Sarah Powell, Chief Executive of British Gymnastics, writes about the publication this week of the national governing body’s Reform ’25 action plan in response to the recommendations of the Whyte Review, and why it presents an opportunity that the sports sector in Britain must seize.
This week we’ve published Reform ’25 action plan, detailing our commitment and action to deliver on the Whyte Review and the wider reform of gymnastics. It is something I believe is significant and relevant not only to gymnastics, but also our wider sports sector as a whole.
The comprehensive 40-point plan not only addresses but goes beyond the 17 recommendations of the Review, which was commissioned by UK Sport and Sport England to look at allegations of abuse and mistreatment in gymnastics, and sets out the actions we will be taking to reform the sport over the next two years to create safe, positive and fair experiences for all in gymnastics.
We are grateful to Anne Whyte KC and her team for delivering a comprehensive report and clear recommendations, to everyone who contributed to the review, and to the Commissioning Bodies – UK Sport and Sport England – for their continued support and commitment to helping us in our work to ensure the safety and wellbeing of gymnasts and all those involved in our sport is paramount.
The harsh truth is though that it should not have needed a review, and we are working to understand how problematic cultures had been created and maintained and why there were not identified and acted upon sooner. As a sport sector, that is something we must all learn from.
The person must always be our priority
You could have argued that on paper British Gymnastics had the policies, procedures, and resources in place around safeguarding that were required – that’s what the ratings and reviews indicated. But sport is not about paper – it’s about people.
We had lost sight of that and prioritised a focus on medals and results rather than the people taking part and all those who support them.
Gymnastics participation primarily involves children and young people, but whatever their age, at the heart of this is always a human being. They may go on to be an athlete and may go on to be an elite athlete and do amazing things in competitions around the world, but all the way through they are still a person that we have a duty of care to. The person must always come first, and that is what we need to focus on above anything else.
We will always be ambitious to see our elite gymnasts compete and succeed on the international stage, but we must also be world class in how we care for people and what we do to look after and support everyone in our sport. What we care about most is that they are supported to perform to the best of their ability, and they have a positive experience that they can take things from for the rest of their life. A gymnast and their story is so much more than the medals they win.
It’s not that the medal focus has been entirely wrong – winning medals is one part of the positive and inspirational impact elite athletes can have for themselves, the next generation and our society. It is more we did not see, or respond swiftly enough to, what the consequences and implications of that medal focus were. It led to other things, and we weren’t agile enough to adapt. That is in part because we had become disconnected from our gymnastics community, and so allowed a culture of fear to develop alongside a lack of understanding of what was appropriate behaviour and what was not.
A cultural shift is needed
Gymnastics has the power to positively impact the lives of all who experience it as well as deliver benefit to communities and our society. But for that to happen our sport must change.
As part of our action plan, all our safeguarding policies are being independently reviewed and revised – but that on its own is not enough. If people aren’t aware of them, don’t understand them or are willing to turn a blind eye, then you cannot deliver sport safely. We must support everyone in gymnastics to understand what an open, transparent, caring, empowered and safe environment looks like. One case of abuse and mistreatment will always be one case too many. The collective aim of everyone within the sport must therefore be to do everything we possibly can to prevent any recurrence of unsafe experiences.
If we are to achieve that, what we need is a cultural shift in how we see gymnastics – it is this that underpins the Reform ’25 plans. Over and above medals and results, we need to remember why gymnastics is important. Because of the enjoyment it brings and its role in building foundation skills that are vital for a happy, healthy, and active life.
A plan shaped by listening and learning
In developing the 40 actions within the plan, we have listened to and learned from our community, as well as being open to expert ideas and thinking from outside our sport. What we have published this week is therefore rooted in what we need to do as British Gymnastics as an organisation, and most importantly what is right for gymnastics in the UK as a whole.
To be delivered over four phases leading up to 2025, the reforms are focused across four key, interconnected areas: Culture & Strategy, Welfare, Safeguarding & Complaints, Education & Development, and Performance. The plan sets out what needs to change and how it will be done.
As the National Governing Body for our sport, we know we’ve got things wrong in the past and that we need to lead this change from the front, supporting our gymnastics community to play their part.
Reform has already begun, including reshaping and redesigning the organisation to ensure it is fit for the future and puts a greater emphasis on engaging with the gymnastics community, bringing in experience around performance gymnastics and safeguarding to the British Gymnastics Board together with recruitment of people to key leadership and senior positions, expanding the safeguarding team by bringing in expertise and experience from the police, Local Authorities and gymnastics, and increasing focus on welfare to provide support to those affected.
“We know we’ve got things wrong in the past and that we need to lead this change from the front, supporting our gymnastics community to play their part.”
Sarah Powell
Commitment to independent scrutiny
Fundamental to the Reform ’25 plan is a commitment from us to be open, transparent and hold itself to account for the delivery of the reforms, keeping the gymnastics community and the wider sports sector updated on progress made over the next two years by publishing updates every six months.
To ensure we deliver against our commitments and turn the words of the Reform ’25 plan into real, tangible action, we have also appointed an expert Independent Advisor, Dr Catherine Bishop, to provide additional scrutiny and independent perspective on how we implement the reforms.
A call for change that needs to be heard by us all
We know we can’t do everything on own, and there are undoubtedly opportunities for cross-sport working to put in place new approaches and actions that benefit us all. Beyond gymnastics and beyond the UK, we see this is an opportunity for wider sporting reform – and we are committed to playing our part in that.
Where necessary reforms are not solely within our remit, we will take a leading role in advocating the necessary changes and doing everything we can to facilitate and support change to make sport safer. This includes us working and collaborating internationally with other national gymnastics federations and with the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), as well as domestically with the home nations’ sports councils and with national governing bodies for other sports.
As part of this, we must find a way across all sport to prevent the movement of banned coaches from one sport to another or one region to another, collectively doing all we can to make it a hostile environment for anyone who wishes to bring abuse into sport. We know there is work being considered for a central coaches register, and we would fully support this.
The Whyte Review is not the change itself, but only the call for change – and it is a call I believe our whole sector needs to listen to. We can’t keep having wake-up call after wake-up call, moving from one sport to the next. We need to seize this opportunity and make the care of people and the positive impact and benefits sport can provide central to our thinking and everything we do.
To help achieve that, we are committed to identifying and sharing the lessons we have learned and will continue to learn over the next two years with other sports, and play our part in helping create safe sport throughout the UK.
You can read our full Reform ’25 action plan at www.british-gymnastics.org/reform-25.
Sarah
Sarah Powell
Chief Executive – British Gymnastics
