http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/dec/01/david-cameron-school-sports-rethink

• We're listening to people's concerns,' says No 10
• Signs of split as education department denies u-turn

David Cameron has ordered a rethink of the government's controversial decision to cut funding for school sports amid unease in the cabinet and a growing campaign by British Olympic stars.

Downing Street sources said a revised plan, with extra funding, would be unveiled soon after a backlash against a decision by Michael Gove to slash £162m a year in funding from school sports partnerships across England.

"There are clearly very strong feelings about this," one No 10 source said. "We are listening to people's concerns."

The prime minister indicated a rethink was under way when he told MPs the government was talking to headteachers and he hoped to make an announcement soon. "The culture, media and sport secretary and the education secretary are working hard on this," he said. "We are talking with headteachers so we can make sure that what we come up with actually works on the ground."

The rethink comes amid mounting anger over Gove's decision to end all ringfenced funding for school sport. The money is used to run PE classes in schools where there are no trained staff, organise sports clubs and run competitions.

Olympic champions, including heptathlete Denise Lewis, javelin thrower Tessa Sanderson and cyclist Jason Queally, are among 75 athletes who have written to the prime minister demanding a rethink of an "ill-conceived" policy they claim will damage children's health.

Cameron said at prime minister's questions: "It does seem to me that we all have a shared interest here. We all want good sport in schools, we all want more competitive sport and we have all got to make sure that money is spent well. I think everyone accepts that not every penny was spent well in the past and there is quite a bureaucratic system."

His emollient language, in answer to a question from the former Labour sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe, contrasted with last week's prime minister's questions when he described the £162m programme as a "complete failure".

But there were signs of differences among ministers tonight, indicating that details of the new plans have yet to be finalised. While Downing Street sources indicated there had been a change of heart, education department sources insisted otherwise. One source said: "There has not been a rethink. The system is bureaucratic and savings need to be made."

The two sides agreed there would be no U-turn on the overall decision to end ringfencing of funds because ministers want to hand the initiative to headteachers in line with the overall approach to education. There will also be an emphasis on promoting competitive sport and establishing the Schools Olympics.

The education department source said: "We will foster more competitive sport and we will de-ringfence money. There will be no centralised PE strategy. If schools want to use these partnerships they can pay for it themselves."

Andy Burnham, the shadow education secretary, said the decision to cut funding had sparked a "remarkable grassroots revolt". He said: "In the last 24 hours we have heard a huge change in tone on this issue from both the prime minister and Michael Gove. It seems they now admit they got it wrong and that school sports partnerships have been a success."

Sixty headteachers from across England wrote to the Observer to express their outrage at the cuts, describing Gove's move as "an ignorant, destructive and (even in terms of coalition policy) a contradictory and self-defeating decision. It is entirely unjustified educationally, professionally, logistically and in terms of personal health and community wellbeing."

In a letter to Gove, the head of King Alfred's, a specialist sports college in Oxfordshire, warned that the decision would put many young people off sport for life. Simon Spiers said there had been a rise in both competitive and recreational sport as a result of the scheme. "Your plans to remove the School Sport Programme will ensure that many young people will be 'encouraged' or forced to participate in competitive team games when they have absolutely no desire to do so."

http://www.gravesendreporter.co.uk/news/vital_sports_programme_axing_across_gravesham_creates_outrage_1_743309

Leading members of an education programme designed to create sporting stars of the future are outraged the government will cut its funding only a year before the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Sara Kemsley, headteacher of Meopham School, the hub for the School Sports Partnership serving 37 schools in the borough, has joined a chorus of protest across the country, writing to Minister for Education Michael Gove to express her anger at the decision.

The scheme costs £220,000 a year in Gravesham, funded centrally by the Youth Sports Trust.

She said: “I have been in schooling for 33 years and this is the only strategy to come out of national government where every headteacher says it is brilliant.

