John Bicourt	Do the public get value for money from UK Athletics?   An article by John Bicourt. Click Here for original article. Tuesday, 16 March 2010
For those trying to justify the £150 million public monies invested in athletics as insignificant by comparing it with the health costs associated with level of obesity in the nation, the private investment in health clubs and with what happens in the United StatesCollege system is entirely spurious and irrelevant. Football, for example, has massively more money but it's not tax payers' money and they're not accountable to the wider public. Neither is motor sport or many other sport and leisure related activities. The MP's expenses row involved the "trifling" sum of "only" £1.2 million and the Government spent more than that to investigate it and bring those responsible to account. Why? Because it was public money being improperly used and the public expected it to be challenged. The only proper way to assess value for 12 years of public money being spent by this unelected and unaccountable national governing body is to look at the state of our own sport in this country and what development was promised and expected to be achieved, not JUST at a tiny elite level but also through the critical and essential development of the grass-roots and the sustainable pool of talent at every level where clear evidence from recorded results shows dramatic decline both in standards in depth and participation particularly after the age of 16. UK Athletics' original remit was to develop the sport from grass roots-right through to elite but they have instead concentrated purely only on the elite once they have risen, unaided by them, up through the grass roots and in that cause have employed 150 staff, including part time, at a salary cost of over £5 million per year whilst the grass roots [the clubs] that actually produce the sport and its athletes relies on volunteers only and no public funding. UK Athletics continues to be funded on the success and presumed success of a very small elite group - some of whom have won medals without UK Athletics and lottery support - to give the impression that the whole of the sport from the rest of the elite down is thriving and vibrant, when it fact it isn't. And the long term prognosis is not good. So something is not right. At the Beijing Olympics and the Berlin World Championships, look at the number of events with no British representative and further, the number of events with only one out of as possible three? So why does UK Athletics continue to employ those directors of events and event coaches responsible who cannot deliver? Look at the number of GB athletes who seem to produce season's best and some personal bests in the qualifying of global championships but then fail to reproduce it when in matters in the semi-final or in a final for the few who make it? The spending [and largely wasting] of public money on a costly and ineffective administration for an elite few may not matter to the likes of those on the BBC athletics forum who have their own agenda to support UK Athletics but it does to others and the issues - continually advised to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport - won't go away, much as they would like them to.
John Bicourt was an English record holder and represented Britain in the 3,000m steeplechase at the 1972 and 1976 Olympics. He has coached, advised and managed a number of Olympic and World Championship athletes from Britain, Australia, South African, Kenya and the United States, including medallists and world record holders. He is an elected officer of the Association of British Athletics Clubs

Niels de Vos	UK Athletics offers better value for money than any sport in Britain   A response by Niels de Vos, Chief Executive of UK Athletics. Click Here for original article. Thursday, 18 March 2010
John Bicourt questions the return on investment into UK Athletics but sadly his article is characterised by poor research, incorrect facts and simply ill founded assertations. Mr Bicourt begins by asserting that other sports such as football do not receive public monies. In fact, for the promotion of participation and grassroots competition, football (in common with other professional sports such as rugby union, rugby league and tennis) enjoys substantial public sector investment from Sport England, in excess of that received by athletics which does not enjoy the riches of these sports. Mr Bicourt also misunderstands the roles and responsibilities of UK Athletics. Contrary to his view, we are not funded from the public purse to develop grassroots athletics and participation levels. This responsibility lies with the Home Country Athletics Federations and they are funded directly via their respective Sports Councils in pursuit of these objectives. UK Athletics' role in this is to provide a strategic oversight and direction informed by the elected UK Members Council who represent not only the Home Countries but representatives from clubs, coaching and officials. Currently Sport England are investing (through England Athletics) over £2 million a year directly into club athletics via club coaching programmes and Athletics networks (including some clubs who are part of Mr Bicourt's own self-appointed and unrepresentative body, the Association of British Athletics Clubs), which is then enhanced thanks to the support of UK Athletics sponsors McCain with a further investment of £1 million. Where UK Athletics do contribute massively to grassroots athletics is through our primary sponsors Aviva. Over a period