Testing the feasibility of performance indicators for play facilities in England

Play England, the leading national voluntary organization for play in England, commissioned research into the feasibility of four performance indicators being utilized as national indicators for play provision in local authority areas. The four indicators represent participation in outdoor play, satisfaction with local play spaces, quality of local play spaces, and accessibility to local play spaces. Six pilot authorities agreed to participate in the feasibility study, including five from metropolitan (mainly urban) councils and one from a district (more rural) council. The methods employed to generate the performance data comprised household surveys, surveys of children and young people via schools, professional assessment of play space quality using a standard assessment tool, audits and mapping of local play spaces, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The results suggest that three of the indicators are suitable for national comparisons, but the quality indicator is only suitable for local management purposes. The participation indicator should be constructed using a household survey and the satisfaction indicator from an online survey of children and young people via schools. The audit and mapping data assembled for the access indicator proved more useful for local performance management than the access indicator itself. Considerable challenges are evident in some authorities, particularly achieving the necessary cooperation of (and IT capacity in) schools to conduct the survey of children and young people, and generating the necessary GIS resource to map the access data.