Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
2 DECEMBER 2003
Tessa Jowell, Ms Sue Street, and Mr Keith Smith,
examined.
Q40 Derek Wyatt: As I understand it over
the last seven years of the lottery, £1.6 billion has been
spent by Sport England and the New Opportunities Fund and yet
participation rates over seven years have only gone up by 0.3%.
Do you think we have completely skewed the system wrongly and,
if we have, is it a problem that you do not have the authority
to get hold of sport at school because it is not your department?
Tessa Jowell: The figure is over
ten years rather than seven years. It is since the beginning of
the lottery that 1.3 or 1.4 billion has gone into sport. I do
not want to talk too much about jam tomorrow and good intention
but I take that very seriously indeed. I think it is a serious
failure of that investment that participation has not been increased
more substantially. On the back of that fact, a number of changes
have been put in place. Sport England has been through a root
and branch modernisation. Sport England has lost something like
60% of its staff. Seventy-five funding streams have now been rationalised
into two so we either have nationally funded programmes or we
have regionally funded programmes. Why is that important? Because
if, as we want to, we set a target to increase activity and participation
not just for children but for adults as well, we need to have
the levers through our principal supporting organisation in order
to do that. We are considering at the moment what that participation
target should be. We are working very closely with the Department
of Health. Sport England have appointed an official to health
in order to build the sporting links. Richard Caborn takes a regular
inter-ministerial meeting to focus on the promotion of activity,
not just between my department and health but obviously involving
education as well. I hope that there will be a point in the not
too distant future where we can reach some formal agreement in
pursuit of increasing levels of participation which we must do,
both for its own sake but also if we are to halt the rising tide
of obesity. There is a lot of work which is currently in hand
with that very particular objective in mind, to bind together
the two organisations in pursuit of increasing the levels of participation
and securing a better return on the investment that we make.
Q41 Derek Wyatt: As we both know, Sport
England does not have the jurisdiction for sport at school, much
as it would like it. As you have said, you are having meetings
with both the Department of Health and DfES. Would it make more
sense to you, going forward, that there was a Minister for Sport
and Health Education only and that they had that jurisdiction
because it seems to me that, if you take a sport I know something
about, rugby union, they have hundreds of technical coaches. They
are all over clubs. They are trying hard to get into schools.
They are putting their own money where their mouth is to try to
develop the sport, but there seems a disconnect there. I wonder
whether it would be good to use, for instance, some of the older
players like Martin Johnson and Lawrence Dallaglio as they retire.
They are currently heroes. It would be good to give them a two
year contract to go as exemplars and beacons to explain what it
is about sport in health and why it is important. I wonder what
conversations you have been having not just in rugby union but
with soccer stars, in basketball, hockey and so on. Kids need
heroes. They do not always take what we say and interpret it in
a way we might like.
Tessa Jowell: Certainly not. That
is precisely what the Sporting Champions programme recognises,
and what we are increasingly trying to do is to get our athletes
who are funded through the lottery engaged in the Sporting Champions
programme so that they give back some of the benefit they have
received to young people coming up. A second point, just in passing,
is that the RFU is a model governing body because they have seen
the development of the game as being coach-led very much in the
way that a sport is developed in America, not the middle-aged
administrators in blazers leading the charge but young coaches
who are professionally trained to achieve the very best with young
people. Your question really underlines to me the importance of
giving you a further note on the way in which the sporting structure
works because we have, as I have said, the structure for school
sport partnerships now covering 30% of schools. You are quite
right to say that there is a disconnect. Not every child in school
wants to be a champion. What we want to do though is to get every
child active but at the same time sponsor and encourage and spot
potential champions so that their talent can be nurtured. That
is why we are investing in what we have called the sporting ladder
which has put money into building school/club links. The coaching
programme will be a major driver of that and the work we are doing
with governing bodies to the Talented and Gifted programme for
children who begin to show real talent, and then from next year
the Talented Athlete scholarship programme, a three million programme
in each of two years, which will focus on young people between
15 and 25 in further and higher education where they develop prowess
at a particular sport but are without the personal resources to
develop their talent through training, through special diet, through
transport and so forth. What this will do is to settle a dowry
on those young people. They will be supported by coaches in order
to help them to afford the support and facilities without which
they would never ever succeed. Then we have the World Class programme.
I hope what that shows you, and we will certainly give you this
in schematic form, is that we have really tried to identify the
critical stages at which young people must receive particular
support funding and access to facilities if they are to rise up
this ladder of opportunity and go as far as they can go consistent
with their talent and ambition.
