Interestingly, while County Sport Partnerships (at the level above SSPs) have been criticised as 'another layer of top-down bureaucracy' in the research undertaken by colleagues at the University of Birmingham, the common consensus is that SSPs at the coalface have made a difference. This consensus has brought forward a wave of protest against the cuts: 75 Olympians and elite athletes wrote to the Prime Minister and 60 head teachers wrote to the Observer stating that this was an 'ignorant, destructive, contradictory and self-defeating decision'. The 'ignorance' relates to a general lack of knowledge of the sporting infrastructure by the Coalition, clearly evident in the Commons debate on this topic. It is 'destructive' in the sense that it will dismantle a delivery system that is evidently working. The 'contradictory' points to the strains in Cabinet, with many members opposed to the decision, but also the White Paper on Public Health, published on the same day as the Commons debate on sport, which highlights sport among children as important for their health. 'Self-defeating' will be a consequence if participation figures in sport among children fall. Given the UK's high obesity levels among children the long-term burden this will have on our health system is likely to far outweigh the £162 million saved.