UK Sport Statement - Cycling Independent Review

The leaking of a draft version of the Cycling Independent Review (CIR) Panel's report has led to a series of reports in the media. It is therefore important to clarify several matters that have been raised relating to the work of the panel, UK Sport and British Cycling.

The CIR was jointly commissioned by UK Sport and British Cycling last year to look at the culture of British Cycling's World Class Programme and to make a series of recommendations as to how it could be improved.

While the Panel is taking the report through one further stage before finalising, the boards of both organisations received a draft version in December and all parties have accepted the emerging recommendations of the panel in full.

The Board of British Cycling took early action to prepare a 39-point action plan based on the emerging findings and the recommendations of the review to systematically address the cultural and behavioural shortcomings in British Cycling and made a public commitment to focusing much more on their people, alongside the good work they do on participation and performance.

UK Sport is satisfied that this plan addresses the findings and recommendations of the draft report and in addition there is a requirement for British Cycling to make changes at Board level to align with the new Sport Governance Code. As with other funded bodies, British Cycling has to agree a Governance Action Plan with both UK Sport and Sport England before any new funding flows from April 2017.

In the meantime, both UK Sport and Sport England supported the move that the British Cycling Board took to elect Jonathan Browning, one of their independent Board members, to Chair the organisation, pending the agreement and implementation of that Action Plan, to set it on a journey to address the necessary changes to both culture and governance.

Further to this, both UK Sport and Sport England were involved in the appointment of the new Chief Executive, Julie Harrington; and UK Sport was also involved in the appointment of the new Performance Director, Stephen Park. Both have an important role to play in delivering the necessary changes.

There will be no further comment on the CIR report until the final version is published and in the public domain.

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