CHIEF EXECUTIVE’S REPORT

BRITISH ATHLETES COMMISSION

September 2015

Resourcing.

The period since June 2014 and the AGM in Loughborough has seen the BAC as busy as ever with some significant change in personnel and resource

  • Sara joined us in August and has taken on the role of Head of Comms and Member Services. She has played a significant part in the set up and delivery of this day so I would like to take the opportunity to thank her for her help.
  • Anna Watkins has joined the Board as Chair of the Athletes Advisory Group and with the help of Heather Fell we have strengthened the numbers in that group
  • Further to some work we concluded with Pride Sports on how we might better support LGB athletes in high performance sport we implemented one of the recommendations and recruited Mr Matt Lister and Dave Hill as LGB Ambassadors. Delighted Matt had a good World Cup in France (and a holiday in Mykonos) and that Dave has recovered from injury and is competing again with a fourth place in Edmonton at the weekend. We will see what we can do with them without conflicting on their ambitions for Rio.
  • Last but not least the demands for our help remain high and in order to be able to deal with these requests in a professional and timely manner we have Gawaine Briars to help us with our Case Management. Gawaine is legally qualified and is the former head of the Professional Squash Players Association. So anyone working with Gawaine is in very safe hands.

We continue to grow ourselves but we also strengthen our relationships with key stakeholders and by way of example we have worked hard with Sport Resolutions UK (who you may not know are an independent arbitration service dealing with Selection disputes as well as Safeguarding and Anti-Doping cases.) SRUK manage a pro-bono legal panel that we have access to and this year we have worked with them to strengthen the panel so that our members can be appropriately and professionally represented and cost should not be a barrier to fairness and transparency. Ross McDonald from SRUK will be with us from lunchtime.
The PLA team are key partners of ours by way of signposting the BAC but also working in tandem when we deal with athlete cases to ensure that he or she feels supported whether they are goingback into a performance programme or starting transition.

CHIEF EXECUTIVE’S REPORT

BRITISH ATHLETES COMMISSION

I’d like to mention the BAC’s legal partners Lewis Silkinas well who did a fantastic piece of work with us in collaboration with the Iain Gowans the BPA Classification Manager and we made two significant contributions to the IPC’s classification code review from both a legal perspective and having consulted with some of our members who have been through the process. You will hear from Alex Kelham in the workshop this afternoon on agents and she and her colleague are putting together a template document regarding agency agreements available on the BAC website very soon
Growth in Membership.
In terms of growth we are also building a reputation outside of the UK Sport funded sports with other NGBs and the Sports Councils. We have meetings arranged with Sport Wales and Sport Scotland to discuss how we might work with their NGBs for athletes who have represented their country. We are delighted to be working with UK Deaf Sport and will develop this relationship ahead of the Deaf Olympics in 2017 and have just welcomed 27 members who are the Performance squad from England Squash. In addition we are delighted to have set up a partnership with the Universityof Bath and the Uni in Manchester to give BAC membership to selected Sports Scholars.
The challenges facing you athletes are the same wherever they are on the Talent Pathway so this is an area where the BAC will seek to continue to grow but always ensuring we have the right support in place to be able to support our members who often need immediate answers in tight time frames.
Improving Performance.

A lot of what we do is very much a “safety net” for athletes but we have also started to do some work with sports that see the BAC collaborating with NGBs to improve the performance environment in its widest sense.
There are many sports such as Badminton, Triathlon and Wheelchair Basketball that have asked us to look at draft selection policies ahead of Rio which we are delighted to do and look at areas that could be improved in terms of fairness, transparency and appropriate appeals procedures. In some of these the BAC will be allowed to appoint a representative to sit on a panel to see that due process has and is followed.
We have also worked with sports like Judo and Short Track Speed Skating to ensure that the athletes feel that they have a genuine voice in the Performance structure. Lots of work to do here still a journey that’s worth continuing and developing in other sports – survey genuine athlete representation

Elite HPCs. UK Sport is undertaking a strategic review of the High Performance Centre network and have identified 6 as what they term “elite”

BathLoughboroughBishamLilleshallManchester and Sheffield
At the moment UKS is drafting a set of guiding principles for these sites that will be circulated to stakeholder groups including the BAC and our Athlete Advisory Group for comment.
After they have been signed off then local steering committees will be established and the BAC has agreement that an athlete can sit on each of these committees to give their perspective. We will be looking for volunteers!

Athlete Representation.

This is an area that is growing. We are aware of athlete reps in 28 sports and others such as Wheelchair Tennis and Taekwondo have asked for our help in getting suitable appointments. We need to ensure that there is a better connection between the BAC and these reps so they feel supported and part of as network and we are recruiting to a role of AR Assistant at the current time to help to do this.
The BAC was asked to speak at two UK Sport workshops earlier this year and present to the gathering of NGB representatives what the athletes see as the key governance issues included in this as well as better focus on mental welfare and preparation for transition was “appropriate and effective athlete representation in the sports” so this is an area we will continue to lobby UKS on.
Whilst I appreciate that you are all busy and focussed people you can help us to help you. We do seek the athletes perspective through our members on the Board and the AAG but there are also times when we look to email all our membership to seek a collective view and a mandate please look out for these and tell us what you think, it will be a collective view and ALWAYS confidential where appropriate.
The Voice of the Athlete Community.
We have had cases that have affected our members that come under the heading of Safeguarding. In the current structure the NSPCC has a Protection Unit whose remit is safeguarding children and young people but its remit finishes at the age of 18. Adults at risk do not have an appropriate level of safeguarding support and this has caused the BAC to intervene and lobby inside the system to effect change. The result has been funding allocated by Sport England via the Sport and Recreation Alliance (the umbrella body for the NGBS) to develop appropriate procedures that will now form part of annual audit processes by all the Sports Councils.
Mental welfare of elite athletes remains a concern and this is an area we have worked with UK Sport and EIS on following a small number of serious cases. The cost of treatment of mental health issues is now covered under the Athlete Medical Scheme and the availability of confidential helplines is being promoted. The BAC retains a key role here because our promise is to remain completely confidential and one stage removed from the NGBs so they need never know that an athlete is suffering.

Member Benefits.
The focus of the BAC has very much been on developing the appropriate services and support to offer our members advice, support and guidance but we recognise that we can offer more to our membership. And I’d just like to highlight two benefits we offer to you our members is Athletes Direct which was relaunched earlier this year and is a platform that offers members the opportunity to engage directly with schools, colleges and business if they want to organise and appearance that can be fitted in around training and competing. If you haven’t already done so Id encourage you to register and create an appropriate profile.
Our IT provider IWM has an offer to help you create your own website and have a bespoke and professional email address all part of building an appropriate public profile that you may choose to hear about later.
We will build the portfolio of relevant benefits and if you have any ideas or intros to potential providers do let us know.

THE NEXT 12 MONTHS.

  • Safeguarding standard funding condition
  • Working with NGBs on selection policies and processes where invited
  • Helping athletes with appeals processes
  • Working with the PLA team on athlete cases
  • Continuing the focus on mental welfare
  • Developing the AR network and helping ARs in Performance sport
  • Helping athletes in transition
  • Diversifying our income
  • Growing the membership
  • Developing relations with benefit providers and sponsors
  • Developing Athletes Direct.

CONCLUSION
I’d like to conclude with a quote from Twitter that was posted by the 800m runner Jenny Meadows who recently competed at the World Athletics Championships in Beijing who we helped with a grievance procedure.
“I have a lot to thank the BAC for. Their work often goes unnoticed. They offered me friendship advice and action.”
Happy to take any questions. Thank you.