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Image: small strategy unit logo Prime Minister announces review of sports policy (1/2/2002)

The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, today announced that he has asked the Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU) and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to carry out a joint study examining long-term sports policy.

The team will consider the roles and responsibilities of Government, the private and voluntary sectors in helping sport better achieve the goals of increased grassroots participation in sport and elite sporting excellence. The project team will clarify the roles and responsibilities and interventions of government to help sport better achieve its own objectives. They will develop an overall strategy for guiding government's decisions on sports policy (including major events), and review the existing institutional and financial arrangements, in the context of government's own wider objectives.

Announcing the project in response to a parliamentary question from Ian Stewart MP, the Prime Minister said:

' Sport needs more people playing at the grassroots level and more sports men and women excelling on the international stage. Government can help to achieve this. That is why we are taking a long-term strategic view of our priorities for sport, and how they contribute to the delivery of wider objectives such as health, education, crime reduction and social cohesion.'

The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Tessa Jowell, will be sponsor minister for the project.

Notes for editors

  1. A scoping note outlining the background to the PIU project is available on the PIU website (www.piu.gov.uk).
  2. The Government is committed to helping sport:
    • The Exchequer budget for sport will be doubled to £100 million by 2004, providing funds to extend the school sports co-ordinators programme, help governing bodies with modernisation and support the new UK Sports Institute.
    • A further £750 million (£581m in England) is being invested (via the Lottery's New Opportunities Fund) to create modern high-quality sports facilities in our schools, all of which will be available for use by the wider community.
    • A further £130 million is being invested in building new indoor sports and arts facilities in primary schools in areas of greatest need through the Space for Sport and Arts scheme.
    • Funding from the National Lottery helped British athletes at Sydney to their most successful Olympic Games since Antwerp in 1920. Funding will be maintained through the next Olympics - with UK Sport investing £100 million over the next 4 years.
  3. The PIU-DCMS project aims to ensure that the investment in sport is maximised to best effect.

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