Q42 Derek Wyatt: I accept, Secretary
of State, that not every child wants to be a champion but I rather
like David Henry's idea that every child can reach its own gold
medal level and that is the thing that we should try and nurture.
Tessa Jowell: Absolutely right.
And for some that will be the chance to take part in the school
playground.
Q43 Derek Wyatt: As you said about libraries,
you have no final jurisdiction. The thing that is often raised
locally with me is the same as with playing fields. Could you
put our minds at rest that there are fewer playing fields being
sold and that you do call them in and that there is a much stronger
jurisdiction that you hold over this?
Tessa Jowell: The answer is yes,
yes and yes. We now have a system in relation to school playing
fields and adult playing fields. The position, as you will understand,
in relation to private playing fields is separate, although I
think the sale of private playing fields is covered by PPG 17.
If I can perhaps give you the background, in 2001-02 there were
985 planning applications which have to be considered either by
the Secretary of State for Education where they are in relation
to school playing fields, or by the Deputy Prime Minister where
they are in relation to other playing fields, but in each case
Sport England has the opportunity to make a judgment about whether
or not this sale should be allowed to proceed. If I take you through
these figures, there were 985 planning applications involving
playing fields in 2001-02. What you have to remember is that within
those 985 planning applications some will be to erect a pavilion
on an existing playing field or to resurface an existing playing
field, so they do not mean necessarily that they are a sale of
those playing fields or that they are withdrawing them from sporting
use. Of those 643 were approved, 52 were approved in spite of
Sport England's objection, so about 7%, 161 were refused and there
129 which were outstanding. Ninety per cent of the approved applications
either benefited sport or had no detrimental effect on sport.
That is the system that we now use. I would argue to you that
I would support a school's or club's wish to sell off a playing
field if they thought they could get a better sporting deal by
selling the land for development use and then reinvesting the
money in modern facilities. When we look, as you drew my attention
to, at the very poor levels of participation that we have achieved,
one of the things is that you have got to offer good facilities
for kids to take part in sport. In my own constituency I won the
parliamentary duck race and put £1,000 into a half term football
scheme with Chelsea. The scheme was run on a small playing field
with nowhere for the children to shelter when it rained during
a week when it rained very heavily. I would argue that in that
kind of case either you spend money on building a pavilion or
why not sell that piece of land but reinvest the money in better
facilities elsewhere? Many of these very high profile examples,
where playing fields have been sold have in practice—and
this is the part of the story which is not covered—resulted
in the money raised being reinvested in state of the art facilities
that would not otherwise have been built.
Q44 Derek Wyatt: Lastly, just moving
the topic on slightly to digital switch-off, I am slightly confused
as to where we are. Is it the intention that we are going to switch
off some time between 2006 and 2010?
Tessa Jowell: Yes.
Q45 Derek Wyatt: And, given that the
average home buys a new television set every eight years, if we
do not announce the date that we are going to switch it off soon,
it will go beyond—in fact, it has gone beyond—2010,
so can you explain when you are going to announce the date that
you are going to switch it off? That is the key thing. It is rather
vague to say "somewhere between 2006 and 2010". That
does not help anybody.
Tessa Jowell: It does in that
there is a pretty comprehensive programme of work which is being
undertaken between my department and the DTI and led by the Digital
Action Group, which is a representative group of stakeholders
generally and the industry particularly, and there are a number
of strands of work which are under way. We as government have
delivered the Communications Act which provides in many important
ways the legislative framework and structure for digital switchover.
We then have the work which is being undertaken by Ofcom in relation
to spectrum management, we have the work which is being undertaken
by Ofcom and the BBC that will report in, I think, March next
year on the state of readiness, what they will require in order
to be able to move to switchover. There will then be a period
of public consultation during next year at the end of which, towards
the end of next year/beginning of 2005, we will know what the
broadcasters' plans are and how much the broadcasters' plans will
cost. That will focus very much on what, in relation to digital
cover, will be driven by DTT and what will be relied on by the
other platforms, cable and satellite. As you will very well be
aware, we will not be able to move beyond 75% DTT cover without
moving to switchover so we reach a road block because of the way
the spectrum is currently organised and the interdependence of
analogue and digital frequencies. These are the issues which are
currently being addressed. This is not only a government initiative;
it is also an initiative which relies on the industry and we have
seen two things happen. We have seen a very rapid increase in
the sale of set-top boxes and we have seen a very rapid reduction
in the price of that technology which really deals with the problem
about people continuing to buy analogue televisions. We have then
got the broadcasters who are responsible for the planning of the
new transmitter investment in order to maximise the cover for
DTT, and then we have the public. Already we are getting close
to the 50% mark of digital households and all the indications
are, very particularly driven by Freeview, that take-up is on
an upward curve. What is absolutely clear is that the moment at
which government intervenes the message changes from a permissive
one, which is that we intend to switch over somewhere between
2006 and 2010, which we do, to one which says that by X date in
2000-and-whatever you will have to have acquired digital capacity,
and that has a material impact on public willingness to co-operate
in this. Our intention is to allow the market to drive take-up.
