Joining Forces to Tackle Obesity, 21-22 January 2002

 

Transcript : Preventing Obesity Through Physical Activity Strategies

 

Rt Hon Richard Caborn, MP

Minister of State for Sports, Department for Culture, Media and Sport

 

DR WILLIAM DIETZ:

We are delighted this afternoon to be joined by the Right Honourable Richard Caborn as a Minister of Parliament, Minister of State for Sport and directs the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. Mr Caborn, thank you for coming.

 

RICHARD CABORN:

Well thank you very much for that Bill. I haven’t any slides so unfortunately you’ll just have to look at that one slide which says the "Right Honourable Richard Caborn" so as they say I understand that my colleague Sue Campbell came and made you all stand up and do a few exercises yesterday to get you all in the mood. She said you need a little exercise! So thank you very much for inviting me.

As a relatively new Sports Minister it is interesting to come to such gatherings. I can also thank the National Audit Office as well for organising this conference and can I think bring it to our attention, I think Ken mentioned this in his contribution about the lack of knowledge and understanding about this particular subject. I think that’s very important and I think we’ve all got to take that on board. You know I must admit when I read the report and indeed the Public Accounts Committee’s follow up report of that I must admit I was a bit shocked as well to see that, I think from the last 20 years, there’s been something like a trebling of the obesity in this country and that something like half of the women and two thirds of men indeed are overweight. Well that I think starts putting the thing into some perspective and one that even I will admit as a minister didn’t realise the real problems that were under this particular situation that the National Audit have brought to our attention.

 

Can I say therefore that as Sports Minister I see that there is a tremendous challenge and I’ve only been at this conference for under an hour now but clearly joined up with some sports ministers it seems to be that I’m the auditor general and I hope that what I’m going to say this afternoon is surely I think that we are going in the right direction because there’s no doubt that sort can play a very positive role in many areas.

 

In fact when Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, actually gave me this job, which is about six months ago he said to me that sport was a means to an end and I think everybody who plays sport really does enjoy that. I mean when you break your first 100 at golf or whatever you do in sport, it’s a tremendous achievement for the individual or the team no matter at what level but sport is a means to many ends. It’s indeed about social inclusion. It is indeed about health. It is indeed about education. It is indeed about the drugs awareness and what Tony was saying was that he thought that sport was actually a massively under utilised asset that we’ve got in this country and therefore we’ve got to look at it very fundamentally as far as the structure was concerned and see how we could use that asset much more effectively.

 

I think if it’s shown one thing in the last summer just to digress a little but the problems that we had in some of our major cities and towns around the country and the government had to move with the various agencies; but the one thing that’s come out in the three reports that’s been presented - indeed on the debrief and the reflection of how we’ve done - sport clearly was a medium which did respond to many of those issues. It did close racial divides. It did actually get over geographical divides. It did actually start bringing in some leadership into some of those communities and therefore it is a power for good and it’s one that I want to make sure is used and indeed is organised in that way.

 

Indeed increasing participation by young people is a key objective of course to my department indeed the government and Sport England, which is our main agency. As far as the government’s concerned I think it’s made it’s first commitment in saying sport is important in that we are saying at least two hours of high quality PE and sport should be taken - that two hours per week should be taken by all school children right from the primary all the way through. To start getting sport back in physical education as part of the culture so it’s not a clinical two hours in that sense; I think that is more a commitment, a statement, that we just want that two hours but we want it beyond that. We want to make sure - and I think the end has been illustrated this afternoon - that after-school activity and weekends and indeed at breaks at school ought to be taken as part of an opportunity to have physical activity in one form or another.

And therefore schools need to deliver the high quality physical education and sport and we see that, as I say, as a major benefit to our young people. It’s an achievement not just in a physical sense because all the evidence that we’ve got now and I think there’s a lot - not just anecdotal evidence but I think very solid evidence that we’re showing where a school, where an academic institution, does actually take sport seriously its attainment levels academically are higher, its truancy rates are lower. The whole ethos of the school is lifted by the involvement of sport and therefore you’ve got to have an integral part of that and I think it is very important that schools - and we have a lot of work to do in this area - that schools are the first time the child probably actually meets sport; actually participates in sport and sometimes you know it can be not the best of experiences and that child can be turned off for life if their experience is not a good one. So we’ve got to make sure that sport and physical education is fun; it’s something that people want to participate in and something that is rewarding as well.

