Both the health and education departments have proposed cuts to funding for physical education
A major row between government departments has broken out after the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) proposed cutting all its funding for physical education in schools, the Guardian understands.
The DHSC is now intending to restore the funding despite insisting privately for weeks that it would end its contribution, until the Guardian contacted the department. Ministers are understood to have overruled the cuts.
The Department for Education (DfE) is also planning cuts to PE from its own budget, ahead of upcoming reforms in the next curriculum review. It is hoped that the reforms –which will guarantee at least two hours of PE – will involve partnerships with sports bodies that will deliver some efficiencies.
But Whitehall sources had said the proposed cuts from DHSC and DfE combined had threatened the reforms and would undermine Keir Starmer’s public commitments to more access to sports for schoolchildren.
