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Sport Governance and Organisational Enhancement

Sport Governance and Organisational Enhancement Plans

Supporting sports to achieve contemporary governance arrangements

The Governance and Organisational Enhancement (GOE) Plan is the mechanism by which Sport Australia supports sports to achieve contemporary governance arrangements.

Using the annual Sport Governance Standards (SGS) results to help establish priorities, sports develop an action plan with the support of their SportAus Governance Advisor to raise their governance maturity level.

 Key elements of a sports GOE Plan

  • Tiered approach - the expected Sport Governance maturity level is relative to the size of the sport
  • Priority standards - sector-wide emphasis on implementation of priority standards, designed to create a step-change for the sector and focus resources
  • Template activities - prompting activities designed to directly achieve positive outcomes, supporting sports to hit the ground running
  • Resource support - a suite of resources is available on the Sport Australia site, designed to support sports to achieve desired outcomes
  • Chair/President approval - sports are required to ensure board and management are aligned
  • One plan for governance - the GOE Plan is designed to capture all elements of the governance journey, reducing duplication

Why should a sport have a GOE Plan?

There are multiple actions required to be taken regularly to develop and sustain effective governance practices. The GOE Plan is designed to collate these actions into a single document, simplifying the process, and enabling the Governance and Organisational Enhancement (GOE) Team to provide assistance to NSOs in a methodical manner.

Each GOE Plan will feature activities to assist a sport to improve their governance practices in areas which have been identified as sector priorities by Sport Australia and the State & Territory Agencies for Sport & Recreation (STASR). The achievement of these sector priorities will be supported by the Sport Australia governance advisor. NSOs will also have the opportunity to include activities within their GOE Plans to address additional standards, which will be identified by the NSO’s own responses to the SGS.

Sport Governance Performance Cycle for funded NSOs

The Timeline:

March - NSO/D-Self-Assesment-Online survey completed by each funded NSO/D via Partner Portal

April - Data Collection-SportAus GOE team develop insights to inform the Benchmarking Report

May - Benchmarking Report-SportAus release results of SGS self-assessment, deliver findings

June - GOE Plan Development-SportAus GOE team develop tailored plan for next 12 months, based on the individual NSO/D results-NSO/D Board endorse GOE Plan; Chair sign-off

July - GOE Plan Implementation-NSO/D deliver actions to improve governance maturity; SportAus Governance Advisor supports

AGM (Nov)-AGM (May) - NSO/D Boards Present Governance Report-Boards present governance performance to members in Annual Report at AGM

More information

For further information or to request assistance from the Sport Governance and Organisational Enhancement team, please contact sportsgovernance@ausport.gov.au.

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