[holding answer 16 September 2009]: The following figures are the percentages of young people participating in at least one active sport in the last four weeks, broken down by age category. Data are derived from the results of the Taking Part Survey, which has been run by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport since 2005.
The survey is divided into an adult and a child questionnaire, with the former covering respondents aged 16 and over.
2006 2007 2008 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 Child survey (a) 11 to 15 years old 95 94.9 96.3 — — — — Adult survey (b) 16 years old — — — 82.5 82.2 86.6 77.5 (c) 17 to 18 years old — — — 80 77.9 78.8 75.1 (d) 18+ years old — — — 52.3 52.1 52.1 52.2
To address this, through the Sport Unlimited initiative, Sport England works closely with the Government to deliver the five hour Young People's Sports Offer. Over three years, the programme will enable 900,000 children and young people to take part in 10-week taster sessions in sports and aims to get 300,000 participants to join clubs and continue with sport beyond those sessions. Additionally, one of Sport England’s strategic targets is to reduce the drop off among 16 to 18-year-olds in nine key sports. This target will be measured by the Active People survey and is based on reducing the gap between 16 and 18-year-old participation by 25 per cent. The national target is therefore to increase overall participation in the nine drop off sports among 18-year-olds to 31 per cent.
The latest 12 month rolling participation figure illustrates that there has been a statistically significant increase in overall participation in the nine drop off sports among 18-year-olds from 189,100 to 202,500. If this level of overall participation in the nine drop off sports were maintained until the end of the current strategy period then the participation figures are expected to reach the target of 31 per cent.