NIVEL AVANZADO C1

Modernisation and reform was a key component of EH’s 2013-17 WSP, particularly to establish ‘a segregation between strategic and operational management … [and]

…a new level of professionalism’, and meet SE governance standards (EH, 2012, pp.16-17). According to EH’s Annual Report 2014-15 (EH, 2015a), good governance was crucial for long-term success, as seen by EH’s commitment to governance reform through the acceptance of the Voluntary Code of Good Governance (EH, 2014b), and positive feedback from SE in relation to the strengthening and continued improvements to EH’s governance infrastructure (EH, 2013b; EHA, 2014c; EH, 2015a; EH, 2016b; EH, 2016e). This illustrates shared ‘policy-core’ beliefs with government/SE, and EH’s willingness to comply with the regulatory nature of the SE-led coalition, adherence to government/SE governance protocols emphasising characteristics of Lukes’ first and third dimensions of power.

The increased focus on governance, however, has had a significant impact on SMNGBs, both from an organisational and operational perspective, as evidenced by the comments of interviewee CEOEH:

‘[T]he governance stuff and the latter stages of that has undoubtedly changed the way that [NGBs] operate. The focus was on reducing the impact of the ‘Blazer Brigade.’ People who feel they’ve been in the sport for 50 years, and therefore know how to run it. Organisations now, even an organisation our size … we’re a small business, and therefore we should be run and operated as a small business, not an old boys club.’

The conditional expectation for all NGBs in receipt of public funding to achieve excellence in governance within a new Mandatory Code of Governance for Sport, (EH, 2016b, p.14), led to heightened tensions within EH, not only among Board members, but also between the Board, the Executive, and the membership, as evidenced by EH’s governance proposal to change the recruitment process for the position of Chair from an elected to an appointed process (a SE initiative), the main purpose of which was to highlight to SE ‘how seriously [EH] focuse[d] on the importance of governance’ (EH, 2016i p.6). From EH Board minutes (2016a, 2016d,

138 2016e), it is evident that much of the conflict at Board-level reflected the varying beliefs of Board members, particularly from those who held the belief that the position of Chair should be the domain of someone immersed in handball, in conflict with government/SE’s efforts to reassert control over NGBs through the removal of the so-called ‘Blazer Brigade.’ The influence of which can be seen in EH, as evidenced by the comments of one Board member who noted that ‘if the Chair addresses the AGM outlining his disagreement, the idea is unlikely to succeed’ (EH, 2016e, p.2), which arguably reflects Lukes’ third dimension of power to shape members’ preferences. Further evidence also endorses the extent to which internal conflicts are a reflection of an observable dichotomy between those favouring compliance with SE’s governance protocols to preserve the NGB’s financial interests, and those firmly committed to the preservation of NGB autonomy and the protection of membership interests, as well as highlighting the potential implications for organisational-identity, as demonstrated by the comments of interviewee CEOEH:

‘[NGBs] will always be a membership organisation and that’s one of the challenges in the new world, in that, those members are often always “die hards” of the sport, and therefore their only view; their only thought; their only concern is for the success of that sport, and the fact that the [NGB] is there to work for them. So, they get slightly peeved when they see the [NGB] going off and dealing with … all this governance stuff that they have to do.’

Arguably, the above evidence highlights the limitations in the ACF’s concept of shared-beliefs, through its neglect of tensions among coalition members. The impact of the dichotomy of beliefs within EH is demonstrated further by the rejection of the resolution to have an appointed rather than elected Chair (9 votes for and 10 votes against) (EH, 2016h, p.4), despite an awareness among EH members that non-compliance with SE’s regulatory requirements would likely result in financial sanctions (EH, 2017e; EH, 2016g), again illustrating the compliance and punitive nature of the SE-led coalition.

Notwithstanding the above, evidence suggests that governance reform within SMNGBs that are less established, emerging or developing, have a higher transformational capacity than their larger and longer established counterparts, in part due to the closeness of membership to the SMNGB administration:

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‘[O]ur world was much smaller and so allowed voices in membership to be perhaps sometimes closer to the centre, than they would be in football or rugby, … We didn’t struggle to much with [governance], because we didn’t have to make too many changes to structure’ (Interviewee: CEOEH).

‘[T]he smallest [NGBs] are the most transformational, their Boards are very skills- based, independent, and looking to drive a transformational agenda’ (Interviewee:

SESLR).

