Local authorities to receive free inequalities review

Every local authority in England is to receive a free Quest review from Sport England as part of the Moving Communities programme. The aim is to help provide opportunities to people and communities that have traditionally been left behind as the sector continues its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.  

The Quest Foundation Review (QFR) will provide scored and benchmarked insight into real-life, ‘live’ customer service experiences from people who’ve traditionally been excluded from physical activity opportunities, including people from lower socio-economic groups, culturally diverse communities, disabled people and people with long-term health conditions. 

As part of Sport England’s long-running national quality scheme, Quest, the QFR will focus on how people from these groups experience and interact with local leisure services via websites, telephone systems and social media platforms.

Sarah Maxwell, Head of External Accreditations at Right Directions, which manages Quest on behalf of Sport England, explains: “For the first time since its inception in 1996, Quest will offer a free service to every local authority in England. Launching in April and running for three years, QFR aims to identify how the sector is performing at present and use that data to create awareness of inequalities and shape training and education to help enhance and improve services.”

The QFR is embedded in the Continuous Improvement pillar of the Moving Communities programme, managed by 4GLOBAL, which tracks participation at public leisure facilities and provides on-going evidence of the sector’s performance, sustainability and social value.  As such, QFR will be able to provide KPI’s and benchmarking linked to customer experience and service delivery to help tackle inequalities and remove barriers to activity.

Kevin Mills, Director of Capital Investment at Sport England says: “The goal here is to help every single person in every community have the opportunity to get active. QFR will assess one facility from each local authority, every 12 months, to identify best practice and support continuous improvement for the individual sites and the sector as a whole.  The completed QFRs will support the commitment made by Sport England to help the sector in its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and to tackle inequalities as part of its 10-year Uniting the Movement strategy by removing barriers to activity.”

The QFR process enables Quest to view the facility and its linked services from a customer’s perspective.  It will include three different, equally weighted and scored reviews, as well as assessor comments and feedback, based on how the facility and its online services were perceived during one specific call, one online/digital visit to the website and linked social media platforms. 

For more information about Quest Foundation Review or for any o other Quest products please email Quest@rightdirections.co.uk or phone 01582 840078. Alternatively please visit www.questaward.org for full Quest Assessment details.