 

Now the National Audit and PAC follow up report explain in some detail that the problem of obesity is a complex and difficult one to tackle and its causes are varied and it covers many factors that influence individual lifestyles and therefore promoting the benefits of physical activity in the population is important in combating the problems of obesity both in terms of prevention and treatment. Increasing the time spent in taking part in physical activity is a vital part to the solution to this complex problem. Again, I think we’ve seen some of that this afternoon.

 

I think also that what the National Audit Office and the PAC report, from my point of view, was pleasing, is that there is now I think an emerging consensus in Whitehall that this cannot be tackled by one government department. It was interesting in reading some of the transcripts on the evidence given to the PAC about where should sport lie? Should it be in the health department? Should it be in DCMS? Where should it be? Should it be in environment? I think that that’s one way to approach it. Wherever it is that it’s got to be used as a tool to deliver the wider government agenda. I think for far too long have we in Whitehall thought in silos rather than the cross cutting and that’s why when I came into this job I took on board what Tony was saying very seriously indeed and I instituted monthly meetings of the ministers. Now, not only are the ministers there from Health, from Education, from DTLR - it was very interesting in the transport side of that because both TL Faulkner and Terry Peeble attended the last meeting; one was on the transport issue but the other one was on management planning; PPG17 which is important in terms of how we’re going to approach the whole planning of sports facilities and the like and again the need for that integrative approach but we’re all meeting as ministers but we’re also meeting with Trevor Brooking and now David Moffat, who’s the new chief executive of Sport England, along with Steven Dunmore and Jill from the New Opportunities Fund which are two of the major funding bodies in terms of sport and physical education.

 

So what we’re trying to do is to bring the major agencies along with the ministers to discuss how we can take the sports agenda forward to deliver on that wider government agenda which I said. And that I think is working reasonably well now and hopefully we’ve got to take some of that integration for which I’ll just explain in a little while.

There’s also the National Alliance for Physical Activity, the NAPA. These are other mechanisms in place to ensure joint working as I say with the NAPA. This group allows policy makers, experts and practitioners to share experiences and indeed learn lessons from projects that aim to promote increased participation in physical activity. It includes the representatives of all the government departments that were involved in this area, the FOC, DTLR, DCMS and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, Sport England and the local government association as well as academics and representatives from the health authorities and the voluntary organisations. The aim is to identify where the scope exists for common objectives and targets with other departments wherever this is appropriate.

 

Now I think you had Sue Campbell here yesterday and I think probably most everyone would say she’s quite a dynamic lady. I must admit when I came into the department she was there as the link between the DFOC and Education and my own department. Clearly what has got to be is get the linkage now with health as well and I’ve been asking Sue to take up that job so we can get the joined-upness and indeed tackle some of the problems that we have between the three departments. And I’m bound to say that I think that we’ve now got a very good working relationship. The ministers, from Secretary of State downwards, are very keen to make sure that we get that joined-upness. I am bound to say though that some of the challenges are the coaches in some of the professions that I come across as I go around the country and we’ve all got to give a little if we’re going to make it work quite honestly.

I think the lead from the top if that is right is there but we have now got to put into play structures where that cross fertilisation of ideas, where the synergies can actually develop and I think that’s one of the challenges that we’ve got; not just saying it but we have now got to develop that in to practice as well. I think the need to replicate what we’re doing there therefore at the national level is very important at the local level as well; where the real translation of those policies and local implementation can be made and therefore it’s important that people who are on the front line of the delivery - the GPs, the nurses, the health workers, teachers, the A & D sports development officers and the voluntary sector - actually buy into the strategy and I think that’s very important that they’ve got to feel that they are part of it and it’s not an imposition from the top, and we’ll be working with that type of partnership. And partnership is always driving for the highest common factor and not the lowest common denominator and I think sometimes that we get locked into that probably in the public sector.

