FAQs - Data

(Last Update: 22/02/2023)

Active Places represents the current provision of sports facilities. This aligns with the primary use case of the database as a strategic planning tool. Given this focus, on the current provision of sports facilities, the analysis of trends over time, particularly facility counts, should to be treated with a high level of caution and is not recommended. Further investigation to understand the circumstances which may influence any trends observed is required. Active Places data considerations are outlined below. These do not consider wider influencing factors that should also be investigated.

a) Snapshots

Snapshots of the Active Places database, where held, should be used solely for backup purposes. Snapshots are not appropriate for temporal analysis as:

• Sport England and our data partners continue to add facilities, irrespective of their build year to the dataset. These “found” facilities would not be represented in a historic cut, even though they were open at that time.

• The data model has changed over time introducing new facility types/subtypes and changing the way some facilities are recorded.

b) Approximating temporal change from the database

No sites/facilities are deleted from Active Places. Sites/facilities are closed or in the case of grass pitches identified as “Not Currently Marked Out”.

Active Places facilities each have a “Build Year”.

These “temporal” attributes can, in some use cases, support an estimation of the change in facility provision over time.

The approach, which should use the most current version of the database, assumes that facility supply in any given year can be estimated by considering those facilities with a “Build Year” prior to that year and a “Closed Year” (if applicable) after that year.

Where using “Build Year” and “Closure Year” to estimate change over time, it is important to remember:

• Active Places is updated via an annual audit cycle as a result, it can take up to 1-year to identify site/facilities closures. Recent change will have a high degree of uncertainty and should be treated with caution.

• The “Build Year” for a facility may be estimated. This is indicated by a flag in the database.

• Closed sites/facilities may reopen. The “Closure Reason” is a good indicator of whether a site/facility is being replaced.

• The approach does not consider temporary closures, for example, a facility currently operational may have been temporarily closed, due to refurbishment, in earlier time periods.

• Sites/facilities which were closed prior to the establishment, and routine collection of facility data, by Active Places will not be included in the database.

• Site/facilities have been added to Active Places over time. Facilities added to the platform most recently will not have the same temporal depth.

• The appropriate time-period for any temporal analysis of Active Places data is a function of when that facility type was added to the database and the completeness of the dataset that was added for that facility type.

• Some facility definition and attributes have changed over time this may result in temporal inconsistencies.

• Facility counts should not be used where there is a one-to-many relationship between the facility and the number of courts, pitches or rinks.

• Facility, court, pitch or rink counts should not be considered in isolation. Other attributes which describe the size or type of facility may be applicable.

The approach outlined above is most appropriate for built facilities. It cannot be used to estimate changes in the provision of grass pitches over time as:

• “Build Year” is known to be missing and/or to contain high levels of uncertainty for grass pitches.

• The pitch configuration detailed in Active Places reflects the current markings. These markings may not represent those at any earlier time period.

• Pitch types identified as “Not currently marked out” may have been operational in earlier time periods. Active Places does not identify when a pitch configuration was changed, and pitches of a given size no longer marked out at a site.

• Active Places does not include information on the change in pitch configuration at a site over time (i.e. an increase/decrease in the count of adult football pitches).

• Active Places does not include information on the relationship between pitches. For example,

      ▪ Adult grass pitch provision may decrease to allow for the marking of multiple junior grass pitches or rugby pitches

      ▪ Junior grass pitch provision may increase due to an increase in overmarking on adult pitches.

      ▪ Grass pitch provision may decrease to enable the creation of an Artificial Grass Pitch at the site.

In conclusion, while the most recent version of the database can be used to approximate a temporal analysis, this is applicable only for a subset of facility types. As with all analysis based on the Active Places data, it is important to understand the data model and key attributes (i.e. Facility Status, Ownership, Access), but to also carefully consider the caveats stated above.

The following provides a guide to using Active Places open data in JSON format.

1. How to access Active Places data in JSON format

The Active Places data in JSON format can be accessed via the "Open Data" section of Active Places Power (https://www.activeplacespower.com/opendata). A link is also available on the site's footer.

