Addressing a Youth Sports Trust conference in Telford yesterday, culture secretary, James Purnell, said the government wants to create a “world class school sport system, a world class community sports system and a world class elite sport system,” with the ambition to offer every child five hours of sport each week.

Purnell said the review of the Sport England strategy will focus on the delivery of an excellent sporting infrastructure from the grass roots up. “I want to make it clear that there isn’t a contest here between the elite and the grassroots. This is about making sport excellent for everyone who wants to take part,” he said.

He added that he wanted to ensure the sporting network was sufficiently developed by 2012, so that no one affected by Olympic fervour would be turned away from clubs because of lack of capacity.

In terms of what the government is planning to do to create this world class sports system, Purnell said the Prime Minister has recently announced £100m of additional funding to provide children with more opportunities to be coached by qualified sports coaches, to take part in competitive sport, improve sport outside school and for children with disabilities.

A national network of 225 competition managers is also being set up to increase the amount of competition and support it with better coaching. “We need to give children a good grounding in PE and sport at school,” he said. “We need to clear the path for talented children to progress to higher standards. And then we need world-class clubs helping young people to progress into adult sport.”

However, the government’s commitment to sport outlined by Purnell does suggest that the structure is chiefly aimed at finding and developing potential, rather than improving public health by getting middle-aged, obese women to exercise.

“We can’t reduce obesity by ourselves,” said Purnell, who added this must be a cross-government action. The DCMS has also confirmed to Leisure Opportunities that non-competitive sports, including cycling and walking can expect to see their funding stopped.