Sport can enrich people's quality of life, raise self esteem and confidence levels and provide enjoyment to individuals.
It also has a much larger part to play in building stronger, safer communities, strengthening the economy and developing the skills of local people, meeting the needs of children and improving everyone's health.
Sport plays a major role in the Government’s efforts to tackle obesity in the population as a whole. Being more active can also lower the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer.
We are committed to achieving a 3% increase in the number of people from priority groups who participate in sport by 2008.
The Promoting Sport Toolkit is a collection of simple-to-use tools to help sports clubs and other sports organisations promote sport and active recreation to the public. It makes promoting sport easier.
Our community sport programmes increase the quantity and quality of sporting opportunities all across the country. With the National Lottery distributing bodies we have committed over £1 billion to the development of sports facilities and are supporting the new Wembley Stadium project.
Through Sport England, we also support initiatives to increase participation from those who have previously been under-represented in sport.
More sport for children
It is vital we encourage more children to take part in sport if we are to challenge the year-on-year increase in child obesity. With the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), we are committed to achieving:
- By 2008, 85% of all 5-16 year-olds spend at least two hours per week on high quality PE and school sport
- By 2010, offer all children at least four hours of sport every week
To achieve this, we encourage more sport within and outside the school curriculum; we protect playing fields and schools’ sports facilities; we encourage sports clubs and sports networks; and we provide funding and support for coaching and child protection initiatives.