This page has the options of:

• Data Download: Where a full file of Active Places data in JSON format can be accessed
• API Docs:  Where the API and related documentation for ongoing JSON API requests can be accessed
• Change Log: Where details of open data related changes and known issues are published

2. How to get the data to establish a local copy of the Active Places data

A full file of Active Places data is generated on a daily basis, this represents the current data at that point in time. The latest version can be downloaded by accessing https://www.activeplacespower.com/OpenData/download and selecting the "Download JSON" option. Once downloaded, the JSON data file can be used to establish a local copy of Active Places data.  

There is no specified JSON schema for the data format; in order to translate and use this information it is highly recommended that users of the data familiarise themselves with the Sports Data Model and supporting documentation (see SDM FAQs).

3. How to maintain a reference to a local copy of the Active Places data

Once a local copy of Active Places data has been established, using the JSON data download file, data updates can be maintained by using Rest API GET requests.   

The request URL for the API, which does not require any authentication, is https://api.activeplacespower.com/api/v1/sites. Further information to outline the API and a harness to test requests is available at https://www.activeplacespower.com/OpenData/Api/Docs#!/Sites/Sites_Get.

The JSON data provides a "modified" value per record, which is treated as a timestamp. This does not directly map to a time or date, but is an incremental value that reflects changes in the database (i.e. for every change in the database, the "modified" timestamp value increments by one). The JSON data download file provides results in ascending order, so the "modified" value of the final record in the download file needs to be identified. This can then be used as the "afterTimeStamp" input parameter for the API request. The number of results to be returned per page is set to a default of 10 and the "limit" input parameter can be used to modify this (up to a maximum of 100).

The API response results should be applied as updates to the local copy which was established based on the full file data download. The process can then be repeated on an ongoing basis at the user defined frequency (i.e. identify the last "modified" value returned in the previous response and use this as the input criteria for the next request). In this way Active Places data can be maintained.

Active Places Power is part of a continuous program of enhancements and development. Development to create new tools/reports, improve functionality and/or data coverage periodically results in a change to the Sports Data Model (SDM) and/or existing site and facility records. 

For existing facilities, changes might include: 

- The definition of a new facility subtype.  

- Updates to the attributes used to describe a facility. 

Defining a new facility subtype 

Each facility type (e.g. Grass Pitches) is made up of a series of facility subtypes (e.g. football pitches, rugby pitches…). As more data is collected, the SDM may be adapted to include a new facility subtype.  

Where a new facility subtype is added, the Active Places Power team must: 

1. Review existing facility subtypes and determine whether there is a need to define a set of rules to reclassify existing Active Places facilities. 

2. Work to populate the new facility subtype. 

By working with facility providers and National Governing Bodies, the team will seek, where possible, to implement data changes as quickly as possible after the SDM changes go-live. However, where the impact is small and/or data unavailable, changes may be implemented as part of ongoing data auditing. In this instance, we would expect all required changes to have been made and verified within approximately one-year through the annual audit cycle. 

Updating the attribute(s) used to describe a facility (and facility subtype) 

Facilities (and their associated subtypes) are described by a set of attributes. To enhance the richness of Active Power Places, additional attributes will, periodically, be added to the SDM. 

By working with facility providers and National Governing Bodies, the Active Places Power team will seek, where possible, to populate new attributes as quickly as possible after the SDM changes go-live. However, where the impact is small and/or data unavailable, changes may be implemented as part of ongoing data auditing. 

Where attribute changes are deemed to be significant or the risk of misinterpretation is high, a flag will be added to the facility subtype to confirm whether an attribute has been checked and verified.  

This flag implies solely whether a site has been asked to complete the specified attribute(s). It does not imply any assessment against a specified standard or certification. The presence of a “checked” flag does not invalidate a facility record, it implies only that attributes have been added to the facility following the most recent update to / audit of information held for that site. 

All changes to the SDM will be documented and users alerted. Where required, additional information will also be provided as a FAQ. 

The Rural Urban Classification is an official statistic, provided by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, that is used to distinguish rural and urban areas. The Classification defines areas as rural if they fall outside of settlements with a resident population of more than 10,000.

For more information on this dataset see https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/2011-rural-urban-classification.

Within Active Places Power, the Rural Urban Classification (RUC) is a single map layer classifying each Lower Super Output Area (LSOA) with its RUC setting.  See Map > Map Layers > Environment Data > Rural Urban Classification. 