“It is crazy they are pulling the plug just before the Olympics. It is no secret why we did so well at the Beijing Olympics and cutting this will plunge us back 30 years.”

As a specialist sports college, Meopham has been the hub for the programme since 2005, with co-ordinators linking with primary, secondary and special schools across the borough to promote exercise, identify talent and train coaches.

Deb Jerrett, one of the school sports co-ordinators (SSCOs) working across Gravesham, could lose her job following the cut in funding.

She said: “What this has created is a link between school sports and pushing through talent to a national stage. When we go so will all that experience, knowledge and contacts. Primary school teachers already have so much on their plate. How are they going to be able to co-ordinate big events or make these links?”

During 2005 in Gravesham, fewer than 50 per cent of pupils did two or more hours of PE a week but now 51 per cent engage in five or more hours of supervised exercise in schools, she claimed. Kent School Games, which has proved so successful the Sports Minister is looking to spread it across the country, is organised by the co-ordinators and could face collapse. Also at risk is the Youth Ambassadors Programme, co-ordinated by the partnership, which uses teenage pupils to encourage and mentor up-and-coming athletes in school and clubs.

Ms Kemsley added: “It isn’t just about sport. These initiatives have given youngsters huge self esteem, offered them the opportunity to meet the Olympic committee and athletes such as Lord Coe, and developed important links locally with other schools and sports clubs.” The letter to Mr Gove, signed by more than 50 headteachers, calls the decision “ignorant, destructive, contradictory and self-defeating”.

Children’s Minister Tim Loughton defended the decision. He said: “Creating an Olympic legacy must be more than simply investing taxpayers’ cash to meet a centralised, arbitrary, five-hours-a-week target, which still left low levels of high-quality competitive sport in many parts of the country.

“High-quality sport should be at the heart of growing up – that’s why we are creating a nationwide school Olympics. We’re giving heads the freedom to make more of the established network of school sport partnerships but without being tied down by centralised targets and a bureaucratic blueprint set by ministers.”

The grovelling of the prime minister and the second in line to the throne before Fifa's Zurich racket has been a national humiliation. Had they no intelligence of what was going on? Had this exposure to ridicule not been risk-assessed? Even a cursory glance at the allegations from the Sunday Times and the BBC's Panorama would have warned Downing Street and the Palace that these were not fit people for Britain's leaders to be seen glad-handing. The business recalls the obeisance to certain Italian gentlemen once required of American presidential candidates.

The one leader to emerge from the World Cup farrago with credit is, of all people, Russia's Vladimir Putin, who wisely decided that the Zurich shenanigans were beneath his dignity. Depths to which the Russian prime minister is not prepared to stoop are deep indeed. But then he probably already knew he had won. Why did Britain not know? Why does David Cameron now react with a solemnity more appropriate for a terrorist outrage or a natural disaster?

The abasement of Cameron and Prince William is equalled only by the shocking behaviour of England's World Cup team, in rubbishing journalists investigating Fifa corruption as "unpatriotic" and "embarrassing". Who are these people, and what values do they represent? With six Fifa officials already sacked and clouds hovering over at least three of those voting in the bid race, Britain should have had no dealings with Fifa over the World Cup until it cleansed its stables. If that "damaged" a bid, more credit to Britain. Surely honesty comes before sport.

The problem, of course, is that sport turns the heads of grown men and warps their moral compass. Tony Blair, Lord Coe and Tessa Jowell behaved like besotted groupies before the self-serving tycoons of the 2005 International Olympic Committee, who proceeded to dun the British taxpayer of £9bn to stage their two-week festival of self-glorification. Football's World Cup at least makes money for its host nation. But what other British industry (besides weapons) can demand the time and humiliation of politicians and royalty to this degree, and in so obviously contaminated a process?

