As part of the international corruption summit held here in London, the PM has made an expected announcement and launched a new ‘charter’ to cover key themes in sports governance in the UK and internationally. The presence of sport as a sector to be taken seriously, and one in which the UK can justifiably claim to set a strong example internationally in promoting good governance was very welcome. The announcement today supports the principles outlined in our own Voluntary Code for Good Governance and in the Governance and Leadership Framework for Wales.
The charter which includes nine key themes is a major staging post on the way to the publication of the new unified code for governance expected this Autumn which will set out new and more stretching governance requirements for all sport and recreation organisations in receipt of public funds. This code was announced as part of the Government’s Sporting Futures strategy, published in late 2015.
The nine themes covered today are:
· Transparency
· Integrity
· Financial probity
· Leadership and decision making
· Membership
· Independence of thought
· Diversity
· Culture
· Sport England and UK Sport commitments
There is much to support in today’s announcement and we would certainly support the intent behind all of these principles. We were pleased to see the progress that has been made already acknowledged and welcome the challenge of doing more to make sure that our sector governance is fit for the future, and that our organisations have access to high quality, representative people to set our strategic direction. The sector already has good standards of governance – the goal now is to raise these standards from good to great. We share the ambition to make the benefits of sport and recreation open and attractive to groups in our country who currently under-participate and see good governance as an essential part of achieving this ambition.
The key challenge for the coming months is in turning today’s positive statement of intent into a living set of documents that can genuinely take both the culture and practice of our sector’s governance forward. In governance more than any other area we work on, the detail is essential – the precise detail of targets, monitoring and enforcement matter. The proportionality of requirements, what support will be made available, how the comply or explain model will work in practice and how non compliance will be dealt with are all essential elements of making this a stretching, positive challenge for our sector. The nine themes covered in the charter are a strong mix of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ governance elements which we hope should help organisations to create robust policies and to attract the highest calibre people onto our boards.
One area where we will push hard for a clear inclusion in the final code is around safeguarding – today’s mention of the word ‘safe’ is a promising start. Safeguarding – of both children and adults at risk presents one of the greatest ethical responsibilities and organisational risks to our sector and should be a prominent part of any future change to governance requirements.
