Right Directions expands following Quest contract win

Quality and health and safety specialist Right Directions has further expanded its team after retaining the contract to deliver Sport England’s Quest, the UK quality scheme for sport and leisure, and the National Benchmarking Service (NBS) for another three years.

Paul Brivio, 57, an experienced coach, mentor and management consultant, with a 35 year career in the leisure industry, has been appointed as Quest’s Sports Development Manager.
Brivio worked his way up from his first role as an assistant leisure centre manager to commercial director level employed by local authorities, a social enterprise and Sport England, where he helped to launch the School Sport Co-ordinator Programme and establish the County Sports Partnerships.

Prior to this permanent role, Brivio had been working with Right Directions as a consultant on Quest Sports Development. He said: “By winning the new Quest contract we have re-established the credibility and worth of the model. It is now time to expand and meet the challenges and opportunities presented by the new Government Strategy for Sport.

“We want to support high quality sports development – teams that want to improve and to be high performing. That means being effective and efficient – promoting physical activity and demonstrating added value and impact for partners, stakeholders and customers. Quest is being positioned to be the go to improvement and quality assurance tool.”

Matt Charles, 32, has also joined the team as Head of Community Health and Wellbeing, a role that will see him working alongside Brivio to develop and grow the Sports Development side of Quest.

Charles will also lead the development of a range of new and existing modules, including Contribution to Health and Wellbeing, Community Outcomes, Increasing Participation and Engaging the Inactive.

Charles joins Right Directions following a ten-year background in the sport, health and leisure industry, working within the private, public and charitable sectors. His previous roles at 1Life, St Albans City & District Council and Watford & District YMCA have included strategic planning, service development, programme improvement and front line delivery. During his career Charles has been involved in the development of a range of initiatives which have helped grow sports participation, increase activity rates and improve the health and wellbeing of local communities.

He said: “Health & Wellbeing and Physical Activity are now fundamental areas for both sports development teams and the wider leisure industry; as we continue to work together to support a more active and all-round healthier nation. Now is an exciting time to be joining Right Directions and I am looking forward to working alongside Sport England and the Quest team to develop these areas of work. As part of the new Quest contract it will be important for us to continue to challenge the industry to evidence the positive impact we are having on local communities. Ultimately our aim is to support sports teams and leisure facilities to continually improve their service and deliver more opportunities for local people to become healthier, happier and more active.”

Caroline Constantine, Managing Director for Right Directions said: “With its unique mix of self assessment, external validation, peer review and improvement planning, Quest can help organisations and teams make a real difference to local communities and to demonstrate their impact during the process. The addition of Paul and Matt to our Quest team will help us to deliver this valuable tool to a wider group of teams across the industry.”

– ends –

Editor’s notes:
Right Directions Management provides health and safety and quality management support to the leisure industry, specialising in local authority and trust-managed sites, as well as smaller independent operators. Right Directions, which delivers Quest on behalf of Sport England and ukactive’s Code of Practice, has more than 100 years experience within its field. www.rightdirections.co.uk

Quest is the UK Quality Scheme for Sport and Leisure. It is a tool for continuous improvement, designed primarily for the management of leisure facilities and leisure development. Quest defines industry standards and good practice and encourages their ongoing development and delivery within a customer focused management framework.
The National Benchmarking Service (NBS) provides critical data on the performance of your leisure facility. Leisure-net Solutions, in partnership with Sport Industry Research Centre (SIRC) at Sheffield Hallam University, work on behalf of Sport England to provide a seamless, rigorous and valuable collection and analysis of participation, financial and customer satisfaction data. For more information, visit questnbs.org.

For further information contact:
Abigail Harris at Big Fish Public Relations
Tel: 07738 331019
Email: abigail@bigfishpublicrelations.co.uk