From national to local: perspectives on how policy and decision-making is influenced by evidence in leisure, sport, and physical activity in Scottish local government.

Jillian Gibson is a Policy Manager for Sport and Physical Activity at COSLA, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities.  A membership organisation representing Scotland’s 32 councils.  This post is a funded partnership between COSLA and sportscotland who are committed to working together to ensure future sustainability and viability of the sporting systems and increase the profile of sport and physical activity within COSLA and across local government. 

Jillian has spent over twenty years working in local government, first as an Active Schools Coordinator in Argyll and Bute Council to working in community development in Stirling Council before joining COSLA six years ago.   Jillian has also worked in participatory democracy and children’s services policy at COSLA.

Lucky enough to combine a love of sport and physical activity with work, Jillian supports COSLA’s Sport and Physical Activity Special Interest Group; a cross-party group of local elected members working to drive local and national policy development to realise the benefits of physical activity and sport across local and national governments

Forbes was the COO at sportscotland, the national agency for sport in Scotland, from April 2019 before being appointed Chief Executive Officer in January 2023. He started his career working in local government, then moved to sportscotland holding various positions over a ten-year period between 2003 – 2013. Forbes then took up the role of Chief Executive at Scottish Swimming and during his six years the sport enjoyed year on year membership growth, made significant progress rolling out the National Learn to Swim Framework and saw Scottish athletes competing at the highest level around the world before returning to sportscotland. Forbes served as a non- Executive Director on the Board of the British Paralympic Association for the past six years, and over a similar time period was the voluntary Chair of his local disability sport organisation, South Lanarkshire Disability Sport.

Chris Topping is a Health and Wellbeing Specialist with the Health and Social Care Partnership in Dumfries and Galloway. With over 20 years’ experience in physical activity and public health, he collaborates with local, national, and community partners to design and evaluate programmes that encourage and enable people to be more physically active. His current focus is embedding the National Physical Activity Pathway into Health and Social Care through a systems-based approach.

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‘When and how does evidence inform policy and practice? Reflections from road transport and health’

For too close to 40 years Adrian’s work has focused on the health impacts of road transport, the understanding of the importance of health by transport planners, and the application of science in selecting which policies and practices most support health enhancing travel behaviours. A public health practitioner, he authored the British Medical Association’s first Transport Policy report in 1997, and evidence summaries and reports for international and many national bodies.

With 11 years of practitioner experience, embedded p/t with Bristol City Council’s transport team, he designed their city-wide 20mph programme, and co-wrote their Safe Systems Road Safety Plan. He also established a health and psychology team for 4 years within JMP Consultants. In September 2018 he took up the position of Professor of Transport & Health at Edinburgh Napier University. He provides a free evidence translation service in this role. Adrian is a founder and Board Member of the Journal of Transport and Health. He was a member of the 20mph Task Group of Transport Scotland, leads evaluation work on the impacts of 20mph speed limits across the Scottish Borders Council area, and was an Evidence Advisor to the Welsh Government on 20mph implementation. He still has the bruises.