ABSTRACT
In contrast to policies which are orientated primarily towards public health concerns are policies like those which have emanated from the Sports Councils in the United Kingdom, or from government departments which have an interest in promoting sport. A good example of the latter, to be examined in some detail later, is the Sport: Raising the Game policy statement which was produced by the Department of National Heritage (DNH) in July 1995. Such policies, it is important to note, have their origins not within the public health policy community, but within the sports policy community, and those who are responsible for developing and implementing such policies are not orientated primarily towards public health issues, but towards the promotion of sport per se. In relation to the latter, there is, of course, no doubt that many (though not all) people find participation in sport intrinsically enjoyable and rewarding. However, in the battle for public funding, in which sport has to compete with many other services which might generally be thought to have a more pressing claim on public funds-for example, health, education or pensions-the fact that many people enjoy sport might be thought to constitute a relatively poor basis for a claim for public expenditure.
