Power and is considered to be the most comprehensive source of sports facility data in England.

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Challenge

Sport England was seeking to procure a Supplier to maintain the Active Places Database using Sport England’s new data validation platform. The combination of new Supplier and new platform was to replace the previous telephone-based approach through new audit methods including self-validation of facility information by the facility owners. Ensuring that the data is owned by the providers and managed collaboratively in partnership with Sport England. Promoting flexibility, continual improvement, intelligent updates and innovation in both maintenance and use. With development in mind Sport England was seeking to procure a Supplier to take the database forward using a more effective and efficient approach.

Solution

Sport England appointed Adetiq to manage the Active Places Data Platform, to ensure the data contained within Active Places is both current and accurate. Adetiq provides Sport England with a dedicated Data Validation Team who are responsible for collecting, maintaining and updating sport facility data ensuring that every record within the system is audited and validated every year via telephone, email and direct communications.

Adetiq also provides a help desk and research function to ensure that any new, refurbished or altered sports facilities are added or changed within Active Places as quickly as possible.
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In the future, the Active Places Data Platform will be become self-service enabling those who manage sporting facilities to take ownership of their site and ensure that their data on Active Places is up to date. Involving facility manager’s means that updates can be made in real-time by the people who know their facilities the best, enabling updates to appear seamlessly on Active Places Power as well as available to download as open data. Adetiq is working closely with Sport England to ensure that all facility managers engage with the Active Places Data Platform and that facility managers are fully supported throughout the transition and beyond. Adetiq will continue to ensure that the accuracy and currency of the data within Active Places remains high and that the database continues to be regarded as the leading source of sport facility data in England.

What they said about us

"Adetiq’s commitment to the Active Places national sport facility maintenance contract has been first rate. Their team quickly became knowledgeable and passionate about the work enabling them to continuously improve processes whilst maintaining high standards and providing excellent customer service. They are a reliable and valued contractor to Sport England."