Eight classifications are defined within the single map layer.  They are: 

• A1 - Urban major conurbation
• B1 - Urban minor conurbation
• C1 - Urban city and town
• C2 - Urban city and town (sparse)
• D1 - Rural town and fringe
• D2 - Rural town and fringe (sparse)
• E1 - Rural village and dispersed
• E2 - Rural village and dispersed (sparse)

Sport England has developed a new online tool called the Active Places Data Platform (https://dataplatform.activeplacespower.com).  The (password protected) platform is used to manage and maintain the national sport facility database (Active Places) in real-time.  

Data records are collected, validated and maintained by Adetiq - Sport England's appointed (November 2015) Active Places Data Validation Team contractor. In addition, the fully self-service platform allows individual facility owners and managers to self manage their facility data.  This enables the data to be maintained by those who know their facilities the best and ensures data is as up to date as possible. 

For any queries regarding the Active Places Data Platform contact Adetiq on 01273 202212 or activeplaces.data@sportengland.org. 

The English indices of deprivation is an official statistic provided by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government and are statistics on relative deprivation in small areas in England. The English indices of deprivation ranks every small area in England from 1 (most deprived area) to 32,844 (least deprived area).  The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) combines information from seven domains to produce an overall relative measure of deprivation.  For more information on this dataset see https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/english-indices-of-deprivation-2019.

Within Active Places Power, the English indices of deprivation consist of the IMD, 7 domains and two additional Income Indexes each as dedicated map layers.  See Map > Map Layers > Population Data > Indices of Deprivation (2019).  

Seven domains of deprivation are combined to produce the overall Index of Multiple Deprivation, each of which contains a number of component indicators.

The criteria for inclusion of these indicators are that they should be ‘domain specific’ and appropriate for the purpose of measuring major features of that deprivation; up-to-date; capable of being updated on a regular basis; statistically robust; and available for the whole of England at a small area level in a consistent form.

Income Deprivation Domain

The Income Deprivation Domain measures the proportion of the population in an area experiencing deprivation relating to low income. The definition of low income used includes both those people that are out-of-work, and those that are in work but who have low earnings (and who satisfy the respective means tests).  A combined count of income deprived individuals per Lower-layer Super Output Area is calculated by summing the following six non-overlapping indicators:

• - Adults and children in Income Support families
• - Adults and children in income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance families
• - Adults and children in income-based Employment and Support Allowance families
• - Adults and children in Pension Credit (Guarantee) families
• - Adults and children in Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit families not already counted, that is those who are not in receipt of Income Support, income- based Jobseeker’s Allowance, income-based Employment and Support Allowance or Pension Credit (Guarantee) and whose equivalised income (excluding housing benefit) is below 60 per cent of the median before housing costs
• - Asylum seekers in England in receipt of subsistence support, accommodation support, or both.

In addition an Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index and an Income Deprivation Affecting Older People Index were created, respectively representing the proportion of children aged 0-15, and people aged 60 and over, living in income deprived households.

Employment Deprivation Domain

The Employment Deprivation Domain measures the proportion of the working age population in an area involuntarily excluded from the labour market. This includes people who would like to work but are unable to do so due to unemployment, sickness or disability, or caring responsibilities. A combined count of employment deprived individuals per Lower-layer Super Output Area is calculated by summing the following five non-overlapping indicators:

• - Claimants of Jobseeker’s Allowance (both contribution-based and income based), women aged 18 to 59 and men aged 18 to 64
• - Claimants of Employment and Support Allowance, women aged 18 to 59 and men aged 18 to 64
• - Claimants of Incapacity Benefit, women aged 18 to 59 and men aged 18 to 64
• - Claimants of Severe Disablement Allowance, women aged 18 to 59 and men aged 18 to 64
• - Claimants of Carer’s Allowance, women aged 18 to 59 and men aged 18 to 64.

Education, Skills and Training Deprivation Domain

The Education, Skills and Training Domain measures the lack of attainment and skills in the local population. The indicators fall into two sub-domains: one relating to children and young people and one relating to adult skills. These two sub-domains are designed to reflect the ‘flow’ and ‘stock’ of educational disadvantage within an area respectively. That is, the ‘children and young people’ sub-domain measures the attainment of qualifications and associated measures (‘flow’), while the ‘skills’ sub-domain measures the lack of qualifications in the resident working age adult population (‘stock’).

