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Sportsmail Reporter
Last updated at 5:59 PM on 20th September 2011
Warning: Former sports minister Caborn
Former sports minister Richard Caborn will tell a conference on Wednesday there have been ?disastrous? results in the drive to increase sports participation on the back of the London 2012 Olympics.
Caborn, who was sports minister when London won the right to host the Games in 2005, will say the ambition of increasing by 1million the number of people playing more sport by the time of the Olympics is facing ?complete failure?.
He will make the claims in a keynote speech to the annual meeting of the Sports and Recreation Trust Association (SPORTA) in Birmingham tomorrow.
Caborn said: ?The Olympics will be a spectacular success but we are not capitalising on that. We are in danger of failing completely on the long-term sporting legacy of the Games.
?There needs to be a major change of direction in the strategy on this if the disastrous decline experienced by many of the sports is to be reversed.?
New target: Caborn has called for ?a major change of direction?
Figures published by funding body Sport England earlier this year showed hardly any progress has been made towards hitting the target of 7.815m people playing sport three or more times a week by 2012-13.
The latest result from the quarterly Active People survey showed the figure at 6.881m, only a slight increase on the 2007-08 figure of 6.815m.
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Meanwhile 21 sports have actually experienced a decrease in people participating once a week since 2007-08, while nine saw an increase.
Caborn claims the reason for the failure is that in 2008 it was decided that Sport England should merely fund governing bodies instead of involving local authorities and regional sports councils in boosting participation. Sport England insist however that is not the case.
Caborn added: ?The key to this is Sport England changed the strategy in 2008 and has basically been just acting as a bank, funding governing bodies.
?They have failed on just about every count. They are responsible for the structure of grassroots participation and now need to change course and provide leadership.?
Those high up in the British Olympic Association have similar concerns about the sporting legacy of the Games and it remains the one area where a successful outcome looks unlikely.
Sport England?s chairman Richard Lewis insisted participation levels were rising but admitted the rate of increase needed to rise much quicker.
Lewis said: ?The number of people playing sport is increasing, but the pace of change needs to increase significantly over the next 12 months and beyond. That is why the secretary of state for Culture, Media, Sport and the Olympics has written to all sports governing bodies with the clear message that they must deliver participation growth or put their public funding at risk.
?Sports such as cycling and netball are already demonstrating what can be achieved through innovative approaches that focus on what people want from grassroots sport.
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Article source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-2039663/LONDON-2012-Olympic-project-danger-complete-failure-warns-Richard-Caborn.html
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