That is important, and the market is driving take-up very effectively
indeed. The broadcasters are driving take-up by diversification
into digital channels. I think there are yet unexplored areas
about, for instance, the possibility for more public services
being delivered through digital television and some very local
community digital services. I think it is Southampton where there
is a digital television CCTV project. We need to explore this
potential much more. That is a very long answer to your short
question. The intention is to switch off the signal. We have not
yet decided at what point in that time frame. We will do it. Why
have we not decided? Because we do not yet have all the necessary
preparatory work completed by the industry, by the broadcasters,
in order to make that judgment.
Q46 Derek Wyatt: I hear all that, Secretary
of State, but of course Sweden, America and Germany have announced
their switchover dates.
Tessa Jowell: With great respect,
they have announced their switchover dates, but I think have no
planning on the scale that we have in order to get them there.
It is very easy to announce a date. It is quite another thing
to harness broadcaster support, industry support and public support
in order to get you there.
Q47 Michael Fabricant: Time will tell.
Tessa Jowell: Time will tell.
Derek Wyatt: Broadband will tell.
Q48 Alan Keen: I will say good afternoon
to show how long we have been at these questions. Would you agree
with me that the new FA's Chief Executive, Mark Palios's decision
to bring Trevor Brooking back to the national stadium sport is
a wonderful decision in order to use his experience and enthusiasm
that we saw as Chair of Sport England?
Tessa Jowell: I think Trevor is
a great ambassador for sport and I am delighted if the FA are
going to use him.
Q49 Alan Keen: Can I pick up on Derek
Wyatt's question about libraries? Local authorities have been
pressurised in order to increase their efficiency over a lot of
years; the previous government and the present government have
done this. My own local authority, for instance, Hounslow, has
done an excellent job despite pressures of putting as much money
as possible into leisure services and culture and quality of life,
as I like to call it. Your answer on the playing fields was saying
that we should make the best of any resources we have and you
agree that there are cases where they should be sold and the receipts
used to enhance the sporting facilities. With the libraries, that
is a wonderful resource which is not being used 100% of the time.
What serious discussions have gone on about using those resources?
Local authorities cannot find the money to do that because we
have pressurised them. It has been part of two governments' policies
to do that. What serious discussions have been held to use them
fully?
Tessa Jowell: You will be aware
that last year we published the first ever really comprehensive
strategy for libraries but it was a strategy that set a framework.
There is a point beyond which, with the greatest respect, I simply
cannot help you any further because we have these statutory obligations
to set library standards but they are standards which it is then
for local authorities to comply with. I simply do not have the
levers to compel local authorities to through their library service
to observe them. This is arguably an area where one thrust of
policy in relation to local authorities to free them up from a
lot of the red tape and the targets and the centrally determined
obligations that have been the source of controversy swims against
the policy of my department exercising leverage in relation to
libraries.
Q50 Alan Keen: This is the point I am
making. You could threaten them with nuclear warfare and local
authorities have not got the resources to open the libraries.
It is pointless to set standards. Why do you not use as much pressure
as you can to get resources freed nationally in order to use those
facilities? In fact, I would argue, and I do not know whether
you agree, that we have pressurised local authorities to be more
efficient. I have always worked in the private sector and it is
a tough life. It was not so tough in public areas. It has got
tougher over the years and governments have tried to do this.
We have reached the stage now where local authorities have a lot
of resources from both sporting facilities and libraries, and
if it is a choice between Meals on Wheels and knocking a couple
of hours off the library opening hours then we would all go for
Meals on Wheels for old people. You have got to do that. Nationally,
though, we are not using the resources that are available there.
We are shutting our eyes to them. We are blinkered. We are looking
at the efficiency of local authorities separately from the resources
that exist. Why do we not go to the Treasury or whoever and say,
"Please let us use these resources to their fullest"?
Tessa Jowell: Sue would like to
come in but you will know that we are facing a very tough spending
round. We have undertaken some exploratory discussions about whether
there is scope for public private partnership in relation to this,
the sort of collaboration with a number of other functions that
I was referring to earlier. The resource, which is our body which
oversees library standards and is responsible for innovation in
libraries, is looking at how the new library framework that we
published last year can be applied to take account of different
local circumstances. I would not want you to think that work was
not under way because it is.
