Birmingham plans to test its powers to influence the social and economic determinants of health to shift towards a healthier food and physical activity economy and environment.
Birmingham plans to test its powers to influence the social and economic determinants of health to shift towards a healthier food and physical activity economy and environment.
Progress
- The Food System Team have developed an action plan (developed with meetings with BCC planning department with co-production across council departments) for the Healthy City Planning Toolkit, detailing how the toolkit can be embedded into planning processes in the long term.
- The Food System Team have met with the lead delivering the East Birmingham Growth strategy and opportunities to develop COTP work streams in East Birmingham have been identified
- Birmingham City Council ran a series of Action Plan Workshops with stakeholders from across the food system to discuss the nine work streams that are part of the emerging Birmingham Food System Strategy
- As part of the Commonwealth Games legacy, the Food System Team are developing culturally diverse healthy eating guidance
- Received funding to fund and expand COTP work beyond June
Challenges
- The Built Environment Team is not yet fully in post, but progress is being made with recruitment
- Challenges with the Healthy City Development toolkit being adopted by the Planning Authority of Birmingham City Council
- Challenges with Apprenticeship and Learning and Skills Providers recognising and adopting the spiral curriculum into their programmes
Learnings
- The toolkit consultations are too long, leading to low response rate
- Co-production approaches can result in solutions that have not been considered and that are broader and more suited to requirements
- The importance of continuous monitoring of project progression and milestones to ensure the ability to deliver and evaluate projects over time, despite staff/team changes
Next steps
- Healthy City Planning Toolkit action plan will start being delivered by the new Public Health Built Environment Team
- Develop tools for young people and volunteers to capture metrics and data of the food system in Birmingham
- Finalise healthy eating guidance document
- Finalising evaluation report