of 10 years Aviva have invested £18 milion into the promotion of athletics within British Schools through Star track, Sportshall, Elevating Athletics and more recently the sponsorship of all Home Country Schools Championships (track and field and cross-country). UK Atheltics' only public money is provided by UK Sport and is correctly focussed on the elite end of our sport - to provide the best training facilities, the best coaching and the best support staff possible. Again however, the numbers quoted by Mr Bicourt do not tally with reality. UK Athletics' current four year funding agreement with UK Sport see the sport awarded a total of £6 million per annum to fund our Olympic programme. Looked at another way this equates to just £375,000 per year per discipline, making athletics, by disciplines amongst the lowest funded of Olympic sports, and the sport offering perhaps the best value for money of all. Bear in mind too, that the award is not, as Mr Bicourt asserts, restricted to a "tiny elite level". Of that £6 million, 25 per cent of the sum every year is invested in ensuring we are able to take full British teams to all major track and fieldchampionships - not just senior teams but junior teams too. Along with the track and field teams, others, such as the cross-country teams (junior, intermediate and senior men's and women's, all of whom returned with team medals from the European Championships in both 2008 and 2009, including Hayley Yelling (pictured) winning the women's race in Dublin last December), our British mountain running, fell running and ultra running teams are again funded from our commercial income and enjoy no public purse support at all. Mr Bicourt makes a further comment regards public monies in administration - again the facts do not support his claim. All UK Athletics overheads are in fact paid for by our own commercially generated funds. Every penny of UK Sport investment goes directly to our World Class programme to which we ourselves contribute some 15 per cent through commercial funding. So UK Athletics clearly demonstrates excellent value for money and is one of only a few sports from the Olympic family which raised its own commercial revenue to further invest in the sport which it is internationally recognised and charge to governing. Finally Mr Bicourt asserts that at elite level the sport is not showing signs of progression. Once again, the facts do not support him. Consider the following statistics looking back at the number of UK medallists over the past three Olympic/World Championship cycles. Sydney 2000/Edmonton 2001 - 6 Athens 2004/Helsinki 2005 - 12 Beijing 2008/Berlin 2009 - 16 And for evidence the positive trend is not just at the very top, let us consider top eight placings. Sydney/Edmonton - 33 Athens/Helsinki - 27 Beijing/Berlin - 40 As recently as last week's World Indoors, UK finished fourth in the medals table and fifth in the points table, ranking as the top European nation - a status the majority of British sports would give their right arm or leg for! Last week also saw the publication of the results of the independent Active People survey (IPSOS Mori) which showed that participation in athletics has risen for the fourth consecutive six-month period - demonstrating clearly that our colleagues in England Athletics are also delivery against their remit. So I am sorry Mr Bicourt, but I am afraid the facts do not support your position - I suggest the sport does not either.
NB: This website, together with the Association of British Athletic Clubs and huge numbers of athletes, coaches and officials do support John Bicourt's quest for accountability from UK Athletics.

John Bicourt

Is De Vos trying to deceive?   A response from John Bicourt. Saturday, 28 March 2010

Niels De Vos, the CEO of UK Athletics Ltd in his riposte to my previous article, has entirely and perhaps deliberately, missed the point. It is not a question of how much public money is spent by UKA but whether it provides a reasonable and expected return in value to the funding bodies that provide the public money. Incredibly, given his role as the CEO of UKA, his own figures and assertions, proffered within his defensive attack on my article, are completely inappropriate, highly misleading and clearly designed, it seems, to hide from UKA's public and commercial funders the true picture of GB's medals and top 8 placings over the last three Olympic Games and six World Championships. Niels De Vos has provided figures regarding GB achievements at Olympic and World Championships to "prove" how our teams' performance under their guidance and support has supposedly improved? He has failed to even recognise there are two World Championships in every Olympic cycle and not one as he states. Peter Matthews, a world respected athletics statistician, made the following comment on De Vos's figures - "To count all four relay medalists is absurd, grossly misleading, not what one would expect of a responsible governing body"! De Vos's misleading figures quoted for GB."medallists" during three Olympic cycles, including World Championships are: Sydney 2000/Edmonton 2001 - 6 Athens 2004/Helsinki 2005 - 12 Beijing 2008/Berlin 2009 - 16 Whereas the correct number of medals won (the only globally recognised count) during the Olympic cycle are in fact: Seville 1999/Sydney 2000/Edmonton 2001 - 15 Medals Paris 2003/Athens 2004/Helsinki 2005 - 11 Medals Osaka 2007/Bejing 2008/Berlin 2009 - 15 Medals So clearly no improvement on a decade earlier when our medallists then, were already established world class performers, without the