Sport England inquiry finds “fundamental flaws” 14/12/2009 |
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The inquiry into unaudited payments of almost £20m from Sport England to grass roots sports has found “fundamental flaws” in the system – but no evidence of fraud.
Timothy Dutton, who conducted the inquiry, found that payments were made to “sports which were not ‘fit for purpose’ in large part because of poor governance arrangements in their governing bodies” through an account called the World Class Payments Bureau [WCPB]. The main recipients were hockey, boxing, squash and karate.
Dutton’s report said: “What happened was that the WCPB became a processing function for the making of payments to sporting bodies or those working for them in circumstances where the sporting bodies were not deemed fit for purpose but also in circumstances where there was not always adequate scrutiny of the requests for payment themselves.”
Dutton added that he had “more than sufficient material to be able to reach firm conclusions about the WCPB” and consulted criminal lawyers as to whether a fraud claim against certain governing bodies would be appropriate. Although the response was that there was “no basis for a case for fraud”, there were clear causes for concern.
Sport England chief executive Jennie Price said: “That is why we set up the inquiry. What is really useful is that he has done such a thorough trawl so we know where the money went, we know it was broadly speaking spent on sport, and there is no missing £20m. But things went through that account without proper challenges and checks and that was plainly wrong.”
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