In August 2020, Sport Australia, in partnership with our colleagues from the State and Territory Agencies for Sport and Recreation, launched a new co-designed Sport Governance Framework. This framework incorporates the evolved Sport Governance Principles, new educational and support resources as well as a new evaluation and assurance system (the Sport Governance Standards).

The Evaluation and Assurance system has a greater focus on transparency, accountability and provision of ongoing support for continual improvement. This report, a combination of data from 64 NSOs, including 38 funded Olympic/Paralympic NSOs, is designed to provide insights for NSOs into the results and findings of the self-assessment process against the new SGS.

The data in this report is predominantly self-reported by NSOs. Sport Australia has reviewed the submitted data for obvious errors. However, due to the nature of self-reporting, Sport Australia is not able to independently verify all data in this report.

The SGS are an organisational governance evaluation tool. Sport Australia will be able to identify, advise, support, resource, and educate partners and, in turn, work with NSOs to continually improve their governance systems and processes. Similarly, State/Territory agencies are able to adopt the SGS to assist sporting organisations in their jurisdiction.

The standards enable accountability to both Federal and State Governments who provide significant investment to sporting organisations. This is coupled with members and participants, who have high expectations that sport at every level will be administered with the highest level of integrity and good governance. Finally, the SGS establish a transparent accountability framework that is publicly reported which evaluates a NSO’s adherence to the expected level of governance maturity.

Additionally, the SGS are intended to offer clear leadership on how improvement can be measured. The language is such that the SGS are applicable to all sporting organisations no matter size, jurisdiction or maturity.

Replacing the Mandatory Sport Governance Principles, there are 37 SGS across the 9 Sport Governance Principles, bringing the principles to life in practice.

Sport Australia will share the report, its finding and insights with other government agencies including Sport Integrity Australia and State and Territory Agencies for Sport and Recreation. Sport Australia will engage with these relevant agencies in the development of Governance and Organisational Enhancement Improvement plans for identified NSOs.

The Sport Governance and Organisational Enhancement team would like to acknowledge the invaluable contribution of the State and Territory Sport and Recreation Departments, as well as the NSO and state sporting organisation leaders who provided their time and expertise to the development of the Governance Principles and accompanying Standards. Further, the team would like to thank our colleagues at Sport Australia, in particular the Partner Portal team who helped to deliver a vital new system for self-assessment directly contributing to increasing capability across the sector.

Due to an unforeseen technical issue at the time the self-assessment went live, Standard 5.5 ‘The board operates under a documented board charter’ was not measured.

2.95/4 — The average self-assessed score for a Standard (across the 9 Principles) for all NSOs

The highest-scoring Standard across the sector was Standard 2.3 — ‘The organisation proactively engages, communicates and collaborates with its members, ensuring accountability and transparency’, which is somewhat inconsistent with the current issues presented to the Governance team on various fronts. Without diminishing the good work of many NSOs, given that this Standard does not map to a clear outcome, it is possible that the self-assessed nature of the evaluation reveals a discrepancy between perception and reality.

Principle 1 has two corresponding Standards which measure both the board’s utilisation of a code of conduct to set the example for the organisation; and the level to which the board engages with its stakeholders to establish, define and communicate its core values and behaviours. Consistently, NSOs reported, at best, under-utilisation of the Code of Conduct, and at worst none at all. In addition, NSOs also reported that there was room for improvement in the level of stakeholder engagement used to establish, define and publishes their core values and associated behaviours, and the communication of those values and behaviours across the sport.

Principle 4 — ‘The Players’ — revealed a disparity in results for board diversity. While gender diversity was the second-highest score in the assessment (3.5 out of 4), NSOs scored lowly in the Standard related to developing and achieving broader diversity targets within its board composition. Further, 71% of NSOs reported that all elected and appointed directors were independent and had no conflicts, achieving the maximum score for that Standard.

One of the most objective SGS measures is the assessment of an organisation’s legal status. This standard achieved the fourth lowest average score (2.4 out of 4), with 85% of NSOs stating ‘Our board has commenced discussions regarding transitioning to a legal entity under their jurisdiction’s relevant legislation’.

Board performance evaluation has consistently achieved low scores over numerous NSOs governance reviews. This Standard achieved the second-lowest score (2 out of 4), indicating a need for improvement in the evaluation of Boards and Directors and the implementation of resultant action plans. To support the sector, Sport Australia has recently developed (and is piloting) an updated board evaluation tool designed to provide alignment with the new Principles and Standards.

Consistent with previous industry assessments (Mandatory Sport Governance Principles 2016 and 2018), NSOs continue to score Succession Planning at the lowest end of the scale, with an average score of 1.7 out of 4).

VALUES-DRIVEN CULTURE AND BEHAVIOURS

An organisation’s culture and behaviours should be underpinned by values which are demonstrated by the board and embedded in its decisions and actions.

ALIGNED SPORT THROUGH COLLABORATIVE GOVERNANCE

Across a sport, boards should work together to govern collaboratively and create alignment to maximise efficient use of resources and implement whole-of-sport plans.

A CLEAR VISION THAT INFORMS STRATEGY

The board is responsible for overseeing the development of the organisation’s vision and strategy as well as determining what success looks like.

VALUES-DRIVEN CULTURE AND BEHAVIOURS

An organisation’s culture and behaviours should be underpinned by values which are demonstrated by the board and embedded in its decisions and actions.

DOCUMENTS THAT OUTLINE DUTIES, POWERS, ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES

An organisation should clearly define and document its structure and the duties, responsibilities and powers of members, directors, committees and management.

BOARD PROCESSES WHICH ENSURE ACCOUNTABILITY & TRANSPARENCY

Through effective processes and continual review of its performance, the board is able to demonstrate accountability and transparency to its members and stakeholders.

A SYSTEM WHICH PROTECTS THE ORGANISATION

To proactively protect the organisation from harm, the board ensures the organisation has and maintains robust and systematic processes for managing risk.

DOCUMENTS THAT OUTLINE DUTIES, POWERS, ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES

An organisation should clearly define and document its structure and the duties, responsibilities and powers of members, directors, committees and management.

DOCUMENTS THAT OUTLINE DUTIES, POWERS, ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES

An organisation should clearly define and document its structure and the duties, responsibilities and powers of members, directors, committees and management.