Ethics, behaviours and culture

There are sad stories regarding athletes who are ill-equipped for a life outside sport, which can occur for many reasons, including lacking skills to get a job and build a career. Therefore, it is important for organisations to encourage athletes on talent pathways to develop their education alongside their sporting and other interests, to gain qualifications and enjoy a more well-rounded approach to life.

This is often referred to as the ‘dual career’ approach. One way an organisation could do this, as recommended in the report, is to partner with education institutions (including colleges and universities) to put in place a duty of care policy, to support participants following a dual career route.

Very closely linked to the importance of education is the overall transition of participants, both on entering and leaving top-level sport.

For those entering top-level sport, it is advised you have an induction process to ensure a common understanding of important processes throughout your sport and what support is available, such as independent and confidential support services. Although this induction should be targeted at the athletes themselves, parents and other support people should attend the induction as they are the participant’s key support network.

When it comes to a life after sport, which could arise at any time, athletes should be actively encouraged to consider and talk about their future plans, allowed time to do this and given information and support wherever possible about career options and skills development. Organisations can help sportspeople explore and develop their employment skill sets by considering links with sponsors and corporate partners, which may provide work experience or employment opportunities.

Where an athlete’s transition out of sport arises as a result of deselection from a team or squad, the process has to be managed carefully to avoid too much distress to the athlete. This may require some specific training, as coaches may not have the ‘people skills’ necessary to handle such difficult conversations.

Upon leaving, to obtain as much information as possible to improve behaviours and processes for the future, organisations should arrange exit interviews with those athletes. The interview should be administered by an independent body, preferably a players’ association, to ensure the sportsperson can be open and honest about their experience. The anonymised results can be fed back to the sport and funding body.

It can be argued that there is a chronic lack of recognition for the importance of the athlete (and other participants) in sport. Yet without them there would be no sport. Therefore, they should be given a meaningful voice in the running of your organisation.

The Code for Sports Governance gives examples of how this might be achieved. These include:

• working with any established players' union
• annual athlete/participant surveys
• athlete/participant focus groups
• spokespersons nominated and democratically elected by fellow athletes
• establishing an athletes' commission in conjunction with the British Athletes Commission
• where appropriate, and subject to its size and composition, having an athlete representative on the board

The UK Athletics Athletes’ Commission was formed in 2017, with the aim of ensuring athletes’ voices are heard by UK Athletics’ Performance Oversight Committee and the UK Athletics Board. It consists of 12 current and former British international athletes.

Meeting twice a year as a minimum, the Commission provides a formal mechanism whereby the perspective and expertise of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s international athletes will be heard by the UKA hierarchy on the many initiatives and programmes operated by the NGB.

Furthermore, the Commission seeks to ensure that athletes possess a meaningful voice on important matters heard at the board level, in turn allowing the UKA board to benefit from the perspective and expertise of international athletes in its deliberations and decision-making. The Commission will also be able to bring matters to the Performance Oversight Committee for discussion and recommendation.

From a behavioural perspective, equality, diversity and inclusion are very sensitive and important topics. As well as complying with legislation to prevent discrimination, sports organisations must take the moral stance that all forms of discrimination are equally unacceptable to the values of society and their sport.

This is a zero-tolerance approach and organisations have a responsibility to stamp out discriminatory behaviours, practices and cultures amongst participants.

A more diverse board will lead to better decision-making.

It is for this reason that the Code for Sports Governance has focused on improving the diversity profile of organisations’ boards and leadership groups. The revised Code requires (Principle 2) that organisations recruit and engage people with diversity of background, thought and experience in their leadership and beyond. This is facilitated by the requirement (2.2) for organisations to create, publish and implement Diversity and Inclusion Action Plans. The diversity profile of sports organisations has improved markedly since the introduction of the Code and through initiatives such as the sports councils’ partnership with Perrett Laver and others to identify and develop a broader talent pool of board-ready leaders.

