What is the vision of your Organisation?
We are Surrey County Council’s lead organisation for physical activity, working to reduce inequality, improve health, and tackle the effects of poverty through sport and community engagement.
Why has your Organisation signed the ‘End Poverty Pledge’?
We have adopted the pledge as an organisation because our core purpose is about tackling inequality, inactivity, and poverty.
What examples can you give of your Organisation putting the ‘End Poverty Pledge’ into practice?
Our Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme, funded by the Department for Education, supports children on free school meals with a minimum of four hours of activity and a healthy, hot meal to school food standards.
We run family weight management programmes, support Looked After Children (LAC), and deliver targeted work in Stanwell, where £2 million of Sport England funding is being invested to address inequality and inactivity.
We are reviewing the language we use as an organisation — moving towards using “poverty” rather than “disadvantage” — and considering how staff experiences (e.g. financial pressures or accessing borrowing) can be better understood and addressed through surveys and benchmarking.
Staff go above and beyond to support families with booking, and make referrals to children’s services, care leaver support, and other organisations, following up to check outcomes.
We build strong partnerships, from collaborating with the Highways Agency on active travel schemes to working with Children, Families and Lifelong Learning services. We are recognised as an effective partner in a network of 43 organisations, sharing good practice and influencing others through our decision-making.
We are working hard to ensure children and families are treated with dignity and without stigma. Some HAF schemes offer universal as well as targeted access, ensuring no one feels singled out. We are also beginning to involve residents in co- design, such as using a residents’ panel in Stanwell for recruitment processes.
What would you hope to be able to do more of in the longer term?
Expanding evaluation surveys to capture how families experience programmes and asking if participation incurred extra costs (e.g. clothing, equipment).
Sharing more case studies of impact, such as the story of a mother in Guildford who was able to remain in work thanks to HAF provision for her children.
How to strengthen social value in commissioning, supporting smaller, local businesses wherever possible.
Embedding poverty prevention across all programmes.
Strengthening co-production with residents
Improving data collection on the socio-economic impact of their work.
Advocating for systemic changes, such as fairer recognition for those with lived experience.
“We want to look at everything we do through a poverty lens. That means challenging ourselves as an organisation, listening to families, and working with partners to make sure no one is left behind.”