The national PE, School Sport and Club Links strategy was launched by the Prime Minister in October 2002. It went live in April 2003. The Government is investing £978m between 2003-04 and 2007-08 to deliver the strategy. In addition, £686m lottery funding is enhancing school sports facilities. That means that in total over £1½ billion is being invested into physical education and school sport in the five years up to 2008.

The Department for Education and Skills and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport have come together to jointly lead the strategy. Its overall objective - a public service agreement target sharedby the two Departments - is to enhance the take-up of sporting opportunities by 5-16 year-olds. The ambitious target is to increase the percentage of schoolchildren who spend a minimum of two hours a week on high-quality PE and school sport within and beyond the curriculum to 75% by 2006 and then 85% by 2008.

The long-term ambition, by 2010, is to offer all children at least four hours of sport every week made up of:

• At least two hours of high quality PE and sport at schools — with the expectation that this will be delivered totally within the curriculum.
  
  
• An additional 2-3 hours beyond the school day delivered by a range of school, community and club providers.

Youth Matters (published on 18 July 2005) a green paper on providing opportunity, challenge and support to young people. It seeks views on how to reform services in England, including sports activities for young people. The proposals include setting new national standards for the activities that all young people would benefit from accessing in their free time. It's proposed that this will include access to two hours per week of sporting activity. The national strategy is being delivered through nine interlinked workstrands. The first two:

		Sports Colleges
		School Sport Partnerships

will create - by 2006 - a national PE and school sports infrastructure by establishing a network of 400 colleges and partnerships (families of schools which work together).

The remaining seven workstrands:

		Professional Development
		Step Into Sport
		Club Links
		Gifted & Talented
		Sporting Playgrounds
		Swimming
		The QCA's PE and School Sport Investigation are the tools the schools
		and partnerships draw on to enable children to take up their 2 hour entitlement and move towards the 2010 ambition. There is also additional funding for more Coaches and Competition Managers to work across the network of School Sport Partnerships. Good progress is being made and we are on track to meet the 2006 target.

The 2004/05 school sports survey — the largest and most comprehensive in England — found that 69% of pupils, from the 11,400 partnerships schools taking part, were spending at least two hours in a typical week on high quality PE and school sport. Pupils from schools in the longest established partnerships were doing far more than those in newer partnerships.

The survey also found that:

• The number of pupils identified as gifted and talented and receiving extra coaching in PE and sport has more than doubled to 106,100 from 44,400 last year.
  
  
• Competitive sports are offered by almost all schools, with football (97%), athletics (91%) and cricket (85%) at the top of the league; and schools each offering an average of 15 different sports.
  
  
• As partnerships bed down, provision increases even further with 71% of pupils doing two hours or more.
  
  
• 11% of 14-18 year olds in partnership schools are actively involved in sports volunteering and leadership