When it comes to equality, diversity and inclusion in organisational leadership, training on the duty of care should be given to support a new diverse generation of leaders.

Coming soon: Further guidance and support on improving equality, diversity and inclusion will be added to the SGA knowledge base in the future.

Safeguarding is an area of the duty of care and sports governance where there is already a significant amount of legislation and regulation, particularly regarding child welfare.

Safeguarding is a complex area, therefore the training given to participants (in particular volunteers) should provide clarity about the required standards and good practice so that the organisation can put in place appropriate and comprehensive policies and processes.

In addition to safeguarding children, adults and other vulnerable participants have safeguarding needs regarding those in ‘positions of trust’ (given the broadest possible meaning). In June 2022, the Sexual Offences Act was amended (s. 22A) to include under 'position of trust' those who coach, train, supervise or instruct another person in sport. Those occupying such positions are prohibited from engaging in sexual activity with under 18s in their care.

In this regard, there is a need for continual vigilance. It may be advisable to introduce a duty to report in rules and regulations.

In addition to Disclosure and Barring Service checks for people working in sports, organisations should consider introducing a licensing scheme for coaches and other athlete support personnel if there are enough resources and operational capability.

Coming soon: There will be much more content on safeguarding in its dedicated section of the knowledge base. You can access information and resources from:

• Child Protection in Sport Unit (CPSU) – safeguarding children
• Ann Craft Trust – safeguarding adults and young people at risk

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is a government service which helps employers to make safer recruitment decisions and prevent unsuitable people from working with vulnerable groups, including children, by checking the backgrounds of certain individuals, and is therefore vital for sports organisations to be aware of. Scotland has its own similar but separate service, Disclosure Scotland.

Individuals who are passionate about sport should have the right skills, knowledge and attitude, and previous history of good conduct, for a particular role. It is therefore essential that there are effective recruitment and selection procedures for both paid staff and volunteers.

Undertaking a DBS check for current and prospective employees and volunteers who are carrying out ‘regulated activities’ must be central to an organisation’s recruitment policy.

The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 set out the scope and operation of the vetting and barring scheme. Most importantly, an organisation determines which roles are considered ‘regulated activity’. This is work that an individual barred from working with vulnerable groups, including children, must not do. It is an offence for a barred person to seek to work in regulated activity and for an employer knowingly to employ a barred person in regulated activity. Examples of regulated activity are as follows:

• Unsupervised activities such as teaching, training, instructing, caring for or supervising children, providing advice/guidance on wellbeing or driving a vehicle only for children
• Carrying out work regularly (at least weekly), frequently (four times a month or more, overnight (between 2.00am and 6.00am) or work in a limited range of establishments (‘specified places’), with opportunity for contact (schools, children’s homes or childcare premises, for example).

The CPSU, which is a partnership between the NSPCC, Sport England, Sport Northern Ireland and Sport Wales, suggests that safe recruitment should involve, in addition to the DBS check:

• writing a role and person description
• using an application form to gather relevant information about each applicant
• requiring written references
• interviewing the applicant
• undertaking a risk assessment of any concerning information
• verifying qualifications and experience
• making a record of the recruitment decision
• providing an induction to the role which must cover safeguarding policies and procedures and signing up to the Code of Conduct as a minimum.

If relevant information comes back on an individual following the request for a DBS check, then an organisation should consider this alongside all other information gathered and a full risk assessment. This decision must be made in conjunction with someone (either inside or outside the organisation) with appropriate safeguarding knowledge, experience and preferably training.

There is further helpful guidance on this area of high importance on both the CPSU website and the DBS website.

Society, in general, has become more aware in recent years of the importance of mental health and wellbeing. This can be even more acute in elite sports where the regime is one of continuous training, performance and selection, which brings significant mental resilience challenges for athletes, coaches and other support personnel. However, mental health issues can affect any of us at any time.

