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From Public Accounts Committee Transcript of Evidence 6th February 2006

Sadiq Khan MP questioning Ms Liz Nicholl MBE, Director of Performance and Acting Accounting Officer, UK Sport and Mr Peter Keen OBE, Performance Adviser, UK Sport.

Q17 Mr Khan: It could be argued presumably that Kelly Holmes inspired more people than Eddie the Eagle. May I ask, in that context, why boxing is not listed here as one of those sports which gets funding?

Ms Nicholl: Boxing was funded, in that period, by Sport England. Boxing predominantly competes at a home country level and there was an arrangement across the sports councils that if a sport predominantly competed at home country level, then the funding responsibility should remain at home country level. From 1 April this year, we shall take on the responsibility for boxing as well in the preparation for Beijing and 2012.

Q18 Mr Khan: The Beijing cycle is included.

Ms Nicholl: Yes.

Q19 Mr Khan: The NAO report talks about how other countries are funded, including Australia, which, as you aware, is extremely successful when it comes to winning medals. For example, have we looked at how the Australian Institute of Sport works in Canberra and whether there are models to be replicated here in the UK?

Ms Nicholl: Yes, we are very close to the Australians. Several Australians who have had leading positions in the Australian institute network are now actually working in the UK. So we have first-hand evidence of what has worked out there, but, more importantly, we are also learning from what has not worked in Australia.

Q20 Mr Khan: Which leads me on to swimming. Why was swimming allowed to get away without setting any medal targets, given that this was a condition of funding originally for other sports and swimming as well?

Ms Nicholl: You will aware that we came back with no medals in swimming from Sydney and Bill Sweetenham was appointed as a new performance director and he arrived back in this country with the team straight after the Games. At that stage it would have been impossible for him to predict four years on the medal potential of a squad that he had not worked with. He presented a rationale to us which proved that the medallists in swimming come from those who are within the top ten world ranked swimmers the year prior to the Games. Presented with that performance related evidence, we accepted that evidence and we set annual targets with Bill Sweetenham linked to the world rankings, with an agreement that early in 2004, prior to the Games, we should translate those world rankings into medal targets and we did that. Early in 2004 there was a medal target of two medals for the Games in Athens.

Q21 Mr Khan: Is swimming the only exception to the normal rule?

Ms Nicholl: Yes. That was an exception because of the particular circumstances. If the same circumstance happened in another sport, in another Olympiad, we might take the same approach.

Q22 Mr Khan: Are you not pursuing a vicious circle? Are some sports not going to be the victim of the successes of their predecessors, because they will be funded based upon previous results, whilst other sports will be the victims of past failures, because obviously you are not taking account of progress made or increasing performance? Take judo as an example. Winston Gordon went to the same school as I did and came from Tooting. He came fourth in Athens, but did not get a medal, so presumably his sport suffers because he came fourth and we all know the fine line between coming fourth and coming third; it is one slip or one throw.

Ms Nicholl: I wonder whether I might pass this question to Peter Keen, because Peter has developed our investment strategy which actually looks at the whole pathway and he can explain how we manage that situation.

Mr Keen: The question you raise is exactly the right one. What we strive to do in the formula that we have adopted is to balance exactly those two points of extremes, looking not just at what has been achieved historically, even if it was very recently, and looking at what can be achieved in the context of this part of the discussion in four years' time. It is a delicate balancing act. What we first look for is whether those athletes who are already successful are likely to remain and continue to be successful, whether the athletes finishing in the top eight in individual events are likely to remain and develop; indeed what the cohort of athletes is coming through in any sport in terms of the development level immediately below what we would call world class, just outside of the top ten. In each of the awards we now make to the governing bodies, we are looking to get that balance right between rewarding success, which is key to their psychological approach, but also recognising that development is necessary and looking to see where the future may lie in terms of the individuals within the programme and, equally importantly, the programme itself, how it is structured, how it is actually developing systematically the performance coming through.

Q23 Mr Khan: When you give out the support, is any reflection given of gender breakdown? For example, if I were to ask which elite athletes you supported, what would be the breakdown between male and female athletes?

Ms Nicholl: I shall not be absolutely spot on, but it is about late forties early fifties, slightly more men than women. We do actually monitor the gender breakdown annually.

Q24 Mr Khan: The reason for the monitoring is?

Ms Nicholl: As part of our equity strategy to make sure that, in fact, if we see some differentials which seem very abnormal, then we can investigate those and address any barriers which may be preventing the right balance.

Q25 Mr Khan: Is that also done by ethnicity?

Ms Nicholl: We are starting to do that. Until recently, we did not have the information which allowed us to do that, but we are setting systems in place to enable us to do that.

Q26 Mr Khan: What would you say the main lessons are that you learned from Athens?

Ms Nicholl: You have to look at the successful sports and then the sports which failed. Why did the sports which succeeded, succeed? Predominantly, you can look at a sport like sailing, and it is bit like the Clive Woodward comment: the meticulous attention to detailed planning and implementation is absolutely what ensured that our sailing squad were still top of the sailing medal table; the no-compromise mentality which is in the cycling squad certainly was a key factor in their success; the world-class coaches who are supporting our athletes now. We are creating a system here where the very best coaches in the world want to come and be part of the UK system. We are creating a system in which coaches in the UK want to be the next world-class coaches of the future from the UK. In terms of where we could have done better, there were some examples of poor health management of athletes, there were simple issues which need to be resolved, some technical clothing issues in one or two sports that actually made the difference between a medal opportunity and not.

Q27 Mr Khan: Do you think if UK Sport were directly involved in amateur boxing, we could have had more than two boxers competing in Athens, and rather than a silver, we could have had a gold?

Ms Nicholl: I should like to hope so, but we are yet unproven in terms of our support for boxing and, as at April, we take over the responsibility for that relationship.

Q28 Mr Khan: What is your target for boxing? Is it more than two boxers taking part?

Ms Nicholl: Because we take on the responsibility for boxing on 1 April, we have not yet had those detailed discussions about targets for Beijing.

Q29 Mr Khan: One of the criteria that Australia have for sports to be eligible for funding is that it must meet a range of criteria covering areas such as competitiveness, public interest and international profile. May I ask whether you take into account the significance of a sport to the public when it comes to giving funding?

Ms Nicholl: We do conduct public interest surveys; so we do take note of the public's perspective. I have to say, in terms of our investment in performance sport, that we are driven by the high level target and any sport which can contribute to the high level target is important to us. It is a factor we are aware of, but it is not a key factor in terms of our decision-making.

Q30 Mr Khan: Is the global sum of money you have been given £97 million?

Ms Nicholl: Yes

Q31 Mr Khan: Obviously you will say you want more, but is that sum adequate for the athletes?

Ms Nicholl: It is adequate to support the target that we have set for Beijing.

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