Great save

Although Britain’s political leaders are only too happy to bask in the reflected glory of London’s 2012 Olympics, they all too often regard the encouragement of public participation in sport as a Cinderella service, first in the queue for cuts when times are hard.

However, as shown in a new report by the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, this is lazy thinking on several different levels. Not only is it socially short-sighted to cut funding for sport, or reduce PE participation in schools, while simultaneously complaining about increased obesity in young people, it is also economically counter-productive. For, as the Teenage Kicks report shows, The Boxing Academy, in North London, costs half as much as a pupil-referral unit for children excluded from schools and has lower re-offending rates.

The notion of sport as a weapon to combat society’s ills may be a difficult one for Ministers to get to grips with, but before treating sport as an easily expendable part of children’s education, they should educate themselves by looking at the examples provided in Teenage Kicks.