Organisations should foster an environment where people feel able to discuss mental health issues. Participants and staff/volunteers should be aware of where they can obtain advice and assistance. This should be available within the organisation (a safeguarding officer, for example) but also externally on a confidential basis from mental health professionals.

Coaches should also receive specific professional development training on how to identify and deal appropriately with mental health issues that athletes may face.

To embed this commitment to mental wellbeing within the governance framework, organisations can also sign up for the Mental Health Charter for Sport and Recreation. This has been created and developed by the Sport and Recreation Alliance, alongside the Professional Players Federation and the mental health charity Mind, setting out how sport can use its collective power to tackle mental ill health and its stigma.

The Charter outlines six actions that sport as a whole can take to help make mental health a commonly understood matter and to help those in need. Of those six actions, the following points can be drawn out and adapted to become strategic behaviours:

• Use sport to promote general wellbeing, focusing on encouraging physical activity and social interaction for their contribution to good mental health
• Carry out public communication campaigns which promote and adopt good mental health policies and encourage best practices within sports
• Find people within sporta who have suffered from mental health issues, and if they are comfortable doing so, invite them to promote positive messages as role models/ambassadors to reduce the stigma attached to mental health problems
• As part of a zero-tolerance approach to discrimination in your sport, actively tackle discrimination on the grounds of mental health to ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect
• Ensure organisations regularly monitor their performance in this area and are up-to-date with the latest good practice from other sports and sectors, as this is a constantly developing area of healthcare.

Though participation in sport and physical activity may carry a degree of risk, participant safety and welfare must be placed above all other concerns. A failure to do so has seen high-profile organisations such as the NFL and World Rugby face significant criticisms in relation to the effects of repeated concussions. Boxing in the UK has been through significant challenges when it comes to safety.

In 1991, Michael Watson fought Chris Eubank in a boxing match sanctioned by the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC). Due to failures in the treatment given to Mr Watson at ringside, having been knocked out, he suffered life-changing brain injuries.

Mr Watson successfully argued before the court that the BBBofC had not acted as a reasonable and competent governing body, as it had failed to ensure that it was sufficiently knowledgeable of current emergency treatment protocols for traumatic brain injury.

First, the Court of Appeal held that the safety of the participants in a sport is of paramount concern to the relevant governing body. As a result, each body owes a duty to take all reasonable care in the circumstances to ensure that those competing in the sport it regulates are reasonably safe from foreseeable harm.

Then, on the facts, the court found that the professional expertise of the doctors ringside, and the equipment available to them, had been inadequate to cope appropriately with Mr Watson’s condition of intracranial bleeding when he was knocked unconscious. Such deficiencies had meant that emergency treatment had been delayed for about 30 minutes until Mr Watson had reached hospital, by which time it was too late.

The key findings of the court, as regards the failings by the BBBofC, were as follows:

• Failure to provide adequate guidelines regarding medical provision at ringside
• The BBBofC were in the best position to determine safety protocols
• The BBBofC were under a duty to minimise the risk admittedly inherent in a dangerous sport
• The BBBofC had special knowledge about the risks involved when compared to Mr Watson
• Those advising the BBBofC on medical and safety issues should have been fully aware of current best practices in the treatment of injuries
• The BBBofC’s duty was to take reasonable care to ensure that reasonably foreseeable personal injuries sustained were treated properly
• The BBBofC owed participants a duty to ensure the advice that it gave event organisers was sufficiently well prepared to enable the organisers to run a contest safely

When dealing with medical issues relating to participants, organisations must fully respect the duty of confidentiality that medical professionals have when treating those who are injured. For instance, sharing information about someone’s medical history within an organisation can be useful in agreeing on a course of treatment, but this process needs to be handled sensitively, appropriately and in line with professional guidelines and preferably an internal agreed process.

A participant must be fully informed as to how their information is being used, with consideration being given to a separation within a performance team of the medical and safeguarding staff and from the performance coaches. This will provide a clear line of demarcation in the case of potentially conflicting advice.