Review team qoutes from the report.

The review took longer than initially agreed for a number of reasons
including:
• At the time of the review the BJA did not have a comprehensive
process for recording decisions and activity relating to the
management of the case. All decisions and activity were recorded in a
series of 213 emails, many of which had documents attached to them.
It took the BJA 2 weeks of the review period to transfer these emails to
LimeCulture CIC securely as computer systems were incompatible.
The lack of an effective case management recording process is
discussed in the report at paragraphs 7.1 – 7.3.
• Following a review of the emails and documents, the Review Team
raised a series of detailed questions with the BJA. The Review Team
was of the opinion that these questions needed to be asked in order to
better understand the decision making that had occurred in the case.
Not all of these questions were answered in spite of the Review Team
waiting for replies and chasing the BJA on 2 separate occasions.
Consequently, the Review Team has not been in a position to evaluate
the additional information that these questions would have generated
nor factor them into the review.

Where dates are not included in the review, this is primarily because they
have been difficult to ascertain.

At the time of this case, the BJA recorded all case decisions and actions for each case in a series of emails with key documentation attached and held in files within the email account of In the opinion of the Team this is inadequate and does not allow for a proper audit of the case.

There is a lack of independence within current safeguarding
processes and procedures within the BJA. The Case Management Group is
made up of staff from within the BJA including the Lead Safeguarding Officer
who appears to be a decision maker as well as an investigator. Most Case
Management Groups (CMGs) in other sports recognise that, in order to
ensure transparency in their decision making, it is helpful to include
independent (i.e. non BJA) personnel in the CMG. These members should
be sufficiently experienced in safeguarding to ensure that their decisions are
meaningful and in line with current safeguarding practice. Whilst it is
acknowledged that the Lead Safeguarding Officer has a role to play in the
Case Management Group i.e. in presenting facts and information, should
not be involved in critical decision making.

It was unclear to the Review Team whether personnel who make up
the Area Boards have the requisite skills and knowledge to play any part
in delivering safeguarding. Key informants told the Review Team that at
Area Committee level some members demonstrated an ‘old fashioned
attitude’ towards safeguarding suggesting that they saw this as someone
else’s role and did not recognise their responsibility in addressing
safeguarding at their level. The Review Team is of the view that if Area
Committees are to have safeguarding included in the remit of their role,
then they should be appropriately trained to carry out that role.

It has been impossible for the Review Team to review many cases in depth
as part of this review and for those which have been there is little
rationale available within the body of the emails to explain some of the
decisions that were made – or not made as the case may be.
Consequently, the Review Team is unable to say with certainty that
every case referred to the NGB has been dealt with in the most
appropriate way

The Review Team is concerned that some cases included on the
spreadsheets from each of the last 3 years are still marked as pending.
These cases need to be reviewed as a matter of urgency to establish
whether they have yet to be concluded or whether in fact the
spreadsheet has not been updated with the outcome. If cases are still
open the BJA should take appropriate action to resolve the concern as
quickly as possible.

The Review Team was concerned that on a number of occasions
the BJA did not respond to incidents which may have breached BC’s
sanctions and indeed on one occasion which may have amounted to a
further safeguarding concern