This was the letter I submitted to the FT on 15th August following James Purnell's extraordinary defence of the Department of Culture, Media & Sport:
Dear Sir
(Re: James Purnell article on DCMS and Sport)
It is widely acknowledged by the businesses and organisations which have to deal with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport that it is not for fit for purpose. It is by some way the weakest department in Whitehall.
We have a single regulator - Ofcom - and we should have opposite it a single Department for Communications.
Both the IOC and FIFA have more members than the UNO and yet we have never had a Secretary of State for Sport. We can already see from Michael Gove's announcements about School Sport yesterday that despite the success of the Olympics (and soon the Paralympics) that Government says one thing about sport and does another. A Secretary of State for Sport with responsibility for school sport and health education is what sportsmen and women are screaming for.
They have waited long enough.
Yours faithfully
Derek Wyatt
This was the letter they finally published today:
Sir, Michael Gove’s announcements about school sport (“Stricter rules on school fields dropped”, August 14) show that despite the success of the Olympics (and soon the Paralympics) the government says one thing about sport and does another.
A secretary of state for sport with responsibility for school sport and health education is what sportsmen and women are screaming for. They have waited long enough.
Derek Wyatt,
London SW1, UK