Sustainability and learning in the Healthy and Active Fund: summary

The Healthy and Active Fund (‘HAF’) was a £5.9m Programme which funded 17 diverse and largely community-based Projects across Wales between 2019 and 2023. Its aim was to explore a range of ways to help people in key target groups to improve mental and physical health by being healthy and active. Founded in two Manifesto commitments and part of the Programme for Government, the HAF was an innovative collaboration between four national partners. It was extensively evaluated at Programme and Project levels, and was found for the most part to have been developed and implemented effectively (Evaluation of the Healthy and Active Fund final report RCS 2025).

At the conclusion of the HAF, RCS was further commissioned to evaluate its ‘sustainability.’ Undertaken at both Programme and Project level, in both cases this sustainability evaluation drew on conceptual frameworks built from extensive reviews of the relevant literature. ‘Sustainability’ for Projects was assessed against a series of categories including behaviour change in beneficiaries, continuation of volunteer efforts, and policy changes at local level. For the Programme level, ‘sustainability’ focussed on the extent and character of policy learning and transfer.

There had already been some focus on sustainability in the evaluation thus far, and this was a strong platform on which to build this post-HAF sustainability assessment (Evaluation of the Healthy and Active Fund final report RCS 2025). For this follow-on sustainability evaluation, we conducted additional interviews with actors in all Projects and seven senior Programme actors in autumn 2024 – more than a year after HAF funding came to an end. We also conducted a documentary review at Project and Programme levels.

Project sustainability

There was evidence of sustainability across the Projects as a whole, and across all of the major types of sustainability we assessed against, including:

• sustained behavioural change by participants
• continuation of volunteer led activities
• COVID-19 resulted in more online/physical material being produced, which has supported sustainability of many activities
• certified and non-certified training was developed and remains in place for both participants and practitioners
• securing continuation of funding
• skills development and behaviour change by the workforce of sponsor organisations
• organisational behaviour change which embedded learning and contributed to sustainability
• policy changes and mainstreaming within the sponsor organisations and also in partner organisations
• embedding HAF activities in wider service delivery, or where HAF experiences were a key factor in the shape and direction of future service development by sponsor organisations
• contributions to wider policy development, especially the National Social Prescribing Framework

Project representatives attributed some benefits uniquely to the HAF amongst the many other funded programmes which they had experienced. In particular, they considered that the HAF had:

• enabled existing projects to grow and gather data on need, to inform further applications for grant funding
• provided stimulus and a catalyst for growth of existing organisations
• provided the capacity to meet known demand
• enabled the development of stronger relationships with Sport Wales and Public Health Wales
• enabled the building of stronger relationships and trust at local level with different partners and to an extent that often went beyond ‘partnerships-as-usual’

We assess that the factors enabling this level and range of sustainability included:

• the early HAF requirement for Projects to consider and declare their approach to sustainability
• the determination of the Projects to leave a positive and enduring legacy
• the HAF was strongly outcome-focussed rather than fixed only on specific activities. Projects were therefore able to adjust their aspirations during their sustainability ‘journeys’ as they gained experience, and, especially, as they adjusted to COVID-19 conditions to create different ways of delivering against their objectives
• projects which established systematic internal learning arrangements benefited from them considerably; having specific roles and responsibilities for learning was a key enabler
• the focus on sustainability in HAF Programme evaluation evidence collection and thematic studies

At programme level

All Programme level actors considered that the HAF had produced significant learning, though the areas they identified differed.

Important areas of learning identified by Programme level actors included:

various aspects of Programme Management, including:

• the process of collaboration between the four national partners
• the role of theory of change approaches in crystallising and focussing programme structure and delivery
• the importance of planning the whole of the programme life cycle, and in particular the close down phase
• the role of the Case Officer, and how to optimise that
• programme management and leadership, and the importance of a Project/Programme Manager/Director alongside the Senior Responsible Officer issues about the role of experimental programmes and their connectedness to other instruments of policy and government
• issues of data collection and requirements
• the relationship between Programme and Projects, and how best to deliver both sustainability and valuable learning

Learning from the Projects, including:

• ways in which community assets can help deliver Social Prescribing
• a variety of delivery approaches
• ways of accessing hard to reach target groups
• better understanding of the challenges of data collection, especially seeking information from vulnerable participants or in one-off activities
• the resilience of community-based interventions despite the challenges of COVID-19
• well established and resilient organisations were more likely to support sustainability. Conversely, frequent changes in staff/champions reduced momentum and knowledge sharing
• partnerships structured around common objectives were found to be most effective in terms of sustainability
• some of the difficulties of collaboration at local level in ‘joining’ across boundaries to support common target groups
• the value of a centrally trained data officer who disseminated methods and support to those on the ground, enabling credible and sustained data collection and adding assurance to key partner ‘buy in’
• volunteer-led programmes involving beneficiaries with complex needs require a combination of paid and unpaid support to ensure safeguarding and capability
• how to combine nature and technology effectively in reaching out and delivering to target groups
• the creation of new and different partnerships, and how to make them effective

Two of the three major conditions for successful policy learning and transfer were met. There was learning worth sharing from Projects and a cadre of continuing Programme level actors who were willing and, in some cases, keen to convey that learning. There was, however, a marked absence of the third condition, namely effective pathways through which learning could be transmitted and applied.

Programmes such as the HAF which are geared to learning and experimentation through short to medium term funding of multiple projects should:

1. Develop a clear and thorough approach to sustainability in relation to both programme and project levels, ideally as part of a comprehensive MEALS Plan (Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, Learning and Sustainability) (Eval Community).
2. Build sustainability considerations into their overall Project Plan, including how sustainability will be monitored and actively optimised at all stages of the programme life cycle, and following programme closure if appropriate.
3. Identify a specific and appropriate technical and staff resource with responsibility for actively harvesting and optimising sustainability in all its aspects.
4. Identify from the outset the possible categories of sustainability at both Programme and Project levels, and tailor monitoring and support to optimising those categories.
5. Give specific consideration as to how pilot and experimental projects might be continued post-programme through much lower funding and/or tapered support to reflect ongoing and established activities rather than experimental activities which require much greater up-front investment.

More generally:

1. The Welsh Government and its National Partners should put in place more effective pathways through which learning can be transmitted, amplified, retained, shared, and applied.
2. The Welsh Government and its HAF partners should review whether they optimise the value from programmes with strong learning outcomes as part of a wider consideration of their arrangements for building and sharing institutional memory.
3. The apparent lack of in-built policy learning processes, and over reliance on individuals to ‘carry’ organisational memory, is something that the Welsh Government policy profession should perhaps address. The Welsh Government needs to think about how it can retain organisational and institutional memory by committing specific resources to securing the legacy of programmes like the HAF, and give the role of ensuring this to specific staff and hold them accountable for doing it. Every experimental/pilot project and programme like HAF should have a ‘legacy plan’ backed by a theory of change from the outset.
4. Key actors in all the national partners should give further thought to how they can create greater awareness of and appetite for the learning from HAF (and other policies/programmes).

Report author: UK Research and Consultancy Services Ltd

Views expressed in this report are those of the researchers and not necessarily those of the Welsh Government.

For further information please contact:

Health and Social Services Research
Knowledge and Analytical Services
Welsh Government
Cathays Park
Cardiff
CF10 3NQ

Email: Research.HealthAndSocialServices@gov.wales

Social research number: 26/2026
Digital ISBN: 978-1-83715-973-4