Government cuts to school sport funding

The Coalition Government has been accused of undermining the promises made to secure the 2012 Olympic & Paralympics Games by scrapping the school sport programme with less than two years to go until the Olympics.

Cllr Mike Amesbury, the Executive Member for Leisure on Manchester city council, said “The decision to incorporate the £162m ring fenced for a network of 450 school sport co-ordinators and other specialist programmes into the general education will damage competitive school sport in cities such as Manchester. Our projections at this stage suggest £1 million will be lost from Manchester school sport."

This money currently funds the following posts:

• 3 directors of specialism in PE & Sport plus specialism funding for the 3 sports colleges: Wright Robinson College(Central) , Our Lady's Sports College (North) and Burnage High School (South).

• 3 Partnership Development Managers (PDM's) situated in the three Specialist Sports Colleges,
• 1.5 Competition Managers delivering City Wide activity,

• 24 School Sports Coordinators (SSCo's) supporting all Manchester secondary schools (2 days a week funding)

• 130 Primary Link Teachers (PLT's) supporting all Manchester primary schools (half a day per week funding)

"This is in direct contradiction of the vision proposed by Seb Coe when we were bidding for the Olympic and Paralympic games, bringing sport to life in communities up and down the country in our schools and was a central plank of our bid.

"To add insult to injury we are now trying to grapple with a 50% shortfall in the budget for the Paralympic World Cup which has been staged in Manchester since 2005, after the government announced it was abolishing the North West Development Agency."

Cllr Amesbury stated, “I shall be writing to the Minister for Sport, Hugh Robertson MP about my concerns for school sport and the Paralympic World cup. I do hope that the government can work constructively with us to bridge these budget shortfalls as a result of ill considered central government cuts. I find the current situation incomprehensible."