Active Scotland Delivery Plan

Our Vision and Principles

Vision

Our vision is of a Scotland where more people are more active, more often.

Principles

This Delivery Plan is informed by cross-cutting guiding principles, which align with the agenda set out in the WHO Global Action Plan on Physical Activity and with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. They are consistent with the Scottish Government's Programme for Scotland 2017-18, to make Scotland an inclusive, fair, prosperous, innovative country, which is ready and willing to embrace the future.

These principles bring together international thinking on what is required to realise the major contributions physical activity and sport can make to transforming people's lives. Embedding the principles in the work we and our partners do is fundamental to ensuring that our efforts make a real contribution to changing the world for the better.

Human Rights-based approach

As part of our inclusive approach, the actions in this plan incorporate a commitment to engaging and empowering individuals and communities to actively participate in the development of solutions as part of a rights-based approach. The Scottish Government has committed to supporting the United National Convention on the Rights of the Child, which acknowledges the importance of play as a right of every child.

Equity across the Life Course

We will seek to provide opportunities for all people at all ages and abilities to participate in physical activity with a priority towards addressing disparities and reducing inequalities.

Evidence based practice

Our actions will be based upon a robust evidence base as well as practice-based evidence from active evaluation and with demonstrated effectiveness in a variety of contexts.

Reducing Inequality

Our actions will focus on the need to reduce inequality in the opportunities to participate in physical activity and will seek to allocate resources towards the actions needed to engage the least active and those who face the greatest barriers to participation.

Empowerment

We will work to empower everyone in society to participate in the development of policies and interventions that affect them in order to remove barriers and to provide inspiration and motivation to participate in physical activity.

Joined-up policy

We will seek to enhance policy coherence across sectors to ensure that policies across different areas are developed in a way which encourages physical activity.

Multi-sectoral partnerships

We will foster collaboration across and between stakeholders to ensure a comprehensive and integrated approach guided by a shared vision of the value of a more active Scotland.

These principles reflect the Scottish Government's emphasis on the importance of empowering communities. When communities feel empowered, evidence shows that this leads to increased confidence and skills, more people volunteering, greater satisfaction with quality of life in the neighbourhood, and greater engagement in local democracy.

Access to opportunities to experience the many benefits of physical activity and sport is a right we want everyone to have. Achieving our vision of a Scotland where people are more active, more often is therefore both an outcome of following these principles, and a means of advancing the principles in their own right.