Update...

The Activmobs concept has been tried and tested among the enthusiastic residents of the Park Wood estate in Kent.

Now the challenge for Kent County Council and the Design Council is how to introduce the scheme to other locations within Kent without losing sight of the project’s original aims and objectives, and without diluting the potential impact of the system.

With the aim of having one Activmobs pilot running in Kent by early 2007, Kent County Council with the support of the Design Council, brought together four members of Kent’s public health department, as well as group of social entrepreneurs, to drive the concept.

It’s important that a variety of people are involved. ‘The normal model for public services is that they are provided, managed and maintained by the council,’ explains Nick Morton from the Design Council. ‘Activmobs turns this model on its head, with activities being instigated by the community and supported by the council. This requires a completely different way of thinking and the pilot is developing new ways of making and delivering services. The work of the KCC team is vital for the project’s ongoing success.’

This first stage of the Activmob project has resulted in 20 mobs being established, with over 200 mobbers participating. These mobs include: workplace mobs that do yoga before work or Nordic walking in their lunch hour; social inclusion mobs where people recovering from drink or drugs problems or who have mental health issues play golf or tend allotments; and public mobs of singers and ramblers and RELAXercisers. 

Currently the team is working to find more potential project champions, such as motivators and trainers, within other locations in Kent. In addition, people have been recruited from each location to help set up the scheme. ‘These people, we call them ‘instigators’, work with the team in developing the service in their area,’ adds Morton. ‘They have attended workshops with the team and everyone involved agrees that for Activmobs to be successful its development needs to be controlled, measured and steady, with each element being evaluated before moving on to the next stage.

‘We have to work in incremental stages,’ explains Morton. ‘The starting point is the working concept of Activmobs: then we carry out trials and discover that it works. So then we introduce more locations and discover that it is scalable. And finally we evaluate and measure it and find out if it is cost effective against other comparable services. But we can only achieve these stages one at a time.’

Kent County Council has developed a website that underpins the scheme. It's www.activmob.com and it will...

• provide information to members
• help to link people with existing mobs
• advertise potential trainers
• and explain how to start new groups.

The website is also crucial for evaluating the scheme, offering mobbers the opportunity to log their personal progress.  ‘This is something that only the website can offer,’ says Morton. ‘Other communication routes, such as an Activmobs magazine, may be developed over time, but the website is vital for this pilot.'

Since the pilot Activmobs has proved to be a success, and having identified the tools and systems necessary to scale up the scheme, Activmobs will be rolled out across Kent during 2008. In addition, the team, with the support of the Design Council will identify opportunities for developing Activmobs in Kent and across the United Kingdom with the help of another social enterprise.

The Lyons ennquiry into Local Government in 2006 said: 'Local Authorities can help to influence such lifestyle decisions by enabling local people to co-produce services. By involving local people in their design and delivery, local services are also likely to be more efficient and effective.'