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Active Communities

What is the Quest Active Wellbeing Assessment?

 

Quest Active Wellbeing will be replacing Quest for Active Communities from 1st January 2026, with a stronger focus on inclusivity, insight-driven delivery, system-wide impact, and workforce development.

 

The Quest Active Wellbeing Assessment is a structured, evidence-based review designed to help organisations deliver inclusive, impactful, and community-focused physical activity and wellbeing services.

Ideal for teams in leisure facilities, community development, wellbeing hubs, or outreach services, this assessment:

  • Demonstrates the value of your work.
  • Identifies opportunities for improvement.
  • Showcases your contribution to wider system priorities like health, equity, and social impact.

By focusing on data, community voice, partnerships, and sustainability, the assessment strengthens your team’s effectiveness, accountability, and ability to attract investment or support.

 

 

Quest Active Wellbeing Assessment:

  • This consists of a one-day assessment, which is due every 12 months
  • The assessment is conducted against the following six modules:
    • Purpose, Strategy and Place – Alignment with community needs and strategic priorities.
    • People and Workforce – Empowered, inclusive teams co-designing with communities.
    • Insight, Data and Evaluation – Using feedback and data to improve outcomes.
    • Partnerships and System Working – Maximising reach through collaboration.
    • Delivery, Access and Inclusion – Inclusive, adaptable programmes for priority groups.
    • Wellbeing, Impact and Sustainability – Long-term benefits to health, wellbeing, and the environment.
  • Organisations are scored across five bandings: Unsatisfactory, Satisfactory, Good, Very Good, Excellent.
  • The cost is £1,295 per year 

Introduction

Following detailed work with partners and stakeholders, Quest has now fully rolled out the new and improved Quest for Active Communities Model alongside the well-established Facility Management model.
Initially launched in 1996 Quest remains the leisure industry’s only recognised Quality Assurance Tool for sports development and physical activity; designed to measure how effective organisations are at providing high quality customer service.

Quest is supported by Sport England and all the Home Country Sports Councils, CIMSPA, CLOA, SPORTA, SRA and Ukactive who all sit on the Quest Board and oversee its design and development. Quest is now widely recognised as a leading continuous improvement model designed by the sector for the sector.

In its development and operation Quest references and applies the standards of:

  • Customer Service Excellence
  • Investors in People
  • EQFM
  • CSIT
  • Culture and Sport Impact Outcomes Framework

2016 was an amazing year for all those involved in sport and physical activity with a new Government Strategy, a monumental Olympic Games and sublime Paralympics.  The vision, direction, innovation and change that underpins these developments and achievements means that Quest itself must  adapt and improve so that we offer our Clients a model that provides robust check and challenge in a positive and supportive way. Our new approach provides continitity and change. Through our expert assessors, the production of new best practice guidance and a more refined rating system  we are confident that Quest will help all our Clients to work towards and demonstrate high performance, support “good to great journeys” and evidence effective local delivery.

We continue to work with an expanding and varied number of Clients including Leisure Trusts, Football Clubs, County Sports Partnerships and Local Authorities now and as part of the Quest process we work hard to share valuable benchmarking information between Clients to help identify achievements and identify areas for learning, growth and improvement at this challenging time for the sector.

We now have over 600 facilities and 50 development teams involved in Quest in one shape or another making it the most relevant improvement and accreditation scheme in the sector.

We have reviewed all our guidance material to align it with current best practice in the field and to orientate it to Government and Sports Council’s Strategies that are now being rolled out.

We have worked with the following organisations to improve guidance and assessment processes in 2016:

  • Substance around the Sport 4 Development agenda
  • Public Health England and Sport England around Health and Wellbeing
  • EFDS around Engagement with Disabled People 
  • NSPCC’s Child Protection in Sport Unit around Safeguarding

 

Modules and Guidance

The new module guidance material can be accessed here. This will provide you with details of:

  • 7 Core Modules written with Sport England and the Quest Industry Board
  • New 5 ranking Ratings System through the introduction of a “Very Good” Category to help support the improvement journey
  • Performance Criteria set out in each Module to help differentiate performance levels more precisely
  • New updated Guidance across all Modules aligned to latest Sport England and Home Country strategies and outcomes
  • New Modules in Health around physical wellbeing; mental wellbeing and referral programmes
  • New Modules on the Sport 4 Development agenda written with Substance and Street Games input
  • New Module on Insight
  • New Modules of “Engaging with… “(target audiences and under-represented groups)
  • New dual accreditation modules written with EFDS and StreetGames
  • New Governance Module reflecting the new Code issued by Sport England and UK Sport

 

In addition:

  • We have developed a new Directional Review process after 12 months to support improvement planning.
  • We are promoting more consortia approaches where Clients come together locally to share best practice and learn from each other - either in their locality or special interest group

 

Our Assessors are experienced industry professionals who act as “critical friends” providing a constructive process providing:

  • An independent review of the service
  • A check and challenge process for teams/organisations
  • An opportunity to benchmark and compare with best practice in the sector
  • An opportunity to have the quality of your work nationally accredited
  • An opportunity to develop teambuilding and team working
  • A process by which leaders can assess what “Good/Great” looks like and how you measure up.