These international bodies know no accountability. Their sole enemy is disclosure. Governments, diplomats, officials, contractors – all have a vested interest in secrecy, as millions of pounds passes from national taxpayers in opaque "payments to international organisations", and then out to the NGOs and consultants who form an outer ring of cheerleaders. Their staffs owe loyalty only to their bank balances and jobs for life. Their income, as we saw in the secret settlement of Switzerland's Fifa-linked ISL fraud trial, receives little scrutiny. These are not servants of sport, just very rich men cleverly playing on national pride.

I have no illusions about the press. I have watched enough dirt swilling down the journalistic sewer to abandon any quest therein for responsibility, accuracy, sensitivity or humility. The great American editor Oz Elliott once lectured graduates at the Columbia School of Journalism on their sacred duty to democracy as the unofficial legislators of mankind. He asked me what I thought of it. I said it was no good to me: I was trained as a reptile lurking in the gutter whose sole job was to "get the bloody story".

Yet journalism's stock-in-trade is disclosure. As we have seen this week with WikiLeaks, power loathes truth revealed. Disclosure is messy and tests moral and legal boundaries. It is often irresponsible and usually embarrassing. But it is all that is left when regulation does nothing, politicians are cowed, lawyers fall silent and audit is polluted. Accountability can only default to disclosure. As Jefferson remarked, the press is the last best hope when democratic oversight fails, as it does in the case of most international bodies.

I found myself chastised this week for my defence of WikiLeaks, on the ground that thieves should not revel in their crime by demanding that victims be more careful with their property. But in matters of public policy who is thieving what from whom? The WikiLeaks material was left by a public body, the US state department, like a wallet open on a park bench, except that in this case the wallet was full of home truths about the mendacity of public policy.

Of course diplomacy between nations – over sport or whatever – cannot be conducted entirely in the open. Some secrets must be protected. But American secrets shared with 2 million people authorised to see them are hardly secrets. The content of the WikiLeaks cables cannot have surprised anyone in the know, least of all the foreign intelligence agencies that must long have been reading them.

What is intriguing is the hysteria of power at seeing its inner beliefs and processes revealed. The denunciation of WikiLeaks as an "attack on America" from the political right is similar to the attitude of England's football authorities towards the Sunday Times and the BBC. Someone had broken wind in church. Truth briefly swept aside the deceptions of public form and left reality exposed. The players in a once subtle game that had fallen to lying and cat-calling were suddenly told to stop, pull themselves together and look each other in the eye. As the great Donald Rumsfeld said, stuff happens. The air is cleared.

The same goes for Fifa, whose processes cannot even plead national security. Its murk may now be investigated as disappointed nations seek redress. England's sports administrators will doubtless accuse the Sunday Times and the BBC of wrecking their bid – though its goose was clearly cooked long ago. These are officials who tried to sweep under the carpet the bungs and kick-backs by which their sport was fuelled, and who turn a blind eye to the sources of football's Russian and Arab wealth.

They may now take consolation in finding out how they were beaten. That will come only from a free and active journalism. In the case of WikiLeaks it was journalism that censored vulnerable names and sources from what the state department was widely disseminating. It was journalism that mediated and interpreted the raw data. It was journalism, and journalism alone, that investigated alleged corruption at Fifa.

Journalism has revealed the antics of drugs companies, the mistakes of climate change scientists, the depths of police misbehaviour, the tax-dodging and theft by British MPs and the City's bonus culture. Nobody else did. When the public interest is undermined by the lies and paranoia of power, it is disclosure that takes sanity by the scruff of its neck and sets it back on its feet.

So thank goodness for disclosure. Thank goodness for journalism. I am sorry we did not get the World Cup but, had we done so, it would have been mired in claims of dishonesty. In losing, we had the honour of seeing British journalism doing something to clean up a disreputable sport. That is the cup I would prefer to win.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/dec/09/liz-nicholl-uk-sport

Liz Nicholl tells of her hopes and fears as she dishes out millions to sports aiming to make an impact in 2012

Liz Nicholl may be little known outside the world of sports administration but to a large extent she now holds the fate of the London 2012 Olympics in her hands. It is widely acknowledged that the performance of British athletes will decide whether the Games are remembered as great or merely good.