 

There’s also the inter-ministerial group to improve children’s diet and increase physical activity. This was a group that was set up by my colleague the Minister in Public Health in June 2000 and that was to consider cross-department action to promote the health benefits of exercise, sport and other forms of physical activity and to tackle increasing levels of obesity. The Guild Committee is to look at what’s already been done and indeed try to be - and it was very interesting what was said at the previous session - it’s not always about money. A lot of the assets are there. A lot of the investment is there. It’s how we can use that in a much more effective way than probably we’ve been doing in the past. I think one of the stabs at that in terms of sport were the Sporting Future for All and the Goodman’s Plan for Sport. It was the first time I think we were trying to bring all these together and we are now following through that implementation and I’m trying as the new minister as it were for sport, to try and refocus that and sharpen both the strategy and the delivery.

 

I think Sue went through a number of the areas where we’re doing quite significant investments particularly in terms of facilities and human capital like the school sports co-ordinator. There is nearly about £1 billion going in over the next three years into sports facilities and also into school sports co-ordinators as well and that I think is something that we will be continuing to do over the next period.

 

I think there’s three things that I want to achieve which I think also hopes to deliver your agenda as well and indeed what the challenges that the Audit Office has said. I think it is very basic. I think there are three things that I want to see improved over the next period. One is facilities for sport and that’s both in terms of quality, quantity and location. I want to see investment into human capital and I mean that by people who are in coaching at all levels. It is about the administrators and it’s about the officials in sport but I don’t think we’ve got that right either. But the third one, which is very important indeed, is access to sports facilities.

 

Can I just tell you a little story about access to sports facilities? My daughter is a teacher in an inner city school in Sheffield and, there’s flats if you go into Sheffield - some of you might have seen the big flats, it’s called Parkville Flats and in the middle of that is a school, a primary school and just beyond the flats is a very nice swimming complex called the Ponds Forge which is an Olympic-sized pool. Unfortunately it’s quite expensive to get into it. Now Katherine was going around because the Trust had given the kids some tickets to go to this swimming complex during the holiday period when it’s a six weeks holiday last year, and she went to one of the youngsters and said to him, "I’ve got these tickets for you, Johnny" or whatever they call him and he said, "Oh, it’s okay Miss Caborn. I go every Saturday morning". So she said, "You go every Saturday morning? How do you pay?" He said, "Oh, I go in as a spectator. Yes, I’ve a 50p piece and I go with that and I go in as a spectator and I go down and I put my 50p into the locker and I get the key and I swim in my underpants". "Oh yes?" she says and he says, "I get my 50p back". She said, "But how do you get dry?" "Oh, he says, under the hair dryer!" How do you handle that? And then he puts his wet pants in his pocket and runs off and he’s been swimming down there. I said to Kath, "He’ll be a millionaire that kid!"

 

But it just goes to show that it’s just about access. We’ve got to make access. I was with Trevor Buckingham down in the east end of London a few weeks ago and Trevor is as very keen on this as I am. We were looking at the hire of football pitches; £90 for a football pitch down in the east end. Now, more fool you may say. There was a lot that were missing of those who can’t afford the £90 to get the team onto the football pitch and on top of that buy the gear.

So we’ve three things to do. I see three things to do. Improve facilities and we’re spending something like around £0.75 billion or a bit more than that, probably about £1 billion over the next three years. In terms of access that’s important. One of the other areas I think is also important that’s on the question of coaching and I think that we can start also delivering this agenda through the coaching. I’m quite determined to make sure that we’re doing best in coaching and I mean that from the volunteer all the way through. I’m absolutely convinced there are many hundreds of people, if not thousands of people, who are prepared to get involved in coaching; the mums, the dads, the grandmas, the granddads, many of them are retiring earlier than they were probably a decade or more ago.

