Playing fields are safe with us, the Government claims. But the arithmetic behind its claim may not be as simple as it seems. 

 It asserts that while 10,000 playing fields were sold off for development under the Conservatives between 1979 and 1997, only 192 have been sold since.

 
Exactly where this striking statistic originated is hard to discover, but ministers show no reluctance in deploying it. The latest is Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, who repeated it in remarks to the Commons Health Select Committee (see Michael White on politics in Health Service Journal, February 19, page 10.) Mike White says the claim is new to him, but it isn’t new to Government spinners. Andy Burnham has used exactly the same figures in the past.
 
There’s little doubt that playing field sell-offs have diminished significantly under Labour, for which credit is due. But the position is hardly as clear-cut as Johnson and Burnham claim. If everything on the playing fields is lovely, why has the Department of Communities and Local Government just announced new rules to make it harder to sell them?
 
Nobody knows how many were actually sold off under the Conservatives, because nobody collected the figures. Baroness Ashton of Upholland, when Schools Minister, acknowledged that statistics were “incredibly difficult to ascertain”. Her guesstimate, for which she said she would not wish to be held responsible, was 30-40 a month. Sales started in 1982, so if this is right, the total might be 360-480 a year over 15 years, or somewhere between 5,400 and 7,200. That’s plenty, but less than the nice round figure of 10,000.
 
In any case, these figures are a wild guess, based on approvals given for what were then grant-approved schools and extrapolated for all state-funded schools in the country. Don Earley, Deputy Chief Executive of Fields in Trust (formerly the National Playing Fields Association) says the assumption is that the propensity of all state-aided schools to sell was the same as that for grant-aided schools, an assumption that is “most likely flawed”.
 
So that’s the Tories. What about Labour? The Government brought in legislation in 1998 to stop the sales of playing fields, and toughened it in 2004 by issuing new guidance. Between August 2001 and May 2008, the Secretary of State approved sales in more than 290 cases referred for decision by the School Playing Fields Advisory Panel, which was set up in 2001.
 
But that isn’t the whole story. Since 2001, there have been 1,076 consents issued by officials in cases not seen by ministers. That makes a total of 1,366, rather higher than the 192 claimed by Johnson and Burnham. Some of these are areas too small for pitch games, and some are identified under planning guidance as so-called “surplus playing fields”. So, no doubt, were many of those sold under the Tories.
 
Pressures on playing fields are not easing, and the Government’s Academy Programme is another threat, as it falls outside the 1998 Act. Playing fields owned by local authorities and lost when they are used as sites for new academies do not require ministerial approval, and academies can be built without the same playing field provision that would be obligatory for other schools. Academies can also dispose of playing fields, if they have them, without consent from ministers.
 
In summary, this Government’s record is at lot better than that of the Conservatives - but nothing like as good as it likes to claim. The new moves are designed to put out to consultation proposed sales of fields even if they are too small for a game of football – 0.2 hectares rather than 0.4 hectares, at present. So one part of the Government acknowledges theproblem even as other parts boast it has beere may still be a n solved