The new chief executive of UK Sport, responsible for investing hundreds of millions in Olympic sport, has warned athletes there are now "no excuses" for underperformance after their funding was protected through to 2012 and beyond despite government cuts. "There could have been a cliff edge but we're not seeing that now. We can start to plan the next cycle, which we've not had an opportunity to do before. There is slightly less money but it's not unmanageable at all. It's very exciting and very motivating," said Nicholl, in her first interview since her appointment in September.

The 27 Olympic sports assessed using UK Sport's Mission 2012 criteria will today find out their funding levels for the next 12 months, in the last chance for any tweaks in time to affect performance in 2012. Any extra money awarded to one sport showing unexpected progress will have to be taken away from another.

UK Sport will reveal that on its traffic-light assessment scale 12 sports are now rated as green overall, with 15 rated amber and no sport given an overall rating of red. But Nicholl, who was a key architect of the "no compromise" philosophy that resulted in the Beijing medal charge led by cycling and rowing, warned they would continue to face cuts if they did not meet agreed performance criteria.

She is also concerned that the conveyor belt of talent could splutter to a halt after 2012 due to school sport funding cuts that this week led children to march on Downing Street with a petition bearing more than half a million signatures.

In the meantime sustained investment in elite sport, a feat achieved because cuts of 27% in exchequer funding will be mitigated by changes to the National Lottery, meant the UK should avoid the fate of other countries such as Australia that have invested heavily for a home games but seen coaching talent drain away and performance stall afterwards.

"The shift in the cycle to cover the four years from 2011 to 2015 will make critical people involved in the system feel that they can build on the success of 2012," she said. The investment this year, around £111m, will be replicated in the run-up to the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil.

Nicholl, who has spent a decade in senior roles at UK Sport, also acknowledged that the political prize of a successful 2012 Games played in its favour.

"We knew success at 2012 was a high priority for this government, but we had to do some very early thinking about the cost of the Rio cycle," said Nicholl, who replaced John Steele in September after he left to become RFU chief executive.

Although funding for elite sport has been largely protected, there are fears that the impact of the Department for Education's decision to axe the ring-fenced £162m budget for the Youth Sports Trust's national network of school sport co-ordinators will have dire consequences for the promised legacy.

"Until we're clear about the impact, we are right to remain concerned. The Youth Sport Trust has done some great work over recent years. It has created a movement and a much wider understanding of the impact of sport on young people. It's important that's not lost," said Nicholl.

"If there is a negative impact, if it is a patchwork in terms of provision we probably won't see the impact on Rio [de Janeiro] but we will after that."

Internally UK Sport and Sport England must slash their costs by 50% by 2015, largely through merger in the wake of the Games. They must slash their joint administrative bill of £17m a year in half, much of which will be achieved by moving out of central London to shared office accommodation – probably in the Olympic Park.

Nicholl said that working more closely with Sport England, the grassroots sports body that has also had its funding protected thanks to the lottery changes but will have a hugely expanded remit as cuts in school sport and local authority spending bite, would have its benefits. "It is part of my job to ensure this is a step up for British sport, not a step down or a step sideways. We're not in this to compromise on what the sporting system needs," said Nicholl, a former Wales netball international who was then chief executive of English Netball for 16 years before joining UK Sport.

The two bodies will be expected to work more closely together to drive commercial investment, both at the elite end and into the grassroots. Part of the challenge will be to ensure that Olympic sponsors paying up to £50m to be involved in the 2012 Games retain some of that investment within sport.

But while Sport England and UK Sport forge closer ties, relations with the British Olympic Association remain strained.There are recurrent fears that the BOA is trying to expand its remit beyond its brief and its chief executive, Andy Hunt, recently reignited an ongoing difference of opinion when he said there was "no performance value" in setting medal targets at this stage. UK Sport has a clear target of fourth in the medal table.

