Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
DEPARTMENT FOR
CULTURE, MEDIA
AND SPORT
AND UK SPORT
2 APRIL 2008
Q1 Chairman: Good afternoon to the Committee
of Public Accounts. Today we are looking at the Comptroller and
Auditor General's Report, Preparing for sporting successes
at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and beyond.
We welcome back to our Committee Jonathan Stephens, the Permanent
Secretary of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. I do
not know why you are not in the middle of the table, Mr Stephens—you
have been demoted. I always like to have Permanent Secretaries
in my eye line, in the middle.
Mr Stephens: I am missing that,
simply because Mr Steele is the Chief Executive of UK Sport.
Q2 Chairman: So you reckon he is
the lead witness today, is he? Anyway, he is here, John Steele,
the Chief Executive of UK Sport; and Liz Nicholl, who is Director
of Elite Sport. I will start with you anyway, Mr Stephens. You
will recall our last report and we made a recommendation that
you raise £100 million from the private sector. Why has it
taken so long to identify where it is going to come from?
Mr Stephens: Ministers deliberately
chose to prioritise the raising of funds for the running of the
London 2012 Games. The organising committee has a £2 billion
budget to be raised from a variety of private sources. The government
has had to guarantee that budget in full. It includes some £700
million or so to be raised from UK sponsor and ministers decided
that that was the biggest risk that should take priority. They
believe also that Beijing will provide the opportunity and platform
for beginning to raise the £100 million.
Q3 Chairman: But Mr Steele you should
have had the first £20 million yesterday, should you not,
and you got nothing; what are you going to do about it?
Mr Stephens: Perhaps I can just
pick up on that? Ministers and UK Sport have agreed that UK Sport
should continue to plan on the basis and budget on the basis—
Q4 Chairman: That they are going
to get it.
Mr Stephens: ... of the original
assumption, which was for a flat line profiling of the £100
million over the five relevant years, and they have agreed that
that should be reviewed post-Beijing.
Q5 Chairman: One thing that really
interests me, Mr Stephens—perhaps Mr Steele can answer this
but it is for you, Mr Stephens—we are talking here about
£10 million per gold medal, most of which are Paralympic
gold medals—and that is not to say that they are any less
worth while, but it is a lot of money per medal—and what
I am interested in is how it is going to filter further down to
ordinary people. So I would like you to outline for the Committee
how in doubling our resources for elite athletes we are going
to ensure that the ordinary young man and young woman doing weekend
sports is going to benefit from all of this, because that is what
I suspect most of the population care about?
Mr Stephens: Mr Steele is welcome
to join in as well. The object of the money is to support medal
performance in Beijing and in London. Obviously that is part of
an overall approach to support. The government believes in supporting
what it thinks of as a pyramid of sport at which elite performance
is at the pinnacle of the pyramid but fits with and needs to be
accompanied by a broad base of participation at every level in
the community, and that is reflected in the government's funding
and the Lottery funding, not just for UK Sport but for community
sport, which is also very significantly increased; so the two
need absolutely to march hand in hand. One of the government's
commitments is towards 2012 supporting two million more people
participating in sport and physical activity, and that is very
much part of providing the pathway through to elite athletes for
the future and also the base of support for elite performance.
Q6 Chairman: Do you want to add to
that, Mr Steele?
Mr Steele: Yes, Chairman. We strongly
believe that there is a link between participation and elite sport
and I think that for those people that have been involved in elite
sport they can normally trace back to the day when they were inspired
and enthused by an elite sports person, a role model, and that
made them take up the sport; it made them become enthusiastic
and passionate about the sport; and those role models—and
Dame Kelly Holmes is a great example—inspired the youth
of today to choose sport and see it all the way through. So at
the elite end of the sporting pyramid we need those role models
to create our champions of tomorrow.
Q7 Chairman: So, Mr Steele, you are
going to double spending on elite sports after 2012; what is going
to happen after 2012? You will not fall off the cliff edge at
that stage?
Mr Steele: No, we have every intention
of going from strength to strength, Chairman, and that is because
we have a dual mission for 2012. Part of that is medal success
at home Games, but also beyond that it is about a world class
performance system.
Q8 Chairman: How do you intend to
fund this? Mr Stephens, have you received assurances from ministers
that once all the interest goes away at the end of August 2012
we will not see a sudden cut in funding?
Mr Stephens: Indeed, and the Prime
Minister last week said that he would guarantee funding for elite
sport beyond 2012 for at least two years.
Q9 Chairman: What, until Glasgow?