While EH has demonstrated a willingness to comply with SE governance criteria, it is evident that the potential risks for non-compliance have greater implications. For example, interviewee CEOEH remarked that by not having governance compliance in place within the specified time, ‘you risked your funding being turned off.’ Further evidence highlighted that compliance for some NGBs has simply been a necessity to secure funding, as interviewee SEC claimed, ‘there are some sports that are doing it because there told to do it.’ The acceptance of compliance illustrating how Lukes’

first dimension of power is operationalised, particularly as evidence shows that compliance with governance protocols has not been straightforward:

‘[SE] want directors to have skills, knowledge and experience … Married against that you’ve got to have this diversity in terms of gender and minority ethnic representation. The struggle comes when you’re at a point where you don’t quite meet the gender bit, but you want to find the most skills, knowledge and experience that you can, and if they all come along and don’t fit into the minority ethnic or gender that you require, how do you reconcile the two’ (Interviewee: CEOEH).

Even so, EH claimed within its Annual Report 2017-18 (EH, 2018a, p.14) that it was

‘one of the first mixed-gender [NGBs] to have a majority of female members on its board of directors’, and achieved full compliance within the specified timeframe.

While this reflects EH’s resource-dependency and its commitment to maintain its membership of the SE-led coalition, it also represents EH’s notion of self-preservation, compliance having ‘put [EH] in a strong position to maintain its ability to access public funding’ (EH, 2018a, p.14).

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6.3.2) Funding

According to EH’s 2013-17 WSP (2012, pp.14-15), the funding received from SE for the 2009-13 funding cycle (£645,300), although weighted towards modernisation, positively impacted on EH’s ability to: i) develop the organisation and grow in stature;

ii) deliver on outcomes where resources had been targeted; iii) benefit from inclusion within a number of schemes that accelerated the growth of handball (e.g.

Change4Life [C4L] and PremierLeague4Sport [PL4S]); and iv) establish initial benchmarks to test demand for handball in England. While the above evidence demonstrates EH’s willingness to align with and commit to the ‘policy-core’ beliefs and objectives of government/SE, it also highlights the mutually beneficial interdependencies of membership of the SE-led coalition (e.g. EH’s inclusion within SE initiatives).

The strategic relevance of EH’s alliance to SE is demonstrated by EH’s attempts to maximise SE funding to achieve its objective to ‘establish handball as a major team sport for all’ (EH, 2012, p.13), through over-ambitious WSP submissions to SE to achieve desired funding outcomes from negotiations. An illustration of which is provided in Table 6.1, which shows the funding resource required by EH to operate and implement its 2013-17 WSP amounted to just over £2.5m, thus exceeding EH’s 2009-13 funding award by almost 300%. Subsequent negotiations with SE proved successful with increased funding awards of £1.3m for the 2013-17 funding cycle (EH, 2013b, pp.5-6), and £1.4m for the 2017-21 funding cycle (EH, 2017f, SE, 2017b), the latter also related to a funding application to SE for £2.5m (EH, 2016h, p.5).

141 Table 6.1: Funding resource requirements for England Handball’s 2013-17 WSP

Infrastructure 657,589 22,203 198,651 878,443

Projects 120,000 120,000

Core Costs 530,275 16,853 153,754 700,882

Totals 2,120,039 39,056 352,405 2,511,500

Source adapted from: EH (2012)

From Table 6.1, EH’s financial contribution to its own 2013-17 WSP appeared negligible, adding to the debate on the ability or reluctance of NGBs to be self-sustainable, particularly as evidence indicates that EH’s self-generated income has not matched the level of government/SE funding, which has led to a high dependency on public subsidies, as seen from EH’s income/revenue financial data in Table 6.2.

Table 6.2: England Handball income/revenue for the period 2014-15 to 2017-18

Year 2014-15

Self-generated Income 269,885 281,205 360,271 323,878

Other Income (Sport

Councils Grants) 458,440 486,118 639,951 436,711

Total Revenue 728,325 767,323 1,000,222 760,589

Resource-Dependency % 63% 63% 64% 57%

Source: EH (2016c, 2017d, 2018a)

Despite a key objective to ‘foster a commercially aware culture’ (EH, 2016b, p.12), it is evident that EH’s weakness as a sport in England has limited its ability to grow commercial revenues:

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‘[O]ur ability is minimal. Minimal to the extent that we don’t have the media profile, we don’t have the numbers, the volume that would be attractive to a bigger investor’

(Interviewee: CEOEH).