 

Quest Process - 5 Step Approach

 

Step 1

Prior to the assessment teams can complete self-assessment preparation forms to begin the improvement journey and help the team/service recognise strengths and opportunities for growth.

Step 2

An external 1 or 2 Day assessment led by an experienced assessor from the sector covering 7 core modules and 5 choice modules.

These are supported by Guidance Notes, written by the sector for the sector around best practice across the fields of sports development, physical activity and sport for development.

Step 3

A report with detailed and overall ratings is provided to the Client together with a completed Service Improvement Plan made up of the Assessor’s recommendations for growth, improvement and development. This is linked to a Benchmarking table open only to Quest Clients working in the sector with opportunities to attend National Benchmarking Events throughout the year.

Step 4

A Directional Review which can take place between 12 and 15 months after the initial Assessment to suit the Client. This will incorporate a staff workshop on engagement and productivity together with mentored support around identified improvement themes. This process can involve a Peer from the network - a hugely successful initiative pioneered with the support of APs, which provides real opportunity for learning and sharing of best practice.

The following Quest Excellent Ambassadors have achieved Outstanding in Quest Stretch or Excellent in Quest Plus in their last full assessment. They are available to give advice and answer any questions you may have about achieving Excellent with your team. Please feel free to contact them on the details below:

Introduction to Quest Stretch

 

Quest Stretch is a response to the desire to provide additional challenges in Quest to enable facilities, organisations and teams to better demonstrate their impact on local communities and local priority outcomes. Additionally, it allows facilities, organisations and teams to demonstrate their contribution to the current national agenda for sports and leisure as well as being confident that excellent service has been embedded in their organisation. 

Facilities and teams currently scoring Excellent can choose to go for Quest Stretch when they come up for renewal. For both Quest for Facilities and Active Communities there are 2 stages to Quest Stretch. A facility or a team have to pass Stage 1 before they can move onto Stage 2, the validation day.

 

  • If a team does not pass Stage 1, they can go through Day 2 of a Plus assessment at no additional cost.
  • If a team does not pass Stage 2, they can go through Day 2 of a Plus assessment to try and maintain their Excellent banding, at an additional cost of £600 plus Vat.

 

Both Stage 1 and Stage 2 are conducted in the first year, with no assessment in year 2.

The cost of Quest Stretch for both Quest for Facilities and Active Communities is £1950 plus VAT. The registration lasts 2 years.

Timeframes

 

  • The Entry assessment takes place in the team’s due month.

 

  • A Partnership Survey will be sent out the month following the assessment

 

  • A Preparation day (if requested) must take place within 1 month of the Entry assessment.
    • This would be at an additional cost of £600 Plus Vat.

 

  • The Validation day must take place within 2 months of the Entry assessment 

 

 

Stage 1 – Entry Assessment

 

Stage 1 for Active Communities Stretch consists of a 1-day Entry assessment against the 7 Active Community core modules.

This assessment will take place within the teams’ due month and be booked in with the assessor. The team must achieve Excellent overall in this Entry Assessment.

The month following the Quest 2016 Active Communities Entry Assessment the team will be sent a partnership survey by the Quest office for them to distribute to their partner database. There needs to be a minimum of 25 valid email addresses of partners.

 

 

Stage 2 – Validation Day

 

The Validation day is an independent review and challenge of the self-assessment and improvement planning process by examining a sample of the organisations own judgements about their current performance made against a benchmark.

The review is done by interviewing managers, staff, partners, clients, and customers and reviewing some of the documentary evidence.

This information is then used to challenge or confirm judgements made, so enhancing the self-assessment results and sharpening the improvement planning process.

The team will be assessed against 1 compulsory module and 1 choice module from the list below.

The team will need to produce a 2500-word submission for each module, with a maximum of 5 one-sided A4 pages as appendices per module. This is due to be sent to the Validator 7 days before the Validation Day.

Unfortunately if they are not received within 5 days of the Validation, the day will be cancelled at full cost and the team will need to go through a Day 2 assessment for £600 Plus VAT to achieve Quest Plus instead.

 

  • Getting the Inactive Active (Compulsory)
  • Engaging with Communities
  • Insight
  • Leadership
  • Contribution to Health and Wellbeing

 

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