Mr Stephens: For at least two
years leading up to support participation by athletes across the
UK at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
Q10 Chairman: Can we look at the
targets now? If we look at figure 15, really, Mr Stephens, these
targets are pretty undemanding, are they not? Let us look at this
figure. You can see that in terms of the National Governing Body
aggregate, in the first line number of medals won by Olympic Pathway
athletes at 40 and then the target agreed between the Department
and UK Sport is only 30, and the actual—and this is for
2006-07—is 51, and you can see that going all the way down.
So really these targets, so-called, are meaningless, are they
not?
Mr Stephens: The government has
very strong ambitions with UK Sport for improving performance
from a low point at the time Atlanta Games towards the goal of
raising performance to fourth place in the medal table.
Q11 Chairman: Just remind me how
low a point that low point was?
Ms Nicholl: In Atlanta 36.
Mr Stephens: 36. So we are committed
to—
Q12 Chairman: Of course you are committed
and of course you are going to raise performance but I am just
saying that looking at these figures these targets are so undemanding,
judging by recent history, as to be virtually meaningless.
Mr Stephens: I think that partly
reflects the success.
Q13 Chairman: Why do you not drop
the second line and say that the target should be the first line
all the way through?
Mr Stephens: We are currently
re-negotiating the new funding agreement and I do expect that
the funding targets will be more ambitious going forward. I do
not think it is right that they should be set at 100% of the targets
for each of the individual sports that UK Sport sets targets for
because of course there is a risk around each individual target—it
is not reasonable to expect 100% of 40 or more targets to be achieved.
But I quite accept that I think there is something to look at
here to set more stretching targets and I do not think that UK
Sport would disagree with that.
Q14 Chairman: So they are targets,
they are not just objectives?
Mr Stephens: Yes, these are targets.
Mr Steele: Chairman, if I could
add to that as well. In sport it is important to set stretch targets
and I know you discussed it at the last PAC. However, when you
set stretch targets at high performance level the margins are
tiny—0.545 of a second was the difference between five golds
and not winning five golds at Athens. So you set those stretch
targets and it is evidence historically that an absolute target
would be around 75% of those. What we need to improve on—and
I think the recommendations in the Report are very clear and I
would agree with them—between Olympic Games the percentages
we were using have not turned out to be as finely tuned as we
would want and we are looking to change that for the next agreement.
Q15 Chairman: So what happens if
our GB teams comfortably exceed expectations in Beijing? Presumably
you will raise your targets will you, Mr Steele? Either you will
raise your targets or will you give us the money back?
Mr Steele: The resources for which
we budgeted are for the ultimate goal in 2012 and after Beijing
we will review all of the performances there—and the current
signs are that it could be a very positive Games—and we
will make cuts if necessary in some areas and we will increase
in other areas, but what we are looking to do is to ensure that
all of the targets feed up and ensure that we deliver that ultimate
goal.
Q16 Chairman: So when you do exceed
expectations at Beijing, as the Report makes clear that you almost
certainly will, you are going to make these targets more demanding,
are you; or you are going to give us the money back? The answer
is yes, is it? A simple yes will do.
Mr Steele: The targets will be
reviewed and—
Q17 Chairman: So you cannot say what
you will do? You say that you will just accept the better performance
and you will just carry on with these undemanding targets, will
you?
Mr Steele: No, we will review
whether performance is poor or good. We will review accurately
with the systems we put in place and that is the way we should
do it. The facts will come out of Beijing, performance outcomes
will be seen and we will review those effectively.
Q18 Chairman: Why have you abandoned
your no compromise approach and you are going to be giving out
money to all sorts of sports with no chance of winning medals?
Mr Steele: The no compromise approach,
which is what we call the way of targeting investment where medals
and sports are most likely to be successful, has not been abandoned;
in fact it is very strong and we are working very hard on it,
and part of that is current performance and part of that is huge
potential. In addition to that the funding submission that we
put to government back in 2006 was very clear on this. There is
also an ability to invest in sports that are not likely to medal
in Beijing, and that is the creditable performance sports you
will have seen referred to in the Report.
Q19 Chairman: This is a fascinating
figure 7. Why have we never funded fencing, for instance? I thought
historically that we have a very good history of winning medals
going back 100 years in fencing. Why is it at the bottom of the
league?
Mr Steele: Chairman, can I ask
my colleague to answer that?
Ms Nicholl: Pre the additional
funding coming for 2012 UK Sport was focused only at the Podium
level—we were able to support athletes that had medal potential
in that Olympic cycle. Fencing has had a good track record of
bringing athletes through, a very good competitive cadet programme.
What the fencing programme has found difficulty in doing over
recent years is converting those very good cadets into medal potential
athletes. Now with the 2012 funding we have been able to fund
the pathway right through from very good cadets to the potential
Podium level. So they have one or two medal prospects that we
really need to work on and support them with.
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