PARALYMPIC ELITE SPORT MUST GET FUNDING IN RETURN FOR MEDALS' - DOOCEY

11.07.05am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 21st Jul 2006

Commenting on the publication of the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts report into UK Sport and the funding of elite athletes, Liberal Democrat Olympics Spokesperson on the London Assembly, Dee Doocey, said:

"Over the last three Games, Britain has won on average five times more medals at the Paralympic than the Olympic Games. But disabled athletes' funding package has never matched their achievement. It is time we stopped taking the Paralympics as some irritating bolt on and invested in what has already proven to be a winning side.

'However this must be new money and not funding already earmarked for local community sports clubs that cater for people with disabilities. We keep hearing that one of the legacies of the Games will be increased sports participation. It is hard to see how this will happen when local sports clubs -and those with disabled facilities in particular- are already seeing their lottery grants diverted to fund the Games.

'The government should put its money where its mouth is and back disabled sport."

ENDS

Notes to the Editors

1. Medal winnings in last three Olympic Games. Average of Paralympic over Olympic medals awarded were 3.13 in 2004, 4.68 in 2000 and 8.13 in 1996. This averages out at 5.31 over the three Games.

Games Olympic Medal Total Paralympic Medal Total

Athens 2004 30 94

Sydney 2000 28 131

Atlanta 1996 15 122

2. The Committee's main recommendations are:

1. UK Sport requires the sports it funds to sign up to targets, but has yet to do so itself for 2012. Now that it knows the resources available, UK Sport should decide its medal table targets for 2012 and reflect these in the targets it agrees with individual sports. UK Sport should review the targets in the light of performance in Beijing in2008.

2. UK Sport is continuing to fund sports which disappointed in Athens, including the 10 sports which won no medals despite receiving nearly £14 million in total. To secure best value from its funding, UK Sport should:

q follow up its review of sports' performance in Athens to make clear for individual sports the actions required to do better in Beijing, and embed implementation of these actions into its monitoring of national governing bodies;

q make clear to sports what level of performance will be required for them to continue to receive funding during the course of the Beijing cycle, and the circumstances in which funding might be withheld.

3. Greater value could be secured from UK Sport's spending on sports science and medicine where take-up is lower than for other services such as coaching. UK Sport should work with national governing bodies to communicate the benefits of sports science and medicine to athletes and their personal coaches. UK Sport should also decide what would represent a cost-effective level of take-up for the services it funds and, if this is not achieved, consider if its money might be better spent elsewhere.

4. UK Sport currently generates no sponsorship income, so the aim of securing £100 million of sponsorship ahead of 2012 is challenging. The Department and UK Sport should draw on specialist fundraising expertise for this new area of work and see what lessons can be learned from others - from the sporting community itself, from other sectors in this country, and from overseas.

5. Victory by one one-hundredth of a second in the men's 4 x 100 meters relay on the last day of the Athens Olympics made the difference between UK Sport achieving and missing its medal table target. The value of medal targets is limited by the fact that the margin between success and failure can be tiny and mask absolute improvements in performance. UK Sport needs a more rounded package of performance measures which go beyond medals won to look at, for example, whether athletes are improving their personal bests or world rankings.

6. For three years running, in reporting to Parliament and the public, UK Sport and the Department overstated performance against the target for medals won at major international championships. In compiling the results, UK Sport included 83 medals won in events not taken into account in setting the target, thereby turning underperformance into apparent success. UK Sport and the Department should check performance information to ensure that only accurate figures are reported.

7. UK Sport's funding submission for 2012 referred to an ultimate goal of finishing 4th in the 2012 Olympics, though the published funding agreement between the Department and UK Sport said the target was 5th. Yet, when recalled by the Committee, the Department and UK Sport maintained there was no target and attributed the confusion to their inappropriate use of the term 'target'. The Department have accepted that they should have been more forthcoming when they originally gave evidence to the Committee. Starting with the new funding agreement, performance expectations need to be unambiguous and clearly explicable both to the Committee and to Parliament as a whole.

8. The national emphasis on sporting elites should not be at the expense of promoting wider participation in sport. Sport is not just about medals or a celebrity culture, but about the benefits of taking part. It will be important therefore to maintain a balance between promoting world class and mass participation