benefit of UKA's funding. For the same cycles he states (re: number of GB athletes in top 8 places) Sydney/Edmonton - 33 Athens/Helsinki - 27 Beijing/Berlin - 40 Whereas the correct accumulated figures for the same cycle are: 1999/2000/2001 - 51 2003/2004/2005 - 31 2007/2008/2009 - 51 (Nb The correct figures above are verified by two of the top statisticians in the world) Mr. DeVos's inappropriate and grossly misleading figures once again falsely shows an improvement whereas the correct figures' show no improvement at all from a decade earlier. So millions of pounds of public funds have been handed to UKA over the 11 years to stand still! It should also be noted the '95/97 unfunded cycle achieved 17 medals and 47 top 8 places. DeVos, claims GB finished as top ranked European nation in the recent World Indoor Championships, when in fact GB was 2nd European nation behind Russia. This "oversight" conveniently made GB look better than it was and despite finishing 4th overall, (not unexpectedly with the third largest team) DeVos's, Head Coach, (Charles Van Commonee) stated that it was, "disappointing" and that a number of athletes had not performed as expected - Britain produced only 6 Top 8 individual placings from a team with 23 individual competitors. The true measure of achievement, however, and the measure for UK Sport's funding level of UKA, is the World OUTDOOR Championships and the Olympic Games. Little wonder, then, that De Vos would want to make it look as good as possible? DeVos states that UKA receives £6million per year (public funding via UK Sport) to fund their Olympic programme. Of the "£6million", DeVos says 25% of that sum is invested to, "ensure we are able to take full British teams to all major track and field championships - not just senior teams but junior teams too" ! This "full teams" claim is entirely false and contrary to UKA's own stated selection policy. UKA have never taken a full British team to any of the major track and field championships. In fact one of the biggest criticisms of UKA is their incompetence and continuing failure despite having Directors of events, (now Directors of "speed" , endurance" and "jumps") numerous professional coaches, managed High Performance Centres and, what they claim is the best medical and sport science support system, to produce more qualified athletes for OG's and WC's where GB is continually unrepresented in a number of events. DeVos then curiously breaks down his £6m into separate disciplines and says this equates to just £375,000 per year per discipline, "making athletics, by disciplines amongst the lowest funded of Olympic sports, and the sport offering perhaps the best value for money of all"! . This is farcically irrelevant and not how they actually break the funding down and only suggests his crass misunderstanding of athletics. What IS highly relevant is the glaring and embarrassing lack of GB representatives in so many Olympic and World Championship events. De Vos, claims that UK Athletics has a role to provide a strategic insight and direction for the Home Countries National Governing Bodies, yet in the 11 years since its inception, UKA has still not managed to produce a comprehensive strategy for the development of the sport! Their self lauded Coach Education Programme has continuously failed to be granted the government's funded Sports Coach UK/ UK Coaching Certificate, being deemed "unfit for purpose." Now UKA have decided to go their own way and the coaching qualification program is on hold pending the launch a new programme in the Autumn which will sit outside the nationally recognised coaching accreditation process for all NGB's (UKCC). The quoted £18m into "grass roots" (but not the clubs) is mainly marketing spend from which Aviva receive a good value return but it is not benefitting the real development of athletics. The stated £18m has produced no measurable growth in the sport at the critical U20 and senior competitive level and there are no published detailed figures to back up what DeVos claims of how the money is spent and what benefit this has bought. De Vos's claims the results of the independent Active People survey (IPSOS Mori) "showed that participation in athletics has risen for the fourth consecutive 6 month period". However, these figures are mainly centred on people jogging and therefore are nothing to do with UKA, who by their own, self-stated interest, focus on the elite. DeVos states that UKA "clearly shows excellent value for money" but by what measure? Spending money is NOT a measure of value. Returns might be, but only if they match or exceed the purpose for which the money was provided. In UKA's case the agreed measure with UK Sport is global event medal targets which continually get revised down and often still get missed. Despite missing the low, greatly reduced, goal of 5 medals in Beijing, Mr DeVos, was awarded a £28,000 pay increase, this at a time of the greatest recession since the 1930's. His acerbic comments on the Association of British Athletics Clubs (which is in fact a fully democratic and unfunded pressure group) is completely wrong and rather hypocritical given that UKA, (Ltd by guarantee) is a body which is not transparent, is self appointed, undemocratic and unaccountable to the sport. Given his gross misrepresentation on GB's medals and top 8 placings over three Olympic cycles (have they also been presented to the government's funding body?) and the poor value return in global achievements for public money invested, I believe that UK Sport should immediately review Mr. De Vos's position.