By Nick King

The remonstrations over the Coalition Government's decision to cut direct funding for school sport partnerships were loud, passionate and widespread. Indeed, the criticism laid at the door of the Department for Education displayed a unity of approach on the part of the UK's sporting bodies that cannot always be taken for granted and which, it could be argued, was one of the only positive stories to come out of this sorry situation.

The decision has been made and the dice have been cast, and as a result we must consider and reflect upon how we got to this point. How did we end up in a situation where so much hard work and so much good work could be undone practically overnight?

Part of the decision was ideological, of course. That is not to argue that Michael Gove is one of those characters who derides and decries sport, an attitude born out of a failure to make the first XI or first XV at school. Such arguments are lazy, unsophisticated and indicate an inability to grasp the political principles to which Mr Gove is committed: devolvement of power and the empowerment of schools to make their own decisions about what their priorities are, rather than issuing top-down edicts about where money must be spent.

Connected to this, it is fair to surmise, was a more general concern about the level of direct funding for school sport. In my opinion the willingness of the Labour Government to invest in school sport does it great credit. But the questions of why the previous administration was investing in sport and what results it hoped to achieve are ones well worth asking.

The oft quoted figure is that some £2.4 billion was invested in school sport over seven years. The spending of public money should always be seen as a means to an end rather than an end in itself, and such a level of spending requires us to ask what the ultimate objective of this spending was. In these tough economic times asking such questions is wholly appropriate and I am not convinced sport as a whole, or the previous Labour Government, managed to come up with an appropriate response to this issue. Subsequent decisions would suggest that Mr Gove didn't think so either.

Was playing sport perceived to be a good in its own right? Or was school sport funding provided as a form of investment, with the ultimate ambition being the achievement of certain public policy goals? If the latter, what were those goals? I am not sure that question was ever answered.

We can point to a higher percentage of children participating in two hours of sport per week – but is that an intrinsic good or one which has some kind of higher goal? We can point to more sports being offered – but why is this viewed as 'a good thing', worthy of billions of pounds of investment? If it about getting more children playing sport, we must revert to the original question of why that is to be seen as a good thing. The Socratic Method does not let its quarry escape easily.

Last week the Guardian education editor, Jeevan Vasagar, wrote a damning critique of the Coalition's school sport policy and warned of the risk of an entire generation of potential Olympians being lost. This suggests the underlying rationale behind school sport provision if the development of elite athletes. I don't agree.

I believe that school sport should have two principal ambitions. The first is to encourage healthy lifestyles, ensuring that regular exercise and activity becomes the norm for the next generation. The second is to use sport to cultivate educational ambitions and attainment, using the unique power of sport as a hook and a tool of learning.

Others will no doubt have other theories – perhaps the development of life skills such as teamwork and leadership, the reduction of juvenile crime or, flavour of the month with the Coalition Government, ensuring children benefit from the life lessons that are gathered through engaging in competitive activity.

Whether or not school sport can achieve any of these aims is a further question, of course. Are the presumed health benefits attainable and economically justifiable? Does sporting activity really improve educational standards, reduce crime and substance abuse, and does sport actually develop core competencies?

These are questions which the Sports Think Tank will be trying to help answer and which it is incumbent upon sport as a whole to be mindful of and to consider deeply. The arguments clearly didn't convince Mr Gove but there are now thousands of new decision-makers, in the form of the head teachers, who wield discretionary power over spending in schools up and down the country.

If the case can be made in a compelling and convincing manner, let us hope that that school sport funding will continue to flow and that its provision will never be threatened again.