Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
DAME
SUE STREET
DCB, LIZ NICHOLL
MBE, MR PETER
KEEN OBE,
MONDAY
6 FEBRUARY 2006
Q60 Greg Clark: I was surprised by
an answer you gave to the Chairman earlier when you were explaining
the misleading figures. You said that one part of the organisation
was not talking to the other; the performance directorate was
not talking to the other. In an organisation of 80 people, that
seems a bit surprising.
Ms Nicholl: It was not that we
were not talking to each other, it was the fact that a responsibility
for providing figures rested in two different directorates for
two different parts of the information.
Q61 Greg Clark: It sounds like the
same to me. We see organisations of huge sizes before this Committee.
Never in an organisation of 80 people have we had a suggestion
that the systems are so complex that one directorate does not
talk to another. That seems to indicate a worrying lack of grip
I might say.
Ms Nicholl: I have acknowledged
that in fact we accept the criticism of the NAO Report and I have
apologised and indicated that systems are in place to ensure that
will never ever happen again.
Q62 Greg Clark: Okay, but it is an
insight into the way the organisation is run. In terms of the
medals position, this business of having targets for medals, if
we just look at page 26 and table 11, what we see in that table
is that the medals' target was 39 for Athens and the actual number
won was 28. That is correct, is it not?
Ms Nicholl: Yes, 28 in Athens
plus two in boxing and badminton; the 28 from sports funded by
UK Sport.
Q63 Greg Clark: So that has missed
the target.
Ms Nicholl: Yes.
Q64 Greg Clark: But actually, if
we look at it sport by sport, there is obviously quite a bit of
variation in the number of medals won for each sport and those
targeted. My calculation is that of the 39 targeted, 18 did not
deliver. So the implication is that it is not just missed to the
tune of 28 versus 39, but about 50% wrong. The target was 50%
unachieved. Just bonuses made it up.
Ms Nicholl: What we have to realise
is that in performance sport targeting is incredibly difficult.
Five gold medals were won in Athens by a total margin of 0.5 seconds.
There are no guarantees in elite sport, which is why it is so
exciting.
Q65 Greg Clark: This is precisely
my concern: why should these targets be so central when they seem
to be so underachieved? May I go to my next point? Were any of
the 39 medals won, taking away the 18 which were unexpected, won
by people you did not expect to win, who were not part of the
original targets?
Ms Nicholl: All were athletes
who were linked to the World Class Performance Programme; there
were no surprises to us at the Games.
Q66 Greg Clark: So no one individual
won a medal which was not part of the targets.
Ms Nicholl: No, they would all
have been part of the targeting process.
Q67 Greg Clark: In that column the
medal target numbers total 39. Did all of the people who won medals,
in other words all of the 28, feature in that list totalling 39?
Ms Nicholl: Yes, but targets are
not set against people, targets are set against sports. You do
not have named individuals who are targeted; you have sports which
target a total number of medals.
Q68 Greg Clark: They must be related
to individuals. You were talking about Mr Sweetenham and saying
you have to look the year before to see which of the athletes
are in contention for that. You cannot possible pluck a target
of one for one and two for another without having individuals
in mind.
Ms Nicholl: You do. In terms of
the total number of medals targeted, we should never expect to
actually deliver 100% of the medals that are targeted. In fact
we should expect to deliver a maximum of 75% of the medals that
are targeted. We should always expect to see a differential between
total medals targeted and total medals achieved. In fact we should
expect all the athletes who deliver medals to be part of the World
Class Performance Programme.
Q69 Greg Clark: It seems pretty hit
and miss when it gets to 50%. Has swimming now signed up to a
medals target for Beijing?
Ms Nicholl: Yes, they have.
Q70 Greg Clark: How many is that?
Ms Nicholl: Three medals.
Q71 Greg Clark: The system Mr Sweetenham
described is that you need to be closer to the actual Games to
be able to set a target accurately. Why does that not apply to
other sports? Why is swimming unique in that respect?
Ms Nicholl: This was linked to
the fact we had a new performance director from a totally different
country who had not worked with our squad or within the squad.
Q72 Greg Clark: The point I remember
you making about swimming was that it was not possible within
that sport to anticipate more than a year in advance. The point
you raised was that people in the top flight could then be identified
and not before that. It was not to do with his tenure in the job.
Ms Nicholl: Because we had not
actually agreed a target at the beginning of the Olympic cycle
and we had agreed to go down the route of targeting linked to
the world ranking, then it was appropriate to leave that interpretation
of world ranking until early 2004 to translate that into medal
targets. We could have, if we had so chosen, looked at those world
rankings two years out to see where it was leading us and what
the medal target should now be.
Q73 Greg Clark: Is it not true to
say that Mr Sweetenham is not convinced by this targeting process?
Ms Nicholl: He is convinced by
the direct correlation between medallists and end-of-year world
ranking. He is absolutely convinced by that and we have performance
evidence to show that.
Q74 Greg Clark: Is he convinced about
the accuracy of targeting in advance?
Ms Nicholl: What I have explained
is that targeting cannot be entirely accurate.
Q75 Greg Clark: I am asking for Mr
Sweetenham's view, as far as you understand it? Is he convinced
by that?
Ms Nicholl: I do not know what
Mr Sweetenham's specific view is.
Q76 Greg Clark: Are you sure? You
have spoken to him surely.
Ms Nicholl: Most performance directors,
if not all performance directors, would say that you cannot be
absolutely specific with targets and you can never expect to deliver
100% of your targets.
Q77 Greg Clark: I get the impression
that Mr Sweetenham thinks that this targeting system is not something
that he would choose himself, shall we say, and he has been forced
to go along with it. Is that true?
Ms Nicholl: If that were the case,
that is beyond—
Q78 Greg Clark: Is that the case?
You have had conversations with him. His reputation is for speaking
very frankly.
Ms Nicholl: Mr Sweetenham would
probably prefer not to be drawn into agreeing a medal target,
against which Mr Sweetenham's performance itself would be judged.
Q79 Greg Clark: Well that is significant,
is it not? He was a man who was brought in because of his track
record of success in Australia and he takes a dim view of the
process that you are imposing.
Ms Nicholl: They have medal targets
in Australia.
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