Ms Street: Of course, I would
like more money; we all would, but I am not hopeful although we
will try. It is perhaps quite useful to explain that the nature
of the dialogue with local authorities over libraries has changed
over the last couple of years and it is less about libraries for
librarians and more about libraries for what citizens want. If
they want safe neutral spaces open longer, if they want noisy
libraries rather than hushed ones, the local authorities' messages
to us meant that we completely changed the requirement for library
plans. We have stopped asking them to lend so many books or give
us all sorts of data that is not relevant to their needs, and
we are finding that some of the best libraries are not those where
the most is spent but where the local authority, with support
from the Secretary of State's overall strategic priorities and
resource, have said, "You make the library what you need
for all sorts of other reasons, like keeping kids off the streets
or homework clubs". I cannot throw money at it but I think
the nature of the dialogue is much more constructive than it used
to be.
Tessa Jowell: I have been passed
a note reminding me that £800 million is spent on libraries.
We have established a tiny challenge fund of three million pounds
which resourced the NDDP that overseas libraries are using to
try to improve the standards of libraries. What is absolutely
clear is that there are quite wide degrees of variation between
libraries. The best resourced are not necessarily the best libraries
and it rather reflects, I think, what you were suggesting, that
it is about the people and the imagination of the people who run
them that determines the quality of service.
Q51 Alan Keen: I am not being critical
in any way. I do not want you to be defensive about it. All I
am saying is that it is partly because we have had this antiquated
system of account in the public area which the private sector
threw out over a century and a half ago. We have talked about
introducing resource accounting. What I am saying is that there
are resources, there are assets, which are not really being used.
There is a division between the local authorities and you. You
are saying that you cannot find them more money. Of course you
cannot. The local authorities cannot find any more money, so we
have got tremendous resource there empty and with no lights switched
on in the evenings when the public could use them. Local authorities
have no more money, you have no more money, but it needs departments
bringing together and saying, even if it is over a ten-year period,
that we should get money to put into these. The private sector
would not leave assets unused at one of the best times of the
day, the evening. That is what I am saying. I am not being critical
of your department except that I am if there are no talks going
on about the future use of the asset.
Tessa Jowell: I will make sure
that this issue is on the agenda for my forthcoming meeting with
the LGA which I do on a regular basis.
Q52 Alan Keen: One or two of my colleagues
have picked some holes in the delivery against the targets on
sport in schools. Can I say that I think the progress we have
made is absolutely fantastic with kids in schools. The extra investment
is so impressive and also you have filled gaps as you are going
along; I accept that. Is it in your plans for progressing from
schoolchildren through to the rest of the population, the gap
between schools and sports clubs and the gap where sports clubs
do not even exist, and even, dare I say, as far as veteran sport
is concerned? There is little organisation of veteran sports.
You do not just have to be volunteers telling athletes which direction
to take on a cross-country run. People can still participate.
What plans have you got for extending that activity right through
life?
Tessa Jowell: You will remember
that about a year ago we published Game Plan which was
our strategic framework for delivering sport participation and
increasing activity where we see Finland very much as the example
of a country that has really taken this seriously and that we
would like to emulate over probably a 20-year period because this
is long term change that we have to look at. Yes, you are absolutely
right. I described to you the sporting ladder of opportunity for
young people. Sport England are not responsible for sport in schools.
They pick up responsibility at the point at which kids are playing
sport out of school in clubs. They have a responsibility in relation
to school club links. Sport England's core purpose now is to increase
participation. In a sense all the other extraneous responsibilities
that they used to have that made them a rather confused organisation
have been stripped away. They are now focused on increasing participation
and we have to refine the target by which we define that and we
are working on that at the moment. It is our aim to produce interdepartmentally
an activity on which the report of the Activity Co-ordination
Team, which is meeting across my department, Health and Education
in the spring, will set out then a delivery plan for how in practice
this big ambition of boosting participation will be met in all
its complexity and by measured steps. That will certainly include
the promoting of opportunities for older people. I remember when
I was Public Health Minister putting in place some very small
scale pilots that were called Exercise on Prescription for often
quite elderly people who had just become immobile through inactivity,
and it was really quite moving seeing what results could be achieved
when people were properly encouraged and properly supported and
supervised in doing that and how quickly mobility returned to
people who were badly affected by what were limiting conditions
like arthritis.