This week the BOA appeared to pre-empt UK Sport's funding announcement by encouraging it to increase the amount of money given to volleyball.

"I'm committed to building positive relations with the BOA. We really value the role the BOA plays in the final stages of team preparation and taking them into the Games," said Nicholl. "There are two areas that we have disagreements on but they are manageable. One is about targets and it's a shame when that features so publicly," she said.

"It's a bit disappointing because you would want the leader of the team to acknowledge that the sports each have targets. But if for some reason the BOA feels uncomfortable with that, that's OK. It's unhelpful if it confuses sport."

Choosing her words carefully, Nicholl says the focus "shouldn't be on organisations but on athletes". But she adds: "Where there have ever been tensions, it's only because we don't tolerate duplication. We respect and value the unique role the BOA has to play but, if there's any duplication, we will challenge it."

As part of the CSR settlement, UK Sport also agreed to play a larger role in improving standards of transparency and auditing among governing bodies. She also agreed there was "much more to be done" to secure a legacy for coaching from the Games. Having come through the CSR [Comprehensive Spending Review] period relatively unscathed, Nicholl is keen to refocus attention on the prize that could be realised in 20 months' time: "The potential to have a fantastic impact at 2012 and the prospect of what might be achieved still leaves me quite tingly."

TAKE ACTION NOW

Sign the open letter to the Olympic organisers and the catering companies. Tell them to “Source Fairtrade: make every Olympic catering purchase a winning one”.

 CLICK HERE TO ADD YOUR NAME

Within the next few weeks, the first big wave of Olympic 2012 catering contracts will be awarded. This is a critical opportunity for us to remind the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG), the main sponsors (McDonalds, Cadburys and Coca-Cola) and the contract catering companies about keeping the Fairtrade commitments already made, and about Londoners’ enthusiasm for caterers to go further and extend the range of Fairtrade products used. 

Our message is simple: 

Liberal Democrats on the London Assembly Members have raised concerns over the affordability and accessibility of the London Olympics and Paralympics following the appearance of Olympics chiefs before the Assembly this week.

On Wednesday representatives from the Olympic Delivery Authority told AMs that Blue Badge users will not be able to use ‘Olympic Lanes’ to travel within London and to the games. The news comes just days after 2012 chiefs called on Londoners not to use the Tube network during the Games.

Criticising the ODA’s stance, LibDem Assembly leader Caroline Pidgeon commented: “When less than one in four tube stations is wheelchair accessible it is appalling that the ODA have ruled out such a modest proposal. Quite frankly the need of many disabled people is far greater than many of the other people who will be able to use these lanes.

“The excuses put forward by the Olympic Delivery Authority for not implementing this policy are simply indefensible and totally contradict the promise we made to the world to host the most accessible Games ever.”

On Thursday Pidgeon’s colleague Dee Doocey said claims the games would be the “most accessible ever” were in “tatters” after the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games announced it would not provide free tickets to carers of disabled people purchasing ticket unless they are a wheelchair user.

Doocey said it was “shameful that LOCOG are failing to adopt a fair policy towards all disabled people.”

The AM added: “With less than one in ten disabled people being wheelchair users LOCOG’s policy is blatant discrimination against the huge number of disabled people who require a carer to attend any event, such as many blind people or people with a learning disability.

“Far from pushing forward in access standards it seems that the 2012 Games will not even match the ticketing policies that are already adopted by many music and sporting venues. The pledge that the 2012 Games would be the most accessible Games ever is now in complete tatters.”

Assembly LibDems have also criticised LOCOG for failing to ensure there was sufficient mix in the events for which affordable tickets would be available. On Thursday the Assembly’s Economic Development, Culture, Sport and Tourism Committee heard hat more than half of the ‘Pay Your Age’ tickets for games will be restricted to football events.

http://www.bighospitality.co.uk/Business/Extortionate-Olympics-hotel-prices-could-damage-sector-in-long-term

Hotels are set to more than double their prices during the 2012 Olympic Games, but doing so could cause long-term damage to corporate business an expert has claimed

A Travel Advice for Business service, run by the London 2012 Organising Committee, will give out information on how business travellers can best get around the capital as transport networks fill with games spectators.

