The Active Wellbeing Society was established in June 2017. It was set up by staff from Birmingham City Council, and the intention of the council was to establish a Community Benefit Society to transfer its former Wellbeing Service into a self-determining, standalone community company. As a mutual, set up under cooperative principles, all assets are locked for community benefit. Members of the Society are made up of staff, volunteers, and citizens. In July 2018 staff and projects from the Council’s Wellbeing Service were transferred across to the organisation.
TAWs has a staffing compliment of 53, with an annual budget of over £4 million. We do not have any physical assets yet, although we are working with the council of a number of asset transfers as part of the review of the wellbeing sites and hubs. It is envisaged that by the end of the calendar year the Society will take possession of a number of community based physical assets.
Since leaving the council, we have won a number of new contracts and the council’s funding of us currently constitutes less than 30% of our funding. We are coming to the end of our first full financial year of trading in our complete form, with our first financial year constituting our set up year in reality.
One of the projects we have successful secured is working with BCC and Solihull MBC as partners in the Sport England Local Delivery Pilot status. We have secured £9.72m over the next 2.5 years to work collaboratively with a wide range of partners to develop ‘Active Communities’