Q53 Alan Keen: I have already said that
I agreed with your answer to Derek Wyatt on the sale of playing
fields, or rather the principle. I do not necessarily agree with
all the decisions that have been made. It seems a defensive mechanism
that we have got to stop the sale of playing fields which we do
not agree with from a sporting point of view. Should we not be
more proactive? Again, it is coming back to assets and resources.
Should we not really be actively looking at what resources there
are? I know my local authority, Hounslow, is looking at this.
We have European and world headquarters buildings that were built
in the mid-twenties and thirties. They all had their own sports
fields. If you go down the A4 you see rows of houses but behind
those there are sports fields, so we are lucky in my area. Even
in that area, or particularly in Hounslow because we have got
a tremendous amount of sporting facilities, we are not really
making full use of those because there does not seem to be anyone
who is being proactive in looking to see what there is and how
we can use them.
Tessa Jowell: You are right in
part and, of course, those facilities will be provided by a whole
range of different people—commercial enterprises, very local
organisations, schools, universities and so forth. The good news
in this is that by June next year we will have for the first time
ever a nearly comprehensive database of all facilities that we
are funding Sport England at the moment to compile. It is extraordinary
that it has not happened until now but it is now going to happen.
We should have about 90% of the information available by June
and the rest of it, the last 10%, will be available in the early
part of 2005. What that will mean, and this is very important
as part of the practical strategy to boost participation, is that
you will be able to key in your postcode and find out where the
gyms, the squash courts, the playing fields, the swimming pools,
are near you, and in time (I do not think you will be able to
do it immediately) you will be able to book on line and so forth.
We will have for the first time ever a comprehensive database
of sports facilities by a little later than this time next year.
Q54 Alan Keen: Chairman, can I ask a
mischievous question? Have you ever regretted that the decision
was taken to hold the Olympics in East London and to look for
a stadium when we will have one soon where athletics will fit
in?
Tessa Jowell: Certainly not. We
will have a magnificent stadium at Wembley that we hope will be
used during the Games.
Q55 Alan Keen: But not for athletics.
Tessa Jowell: No. Wembley Stadium
would not be used for athletics but it will be used if we are
successful in all the efforts we are making to host the 2012 Olympics.
We are 100% behind it and very enthusiastic. What is very encouraging
is the enthusiasm that is not just coming from around the country
but also from other countries for the fact that we are bidding.
Nobody is going to say until 6 July 2005 that we can win or we
have won. We are just going to do our very best.
Q56 Alan Keen: We are all very enthusiastic.
Tessa Jowell: Good. I know you
are.
Q57 Chairman: I could add a mischievous
question, namely, if we get the Olympics and if we build the stadium
in East London, what will we do with it after three weeks of Olympic
Games?
Tessa Jowell: Let me answer that
question. What I hope we will do is establish a lease with a football
club. I am absolutely clear that if we host the Olympics, we invest
in the facilities, then they are all scaled to long term reasonable
levels of use and we are not saddled with any white elephants.
I do not think this will be the case but I would rather we construct
a stadium for the duration of the Games and then take it down
than be saddled with public sector costs for maintenance that
could run into millions of pounds every year.
Q58 Chairman: Secretary of State, I note
that answer, especially your final sentence, which I will read,
mark, learn, inwardly digest and bring up again.
Tessa Jowell: I will not necessarily
still be Secretary of State in 2012, much as I would like to be.
Q59 Ms Shipley: Page 46, better public
buildings, the ministerial design champions and CABE—CABE
I think most people in the business would recognise as being a
very powerful force for good quality design leadership—ministerial
design champions whilst being a very honourable experiment has
flopped. In a series of written answers to my questions, which,
frankly, the answers had to be dragged out like blood from a stone
in a number of cases, most ministers appeared to think that being
a design champion meant that they were aware of one, maybe two
buildings within their sector that was going up and they would
count exception to a high profile building and there was no general
commitment or understanding about the building environment, really.
In defence of the ministers I do not see why on earth they should
have the ability or the knowledge to be able to deliver on this.
I do not really see an assessment of the design champions, it
just says that they produced action plans. Having seen those action
plans and seen how the ministers operate and their understanding
of them it has been pitiful, but with reason, understandably,
but is it not time to drop them now?
Tessa Jowell: No, I do not think
it is necessarily. As a Government we are, as you know, investing
what are probably unprecedented amounts of public money in new
buildings. If we have learned any lessons from the past at all
it is that public buildings work well when they are uplifting
to the spirit as well as fit for purpose and that is why I think
that the role of design champions and having leadership across
government for improving the quality of design and recruiting
the best architects, and so forth, is a very important one. I
pay tribute to the work that CABE have done in this. I share the
responsibility for CABE with the ODPM, they have just acquired
new statutory authority.
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