Free swimming for all will be promised today in a sports shake-up aimed at making Britain healthier and more successful in international competitions. Charges at 1,600 municipal pools are to be scrapped – initially for 20 million over-60s and under-16s.

But Gordon Brown and Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, will pledge that by Olympic year in 2012 swimming will be free for everyone at pools run by local authorities.

Five government departments have combined resources to come forward with a £130 million fund that over two years will make the free charges for the elderly and young possible. Compensating the local pools for waiving charges will cost £80 million and the remaining £50 million will be spent on refurbishment.

The pledge is the most eyecatching feature in the sports review ordered by Mr Burnham. Sport England, the funding agency for grassroots sport, is to be streamlined drastically, with its regional board structure abolished to save £20 million, The Times learnt last night. That money will be channelled into sports governing bodies, such as the FA, for spending on coaching and promotion to encourage more people to become involved.

Almost £250 million of public money had been invested in swimming since 1997, more than any other sport, Mr Burnham said. “The pools are there. Now we need to make sure they are world-class facilities and that people use them,” he said.

Today’s announcement coincides with the opening of the European football championships for which none of the home countries have qualified.

Mr Brown said on Sky Sports that Britain should always be competitive in every world sporting event. “But that starts with a revolution in our sporting culture, and the engagement of the whole country in sport,” he said.

Asked if he was looking forward to the championships he replied: “I am. But when you think this is one of the biggest tournaments in world sport, it’s a real waste that there will be no British team involved. We never want to see that happen again.”

The plans are a key element of an “Olympic legacy masterplan” on how Britain will benefit from hosting the world’s biggest sports event and how venues costing more than £6 billion of taxpayers’ money can be used once the 16-day competition is over.

Tom Daley, the teenage diver and a British medal hope for Beijing, will join the Prime Minister and Cabinet colleagues at Downing Street to launch the plan. Swimming was chosen as the priority sport for its potential to bridge exercise and recreation, according to government sources.

The appearance of several ministers, including Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, is intended to show that the Government is developing a “joined-up” approach to tackling youth obesity.

Lord Coe, the chairman of the London 2012 Olympic organising committee, is known to have lobbied Mr Johnson recently for some of his £70 million antiobesity budget, arguing that sport can help to prevent some of the problems that are plaguing the National Health Service.

Sport England also has a target to reduce by 25 per cent the “drop-off” in participation in five as yet unidentified sports after the school-leaving age of 16. Don Foster, the Liberal Democrats’ culture spokesman, said: “We’ve lost an incredible amount of time waiting for these plans. Ministers’ fine words are all very well but the figures for people dropping out of sport tell another story.”