More bureaucracy

HUGH ROBERTSON ATTACKS COST OF REGIONAL SPORTS BOARDS

Hugh Robertson, the Shadow Sports Minister, has today attacked the government over the cost of Regional Sports Boards. A Parliamentary Written Answer revealed that the cost of running these bodies is now over £10 million per year – money that could otherwise be spent on other areas in sport.

Regional Sports Boards were set up by the current government as a delivery body for sport, under their regional agenda. However, the only vote for a regional assembly, in the North East, saw the idea heavily defeated.

Hugh said: “Almost everybody accepts that sport suffers from too much overlapping and unnecessary bureaucracy. Regional Sports Boards are symptomatic of this – they do not do a job that could not be done elsewhere, nobody has voted for them and we now know that they cost over £10 million each year to run.

“That sum, £10 million, could go a long way in grassroots sport. In the week that the ICC has announced its decision to leave London for tax reasons, it is pertinent to note that the cost of granting a corporation tax exemption for all UK sports national governing bodies, for example, is only £8 million.

“This money could be better spent elsewhere.”