I was at the bottom of my garden a few weeks ago where there are some football pitches and the under-12s, under-10s and the under-8s were playing football and I said to some of the mums and dads, "If we gave you 20 hours of training to be a coach on football would you take that and you’d get a qualification of Level One on coaching?" The answer to that was, "Yes". And what we’re now working up through our coaching taskforce is how we can engage a lot of those mums and dads or grandmas and granddads, aunties and uncles, indeed anybody, who want to take a 20 hour course - it may be on table tennis; it may be on badminton; it may be on any other number of sports - and once they’ve done that they get a qualification. But inside that 20 hours we can start raising some of the questions that’s been raised at this conference. We can start raising some of the questions about drugs awareness. We can start raising some of the questions about why young people ought to be attending school and not playing truant. So we can with inside that start engaging many thousands of people in that very basic thing of coaching. I’m convinced there’s a lot of people who’ll do it for a reason. There’s an enlightened self-interest because if somebody said to me some years ago when my kids were a lot younger, "Do you want to go on a 20 hour course and you can learn basketball or badminton or cricket or football?" I would’ve taken that opportunity and not only that I would’ve got a Level One in coaching and then I would’ve been able to transfer that if I’d have wanted to go into coaching onto Level Two or Level Three, Level Four and Level Five.

I also believe it’s very important also to invest in our communities with coaches like we do and I think and very successfully with the schools’ sports co-ordinators which is this linkage between schools, the community, school and sports club. One of the structural weaknesses I saw when I came into this job was that 70% of our young people who leave school never go back into active sports when they’ve left school, and that quite honestly compared with many - in France I think it is something like 20% and you ask yourself the question, why? It is because our sports clubs are at the weakest they are because we’ve not invested in, we’ve not encouraged people in the voluntary sector to take a responsibility in those sports clubs so there’s a lot of reorganisation, modernisation and indeed investment into those areas in this wider area of sports.

So there are three areas of, facilities and of coaching, of human capital and of access. I went to my health centre last Friday talking to them and I think that we’ve now got to look very clearly at how we can get integration of the health and sports division and while we can put them side-by-side if that’s at all possible and that needs to have a strategy.

 

That leads me just on to how I want to look at reorganising sport into the regions. I think there’s a need to get it out from the national and down into the regions. We have now got 8 English regions; 9 if you put London into that as well and I will over the next 6 months with our new chief executive, David Moffat, be looking at how we can set up boards very tight boards of about 10 or 12 people in each of these regions that are representing about 5 million people; at how we can involve all the constituencies that have got a vested interest in sport. Health is one of those and how they can at the regional level - a bit like those who know the economic side of it, the Regional Development Agencies do with economy - I would like sport to be dealt with by having a tight group of people there to work out the strategy for the regions very much on a bottom-up process and that strategy will be delivered against outputs. Those three main outputs will be facilities, human capital and access - that’s high level performance or high level - the way we will actually be measuring those and making sure that there is that intervention by the various sectors that need sport to deliver their agenda. And clearly what I’ve seen today and what I’ve read, health is one of those if you want to go for prevention rather than cure and so we will be doing that in the next six months and there will be some challenges out there.

 

But the greatest challenge in my view will be to change culture. We can legislate. We could put structures in place indeed to a large extent. We can put money into the system but at the end of it it’s if the people want to make it work; if they genuinely want to have that partnership. I think if we all are very honest and I’ve been in three government departments and I must admit in sport I’ve never seen more silo thinking in all those three departments that I’ve been in and it’s my job to try to create a structure where the bigger vision of sport that can deliver, the much wider agenda, is actually put into place. I can do that. I will do that and I’ll do it with my colleagues in the various departments and in the various industries like Sports England and UK Sport but at the end of the day it will all become a living structure if people like yourselves and your colleagues are prepared to make that work and that means burying sometimes some of your professional differences, making sure that cultures change and making sure that you deliver that wide agenda. Indeed if you don’t, then I don’t think we’ll actually attack some of the problems that people up on that stage today and in the report of the National Audit Office. Thank you very much.