Children and Young People sub-domain

• - Key Stage 2 attainment: The average points score of pupils taking reading, writing and mathematics Key Stage 2 exams12
• - Key Stage 4 attainment: The average capped points score of pupils taking Key Stage 4
• - Secondary school absence: The proportion of authorised and unauthorised absences from secondary school
• - Staying on in education post 16: The proportion of young people not staying on in school or non-advanced education above age 16
• - Entry to higher education: A measure of young people aged under 21 not entering higher education.

Adult Skills sub-domain is a non-overlapping count of two indicators:

• - Adult skills: The proportion of working age adults with no or low qualifications, women aged 25 to 59 and men aged 25 to 64
• - English language proficiency: The proportion of working age adults who cannot speak English or cannot speak English well, women aged 25 to 59 and men aged 25 to 64.

Health Deprivation and Disability Domain

The Health Deprivation and Disability Domain measures the risk of premature death and the impairment of quality of life through poor physical or mental health. The domain measures morbidity, disability and premature mortality but not aspects of behaviour or environment that may be predictive of future health deprivation.

•  - Years of potential life lost: An age and sex standardised measure of premature death
•  - Comparative illness and disability ratio: An age and sex standardised morbidity/disability ratio
•  - Acute morbidity: An age and sex standardised rate of emergency admission to hospital
•  - Mood and anxiety disorders: A composite based on the rate of adults suffering from mood and anxiety disorders, hospital episodes data, suicide mortality data and health benefits data.

Crime Domain

Crime is an important feature of deprivation that has major effects on individuals and communities. The Crime Domain measures the risk of personal and material victimisation at local level.

•  - Violence: number of reported violent crimes (18 reported crime types) per 1000 at risk population
•  - Burglary: number of reported burglaries (4 reported crime types) per 1000 at risk population
•  - Theft: number of reported thefts (5 reported crime types) per 1000 at risk population
•  - Criminal damage: number of reported crimes (8 reported crime types) per 1000 at risk population.

Barriers to Housing and Services Domain

This domain measures the physical and financial accessibility of housing and key local services. The indicators fall into two sub-domains: ‘geographical barriers’, which relate to the physical proximity of local services, and ‘wider barriers’ which includes issues relating to access to housing such as affordability.

Geographical Barriers sub-domain

• - Road distance to a post office
• - Road distance to a primary school
• - Road distance to a general store or supermarket
• - Road distance to a GP surgery.

Wider Barriers sub-domain

• - Household overcrowding: The proportion of all households in a Lower-layer Super Output Area which are judged to have insufficient space to meet the household’s needs
• - Homelessness: Local authority district level rate of acceptances for housing assistance under the homelessness provisions of the 1996 Housing Act, assigned to the constituent Lower-layer Super Output Areas
• - Housing affordability: Difficulty of access to owner-occupation or the private rental market, expressed as the inability to afford to enter owner occupation or the private rental market.

Living Environment Deprivation Domain

The Living Environment Deprivation Domain measures the quality of the local environment. The indicators fall into two sub-domains. The ‘indoors’ living environment measures the quality of housing; while the ‘outdoors’ living environment contains measures of air quality and road traffic accidents.

 Indoors sub-domain

•  - Houses without central heating: The proportion of houses that do not have central heating
•  - Housing in poor condition: The proportion of social and private homes that fail to meet the Decent Homes standard.

Outdoors sub-domain

•  - Air quality: A measure of air quality based on emissions rates for four pollutants
•  - Road traffic accidents involving injury to pedestrians and cyclists: A measure of road traffic accidents involving injury to pedestrians and cyclists among the resident and workplace population.

Each individual map layer has a standard symbology in which each Lower Super Output Area (LSOA) has a colour based upon its decile classification. ‘Deciles’ are published alongside ranks within the raw data.  (Deciles are calculated by ranking the 32,844 small areas in England from most deprived to least deprived and dividing them into 10 equal groups).

Active Places records are checked on an annual basis (either by the Active Places Data Validation contractor or individual facility owners and managers who have taken responsibility to self-maintain information on their own facility records).  This has traditionally provided the appropriate balance between data quality (currency, accuracy and completeness) and the effort/cost required to check over 33,000 sites at which over 135,000 facilities are located (November 2020).

