Select Committee on Public Accounts Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)

DAME SUE STREET DCB, LIZ NICHOLL MBE, MR PETER KEEN OBE,

MONDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2006

Sir John Bourn KCB, Comptroller and Auditor General, National Audit Office, was in attendance.

Mr Marius Gallaher, Alternate Treasury Officer of Accounts, HM Treasury, was in attendance.

REPORT BY THE COMPTROLLER AND AUDITOR GENERAL

UK SPORT: SUPPORTING ELITE ATHLETES (HC 182)

  Q1 Chairman: Good afternoon, welcome to the Committee of Public Accounts where today we are looking at UK Sport: Supporting elite athletes. We are joined by witnesses from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Dame Sue Street, who is the Permanent Secretary, and, from UK Sport, Ms Liz Nicholl, who is Director of Performance and Acting Accounting Officer and Mr Peter Keen, who is a Performance Adviser. Ms Nicholl, what is your target for the Winter Olympics in terms of medals?

  Ms Nicholl: For the Winter Olympics we are targeting between two and three medals. We are funding five disciplines in the Winter Olympics. Our targeting is always based on medal potential and we should expect about 50% of those, hopefully, to come in.

  Q2  Chairman: And which disciplines are they?

  Ms Nicholl: The disciplines are curling, women's bobsleigh, bob skeleton, skiing and one more—speed skating.

  Q3  Chairman: Nothing in alpine sports then?

  Ms Nicholl: We are not doing biathlon but we are funding skiing.

  Q4  Chairman: But you are not planning to win anything.

  Ms Nicholl: We are funding 14 athletes across those sports. Our best medal prospects are actually in curling, either men's or women's, and in women's bobsleigh, because women's bobsleigh are currently silver medallists at world championship level.

  Q5  Chairman: Just to go back to our performance in recent Olympics, could you please look at paragraph 4.24 on page 37? Could you tell us what action you now expect from athletics in the light of its disappointing performances in recent years?

  Ms Nicholl: In terms of athletics, we have worked closely with athletics over the last 12 months. In particular, there is a new performance director now in the lead role in athletics who started last March. We required a new performance plan from athletics for the period between now and Beijing. That performance plan has been received. It has been reviewed by partners in the performance environment and accepted and is now being rolled out. There is a challenge in terms of change in athletics as well, because they are reviewing athletics in the UK. There is a new England Athletics; there is a new chief executive of England Athletics; there is a new disability manager in athletics, a whole host of changes over the last 12 months. Fifteen per cent of the medals available in the Games are in athletics; we absolutely need this sport to perform.

  Q6  Chairman: You had a target of seven at Athens, did you not, and you only won four and two of those four were won by one person?

  Ms Nicholl: Which is why the change has been implemented since.

  Q7  Chairman: Are you going to cut funding for sports which won no medals at all at Athens?

  Ms Nicholl: We already have reduced funding for sports which had no medals at all in Athens. There was a group of them.

  Q8  Chairman: Six Olympic sports and four Paralympic sports won no medals, is that right?

  Ms Nicholl: Yes.

  Q9  Chairman: Remind me which they were?

  Ms Nicholl: Judo, triathlon and gymnastics won no medals. Taekwondo, weight lifting and shooting won no medals on the Olympic side. Judo, triathlon and gymnastics have had funding reductions and reductions in the number of athletes who are funded. Taekwondo, weight-lifting and shooting have had funding at a similar level but, again, reductions in the number of athletes who are funded. All sports which under-performed in Athens have felt that through the funding investment decisions for Beijing.

  Q10  Chairman: Do you think it is a good idea to support athletes who are outside the top 10 in the world?

  Ms Nicholl: Our focus is on supporting athletes who have the potential to bridge the gap to the podium within a four-year cycle. They may be outside the top 10 in the world now, but if within four years they can bridge the gap and there is performance evidence to show that, then we shall fund those athletes.

  Q11  Chairman: If we look at figure 10 on page 23, we see that some countries give performance bonuses to athletes. I am not suggesting that I am necessarily in favour of that, but have you considered it?

  Ms Nicholl: Yes, we have considered it, and in fact we think there is a place for performance bonuses. However, within the limited budget that we have available we feel that that priority for us has to be to support athletes to get within sight of the podium as opposed to rewarding them when they get there. Our current athlete personal award scheme has a balance of an increased amount when they are performing better, so there is an incentive there within the current athlete personal award scheme. A bonus scheme should be just that, a bonus. We think it would best be supported through the commercial sector as opposed to public funding and we have actually talked to the BOA about talking a lead in this respect.

  Q12  Chairman: Can we look please at paragraphs 3.13 and 3.14 on page 30? This is looking at the major championships leading up to the Olympics. Why did you overstate your performance against target by including in your results medals won in events not taken into account in setting the target? Is this like comparing apples and pears?

  Ms Nicholl: We accept the criticism of the NAO Report and we apologise for the error. This is not normal practice and this has not happened since this Report was published. What happened here was that we had targets that were collated in one part of the organisation, the performance directorate. At that particular point, we also had results collated from a research function. So both sets of figures were correct, but put together, they presented an incorrect picture and that we have corrected now in terms of procedures internally and full accountability and responsibility lies within the performance directorate.

  Q13  Chairman: Dame Sue, may I ask you one question please? If you look at paragraphs 3.12 to 3.14 on pages 29 and 30, you will see there is some doubt about whether UK Sport reports its performance fully and accurately. Why have you not ensured that they do so?

  Dame Sue Street: I also apologise to the Committee. This was an error. It was exactly as the NAO says, that medals won in events not covered by the targets were wrongly included. We have a much fiercer regime now. We meet quarterly and we have ensured that all the data is collected in one place, is presented and is tabulated exactly according to the targets.

  Q14  Chairman: Just one last question, which perhaps Dame Sue you may want to answer on behalf of the taxpayer or the lottery player. We are going to be spending £97 million on supporting elite athletes at Beijing, is that figure right?

  Dame Sue Street: Yes.

  Ms Nicholl: Yes, it is.

  Q15  Chairman: Are you aware of the Olympic ideal, the words of Baron de Coubertin? What is it? It is not winning, but taking part. Why are we concentrating resources on a few elite athletes? Why not just help sport generally? It is not winning, but taking part, surely.

  Dame Sue Street: There is certainly one view about public money, which is that you should invest with the best chance of success. What this money does is enable those with the best chance of success to take part with the best chance of winning and, indeed, that is the main tenor of this Report, that UK Sport needs to make some tough decisions in order to look at where the money is best invested. I completely agree with those who say, including this report, that medals are not the only yardstick and we have to look at the potential. UK Sport now has responsibility for talented athletes eight years away from the podium, so that gives a longer view of those who should be taking part. In the end, of course you have to make public money work for public value and part of that is definitely the medals and that is what we feel is in the public interest.

  Q16  Chairman: May I put the same question to you Ms Nicholl? The country which historically spent most of its budget on trying to win medals was East Germany where the quality of life for most citizens was absolutely dire. What is in winning medals for the general public apart from prestige? Why are we not spending more of this money on local swimming pools, for instance?

  Ms Nicholl: I would say that between five and nine million people watched Kelly Holmes win a gold medal and Steve Redgrave win a medal and why was there such a fantastic impact when we won the Ashes and the Rugby World Cup? It really does have a huge impact on people in this country in motivating them to participate in sport and compete in sport. That is why we do it. We like winners and that is what we are investing in and success comes at a price.

  Chairman: I thought you might say that, but I thought it was worth asking anyway.

  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.


 
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