Last week, the new Chancellor (the one who isn’t called Brown, the one known to his friends as “Darling”) gave everyone the “comprehensive spending review and pre-budget report”.

We have distilled the key messages for ISPAL members:

• Council spending in England up by £26bn, by 2012; an extra £3.7bn for Scotland, £2.2bn for Wales and £1.2bn for Northern Ireland
• NHS funding up by an average 4 per cent, above the rate of inflation
• Education and skills budget to rise to £74bn by 2010
• An extra £2bn for health and education, by 2010
• Inflation increase for arts and culture spending
• Olympic construction costs to be fully funded

Good news? If you take the Chancellor at face value. But not everyone is happy, particularly in local government. Sir Simon Milton, Chairman of the Local Government Association, was not impressed.

"This is the worst settlement for local government in a decade,” he said. “Councils ... face tough choices. The Chancellor's announcement will mean above inflation rises in bills for council taxpayers and businesses, and there remains a black hole in funding for the care of the elderly."

In Wales, Welsh Local Government Association Leader, Cllr Derek Vaughan, said: “We need an honest debate … about where we concentrate our resources and how we all work together to tackle tough decisions… Councils are facing some of their most difficult financial challenges in over a decade.

”We have risen to the challenge in recent years in terms of the efficiency agenda and collaboration across authorities and will continue this at pace. However, ultimately, councils can only squeeze so much from the system and we need to be realistic about what is possible in this environment.”

Such comments may apply across the UK. Tough spending decisions lie ahead. Those statutory services that hit the headlines – adult care, children’s services and education – will be the ones that will come out on top. Our sport and leisure sector? Probably, many of our members’ key schemes will remain on the drawing board.

But, there is hope if the powers that be look past the short term and focus on the longer game. If prevention really is better than cure, then sport, parks, open spaces and leisure services must get their fair share. Because investment in these services will:

• Support active and healthy lifestyles, making the health budgets go further
• Increase community cohesion/inclusion
• Increase participation and help address anti social behaviour

ISPAL will monitor developments. We ask all members to tell us how decisions and policies go in their areas. Let’s hope the “quick fix mentality” around council budget setting doesn’t win this time.