2010 Commission

Conclusions of the TwentyTen Commission
- an industry consultation -

The TwentyTen Commission was an industry consultation, which took place between September 2009 and August 2010 and was designed to help develop a five year strategy for the sector.

Following a consultation with industry leaders, it was agreed that the five cornerstones of the Commission would be:
• Data and Consumer Insights
• Exercise as Medicine
• Local Community Hubs
• Up-skilling the Workforce
• Workplace Activity.

Since the launch of the Commission, the Government has launched the Responsibility Deal (an invitation to business to be part of three working groups designed to address the nation's major public health issues: poor diet, alcohol abuse and lack of exercise). Fred Turok has been invited to chair the Physical Activity Working Group. This is a major recognition for the industry and it puts the objectives of the Commission into context.

The key results of the Commission, which was presented at LIW (September 2010) are:

• Exercise as Medicine is a critical proposition for the industry, but we do not yet have the capacity or the capability to exploit this potential. We should aim to have 20K Exercise Referral Practioners to ensure we can meet the needs of the 10K GP surgeries which now have now been granted more power and greater budgets (following the decision to end the previous PCT strategy)

• ‘Evidence' is key: we have to prove to healthcare, strategic partners, customers and the physically inactive that ‘exercise works'

• Consumer insights: we need a more profound understanding of consumers' psychological, emotional and behavioural drivers if we are to break through the current 12% (of the population are members of a health club or leisure centre) glass ceiling

• If we are to fulfil the potential the Responsibility Deal presents us, then we must work more effectively at a ‘local' level: perhaps even create Local ‘Consortiums' of public and private, facilities and non-facilities based ‘activity providers'

• Workplace Activity is the other major opportunity for the industry (3m companies & 40m employees). We need the right skills and the expertise to focus on the SMEs and public sector workers - our target markets, as the major corporates have effective employee wellbeing programmes in place

• All the above is underpinned by the need to Up Skill the Workforce: everyone of the 200,000 employees who work in our industry, not just focus on the 15% (fitness instructors) as we currently do. We need to identify the skills they have/need and we have to develop career pathways for every single one of them. The result will be a better skilled workforce, improved employee retention and an enhancement of the services we offer.

To read the full report covering the following sections, please click here

- A 5 year strategy
- Local Community Hubs
- Workplace Activity
- Exercise as Medicine
- Data and Consumer Insight
- Upskilling the workforce

Next steps are to develop a more detailed delivery strategy for each of these headline conclusions over the next three months.

Please send all comments or questions to Howard@fia.org.uk.