It offers advice on where and when disruption is likely, maps, factsheets and sample surveys that can be used by employers to gauge when staff may have difficulty travelling.

Launching the service, local transport minister Norman Baker said it would be vital for businesses to plan ahead to avoid disruption. Baker recently presented to delegates at PST’s Engage round table in Leeds via videolink.

“I am also pioneering an initiative to encourage employees and businesses to reduce their need for travel by adopting smarter ways of working – like video and teleconferencing and home working,” the minister said.

“By working together, I am confident that business and Government can deliver a successful Games whilst minimising inconvenience for those going about their everyday lives.”

Baker said the capital’s transport system would need to cope with up to 800,000 spectators each day, and 55,000 athletes, officials, media and others working on the event in addition to its normal patronage and that Travel Advice for Business would “reduce overall ‘background’ demand for transport during the Games”.

Colin Stanbridge, chief executive of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said places of work likely to be affected by Olympic congestion should “start considering plans as early as possible.

“This might include implementing travel plans or flexible working for employees, reducing non-essential journeys and making adjustments to delivery schedules.”

London Councils, the umbrella body for London boroughs, complained last Spring that boroughs had not been fully consulted about planned traffic arrangements for the roads surrounding Olympic venues.

It urged the Olympic Delivery Authority to work with its members to prevent parking problems around outer London railway and Underground stations caused by spectators using public transport from these to the Olympic venues.

In this week’s Spectator, Andrew Gilligan and I disclose, for the first time, all the petty, legally-binding demands made by the 115-member International Olympic Committee (IOC) of London.

This is information that the government, the mayor and the London Olympic organisers never wanted you to see – even though it forms a binding part of the Host City Contract signed when we won the right to host the games in 2005.

Paul Charman, a researcher in East London who contributes to the website GamesMonitor (www.gamesmonitor.org.uk), fought a two year battle with City Hall to get them into the public domain arguing, quite correctly, that their disclosure is outstandingly in the public interest. Happily, the Information Commissioner agreed.

Contained within 21 so-called ‘Olympic Technical Manuals’,  the IOC sprays around rules governing everything from tax-breaks to the uniforms they expect their chauffeurs to wear for the duration of the 2012 Olympics. The limits they will place on the everyday lives of Londoners are simply draconian. They IOC want London to shut roads and even close flight-paths. They demand a meeting with the Queen and even that their Olympic flag always takes precedence over the Union flag for the duration of the games. And there’s much more.

The picture that emerges is of our capital city yielding up its public infrastructure, legal powers and identity and handing them over to an international sporting body with a taste for the high life. Taxpayers are paying £12bn and counting for the games, another £1.4bn has been raised from private sources and millions more have been donated by the IOC –  so this is going to cost us dearly.

The Manuals run on for thousands of pages and I’m sure there are elements of the IOC’s plans that bear further investigation. For this reason I am placing them, along with that Host City Contract, online. Just click on the links below:

Host City Contract
Technical manual on Accomodation
Technical manual on Accreditation
Technical manual on Brand Protection
Technical manual on Ceremonies
Technical manual on Communications
Technical manual on Design Standards for Competition Venues
Technical manual on Hospitality
Technical manual on International Federation Requirements
Technical manual on Media, Written and Photographic
Technical manual on Medical Services
Technical manual on Olympic Village
Technical manual on Organisation of Election to IOC Athletes Commission
Technical manual on Organising Meetings
Technical manual on Other Olympic Games Matters
Technical manual on Paralympic Games
Technical manual on Planning Coordination and Management
Technical manual on Protocol
Technical manual on Sport
Technical manual on Ticketing
Technical manual on Transport
Technical manual on Workforce