However, evidence has revealed reluctance on the part of EH to enhance its financial self-reliance through what is arguably its most fluid of income streams, membership fees. While EH has seen an increase in player registrations and affiliations, there has been no desire to increase membership fees (EH, 2017a), the cost of membership having remained ‘unchanged’ since 2013 (EH, 2018a, p.15).

This is related to a perceived paradox between increasing member numbers and increasing membership fees, whereby increased memberships fees are likely to reduce membership numbers, and that any increase in membership fees is also likely to increase the level of expectation among membership for improved services:

‘[W]hen someone comes along and says, “why don’t you increase your membership fees, put an extra £15-20 on membership fees and generate loads [of income]?” [I would say] “no, it might just bring me less members.” We’re already an expensive sport. If I suddenly say to people, you know your membership fees were £20 per year; they’re now £40 per year. Not only might they [leave], they’re also more likely to start [saying] what do I get for that, and there’s only so many times you can say to them, “well you get insurance”’ (Interviewee: CEOEH).

Funding for EH, has not only been the most challenging issue faced, it has been explicit in shaping the SMNGB through increased levels of resource-dependency on public funds, and a lessening of autonomy. As one Board member claimed, ‘the consequence of not allowing [EH] to grow actually makes the [NGB] less independent’ (EH, 2016h, p.6), which resonates with interviewee CEOEH’s remarks that SE retains influence over EH’s operational and financial activities, ‘no matter what level of resource-dependency’, again highlighting Lukes’ first dimension of power. Arguably, the comment regarding the limitations to growth is arguably connected to the extent to which EH is tied into the SE-led coalition, and not a reflection of EH’s development as an emerging sport and its evident progress since the formation of the SMNGB, particularly as a conditional part of EH’s 2017-21 funding agreement with SE is an obligation to regulate for self-sustainability, through the provision of information and analyses on income streams, back office costs,

143 business efficiency and scenario plans for dealing with changes in funding (EH, 2018b, p.7).

Evidence also suggests that EH has altered its beliefs and shifted away from the original emphasis placed on its relationship with SE, as a ‘development partner’, and now view SE as merely a ‘financial partner’ or stakeholder with reducing influence on the autonomy of EH, as clearly indicated by interviewee CEOEH:

‘SE [is] a partner … who provides investment into [our] business … [We’ve] chosen to take their money, so they don’t figuratively or literally have a seat at the table, but they have an interest.’

Moreover, SE’s 2016-21 strategy for sport and the shift away from an NGB-focused approach to participation, in line Sporting Future, not only exposed the high levels of resource-dependency of many SMNGBs, but also the apparent lack of understanding of the expectations that came with access to public funds, particularly among SMNGBs, and the speed and size of funding allocations that, for SMNGBs such as EH, prompted a rapid and impromptu rags to riches scenario, with a potential caveat of back to rags again:

‘[T]he challenge was that [NGBs] hadn’t realised that the increase [in public funds] for some of them was so great, some just weren’t ready for it. Suddenly, you had all this money and didn’t really know what to do with it apart from spend it. And that doesn’t always work if you’re not understanding where you need to spend and why you need to spend it, and it’s not about the short-term but about the long-term. I think handball was guilty of that and one of those thrown a big bundle of cash, told to get on with it, … and then it all fell down like a house of cards’ (Interviewee: CEOEH).

Interviewee CEOEH commented further that:

‘with a move away from participation to inactivity, [NGBs] are suddenly saying, “hold on we’re on the periphery now, the funding has suddenly almost halved, but we want to be the same size we were, as we weren’t really set up correctly.” So, I think that reliance on public funding was (sic) just exposed.’

144 For EH, the reliance on public funds has not just been exposed, it remains a critical mechanism to maintain operations at current levels, and to avoid a regressive organisational shift from ‘boardroom’ back to a ‘kitchen table’ organisation, as noted by interviewee CEOEH:

‘There’s always going to be a need for a certain level of [public] funding to deliver a certain level of operation. So, if that funding isn’t there, we’re going to have [to] … recognise we’ll go back to where we were pre-2005.’