London 2012: Lamb - 'Lottery is not a piggy bank'

Tessa Jowell makes what is likely to be her valedictory speech as the political figurehead of British sport on Wednesday before the axeman cometh. There are few who think one of Tony Blair's most ardent supporters will survive in her dual role as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Olympics Minister once Gordon Brown starts shuffling the cards at No 10.

Just what sort of reception she will get from the gathering of sports leaders at the annual conference of the Central Council of Physical Recreation in London remains to be heard. It could be an uncomfortable one. The Government's decision to divert a further £675 million of Lottery funding for Olympic preparations, thus reducing the amount available for community sport, has already been received with some hostility by those at the grass roots.

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So Jowell will be on the back foot, and will be followed on the platform by Hugh Robertson, the shadow sports and Olympics minister, and the Liberal Democrat spokesman Don Foster. Both have been highly critical of the Government's Olympic book-balancing act.

What the assembled great and good of sport will want to know is the effect the London Games will actually have on the promised legacy of increased participation when money is being taken from community sport to feed Olympic projects. It is a question that has been raised repeatedly by the CCPR's chief executive, Tim Lamb, who terms the situation "perverse".

"A year ago, we were saying how important it was to derive a legacy of increased participation in sport and here we are, 12 months later, still calling for the same thing," Lamb says. "I think there is recognition all round that not enough work is being done on this. The CCPR, representing 270 governing bodies across the whole spectrum of sport and recreation, are still great supporters of the Olympics, but we've always said that this was a wonderful opportunity to get people, and youngsters in particular, off their couches and into sport. Not just on a one-off basis, like the Wimbledon effect, where people pick up a tennis racket for two weeks after the event, but in a genuinely sustained way.

"But it doesn't happen of its own accord. You have to have a strategy in place that is resourced and funded, but we are yet to see concrete evidence of this. We understand this is an expensive event and it is right that sport makes some contribution. But even Derek Mapp, the Sport England chair, who has close links to the Government, described it as a cut too far. So feelings are running high when budgets are tight and there is so much work to be done."

The fact that sport's own "parliament" has attracted such a collection of political galacticos - the Health Minister, Caroline Flint, and the chairs of both UK Sport and Sport England will be speaking at the year's biggest sports conference - suggests that the 70-year-old body have finally found their voice again. This is due in no small measure to the 54-year-old Lamb, the former chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board, who was appointed two years ago.

"Everybody from the Prime Minister downwards acknowledges the power of sport to tick boxes on the social agenda, like helping to reduce crime and having a healthier lifestyle, yet we are still waiting for more funding for community sport," he says. "Tessa Jowell and Richard Caborn deserve credit for the increased funding that has come in for elite sport, and money has been made available through the education budget for school sport and PE. But there is a whole raft of sport in the middle that needs help. What's the use of getting more kids involved in sport at school if they don't have decent facilities to play in when they leave? The Lottery must not be used as a piggy bank for ministers to pay for the Games."

When he made this point recently he came in for a bit of a lambasting from the sports minister. "I was disappointed," Lamb says, "because he raised a totally unrelated point about community sports clubs and benefits through tax concessions, but we've made our peace and moved on.

"The chancellor did say last October that he was going to bring forward some specific proposals whereby more funding was going to be made available for community sport, and we can only hope that he's playing politics, holding back perhaps until he becomes prime minister, because it hasn't happened so far.

"I've worked in sport for 35 years and I passionately believe in the power of sport as a force for social good. However, I sometimes think that this Government does talk a good game but doesn't always put its money where its mouth is."