However, the annual check does not provide a sufficient frequency to reflect the immediate and short term impact of the Covid-19 restrictions (such as local and national lockdowns) on facilities.  This is having a significant impact on data accuracy,  specifically to attributes such as operational status (planned, under construction, operational, temporary closed etc), access policy (free public access, pay and play, club membership etc) and opening times.

For the vast majority of Active Places records these attributes remain unchanged from pre Coivid-19 and therefore may not reflect the current status.  The exception will be where a facility is known to have permanently closed.  

Sport England are exploring options to update these attributes on a more frequent basis to reflect the impact of Covid-19.  If you are aware of any data updates, please provide them via activeplaces.data@sportengland.org.

The National Statistics Socio-economic Classifications (NS-SeC) is a measure of employment relations and conditions of occupations. These are central to showing the structure of socio-economic positions in modern societies and helping to explain variations in social behaviour and other social phenomena.  For more information on this dataset see http://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks611ew .

Within Active Places Power NS-SeC of usual residents aged 16 to 74 are a series of map layers at Lower Super Output Area (LSOA) geographies. 

See Map > Map Layers > Population Data > Socio-economic (NS-SeC). 

Nine classifications (each as individual map layers) can be displayed showing the percentage of population within each classification or classification grouping.  They are: 

• - Managerial combined (1-2)
• - Intermediate occupations (3)
• - Small employers and own account (4)
• - Lower supervisory and technical (5)
• - Intermediate, Small and Lower (3-5)
• - Routine combined (6-7)
• - Never worked and unemployed (8)
• - Routine and not working  (6-8)
• - Not classified (9)

Each individual map layer has a standard symbology showing the percentage of population within the classification (one or more) divided by total population. 10% intervals up to 100% (deciles) are used. 

Note, Comments function is currently restricted to Sport England users only.

The Comments tab is used to view and submit local intelligence information relevant to either a site as a whole (if it is relevant to all facilities at that site) or for individual facilities located at the site. 

Local intelligence information will be used to help Sport England and its partners track trends and inform related strategic planning work. 

Note, Sport England will endeavour to moderate comments, where necessary editing or deleting any comment at any time should it be deemed inappropriate or unrelated to the purpose of this function. 

It should also be noted that submitted comments may need to be disclosed by Sport England in accordance with the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act 2000. 

To provide knowledge of any edits to site and facility attribute details (i.e. the size dimensions of a sports hall) please use the “feedback” links located in the top right corner of the Site Details pages.  

Active Places currently holds the following Facility types:

• • Artificial Grass Pitch
• • Athletics Tracks
• • Cycling
• • Golf
• • Grass Pitches
• • Health & Fitness Suite
• • Ice Rinks
• • Indoor Bowls
• • Indoor Tennis Centre
• • Outdoor Tennis Courts
• • Ski Slopes
• • Sports Hall
• • Squash Courts
• • Studios
• • Swimming Pool

These facilities represent where 70-80% of formal sport takes place and they also tend to be large land users.

A data collection schedule has been developed to expand the number of new facility types held within Active Places. These will be added to the live database and website once collected to the required standards.

Active Places Power uses small area geographies designed by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) to improve the reporting of small area statistics in England and Wales. They are known as Super Output Areas (SOAs) and were developed as an alternative to Wards for calculating small area statistics. Unlike Wards and Postcode geographies, all SOA represent a similar number of people allowing for comparability across smaller geographic areas. The SOA layers form a hierarchy based on aggregations of Output Areas (OAs).

The relationship of OA and SOA during the 2011 census was as follows:

OAs

Population: 100 to 625

Average Population: 309

Households: 40 to 250

Number of records (England): 171,372

Lower SOAs

Population: 1,000 to 3,000

Average Population: 1,500

Households: 400 to 1,200

Number of records (England): 32,844

Middle SOA

Population: 5,000 to 15,000

Average Population: 7,500

Households: 2,000 to 6,000

Number of records (England): 6,791

Club data is no longer included with Active Places having been removed in October 2017.  Prior to this club data within Active Places Power was a beta function.  It was a snapshot sample of data that had been included to demonstrate how club data may be used within the websites tools. However, as there are no plans to update and expand club data within Active Places Power the decision was taken to remove it.