More than £11m has been spent by the government on commissioning Sport England's three Active People Surveys, according to figures revealed by sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe.

Responding to a question by shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, Sutcliffe told Parliament that the first Active People Survey cost £5.5m and the second cost £3.2m. Around £2.5m was invested in the third study. At least 500 people from each local authority area across England take part in the studies, which sample a total of 191,000 adults in order to give Sport England and the government a key measure in attempts to get one million more people active by 2012-13.

A spokesperson for Sport England said the cost of the first Active People Survey was more than the two subsequent studies due to having a larger sample size, while the costs represented just 1 per cent of the organisation's annual investment. Sport England chief executive Jennie Price said: "It would be irresponsible to invest £120m a year of public money in sports' governing bodies if we could not judge their progress. The Active People Survey allows us to measure changes in sporting participation in a robust way in every area of the country and in a huge range of sports.

"The survey is also used by the Department of Health and local authorities to track participation in physical activity." In September, it was announced that the results of the 2009 Active People Survey reported "no statistically significant change" in participation in sports when compared to the 2008 survey.