(Image: Basketball image)Basketball, while one of the most attractive and engaging sports available to young and all people in the UK today has also, with some justification, been regarded as a perennial under-performer.

Dogged by the presence of too many competing interests, overseas agencies seeking to ‘dip into' what is perceived as an untapped UK market and a plethora of small, commercially driven enterprises, the various bodies (of which there were several) faced a real challenge ‘getting a grip' on the sport. The sport was still considered, by virtually all commentators, to be one whose full development potential remained unrealised.

The review was commissioned by the (then) Minister for Sport, Richard Caborn in 2006. Its remit was to review the structure and governance of basketball in the UK, proposing a series of recommendations to:

• Develop and grow participation at grass roots and club level of the sport.
• Improve and enhance overall governance, structure and strategic direction of the sport.
• Establish a mechanism for building and sustaining improved performance at international level.

The urgency of change was brought into sharper focus by London winning the nomination to host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games giving basketball in Great Britain a very real opportunity to be represented for the first time since 1948.

Prior to the review, perceptions about the sport's ability to govern itself were badly damaged by the publicly aired fallouts between England Basketball and the British Basketball League (BBL) - the body that represents clubs that play professional basketball in the UK. There was also very public discord between the bodies seeking to represent the sport's Olympic interests.

(Image: England Basketball logo)Despite having been turned around financially and made strides in collaboration with its Scottish and Welsh counterparts, England Basketball (EB) still faced perception problems and was not perceived to have taken an effective lead on the domestic game. The British Basketball League (BBL) too, faced major problems; declining attendances, reduced TV coverage, a domestic reputation for playing 3rd rate foreign players (thus limiting routes into the professional game for home produced players) and poor international status because of the standard in its competitions.

Various factions then lined up behind different causes and bodies driving a range of diverse agendas few of which appeared to have the wider interests of the whole of the sport at heart. At the same time, at ‘grassroots' level, with only a few exceptions:

• Clubs were struggling to gain access to facilities.
• The quality of basketball in schools overall was considered to be low and the quantity patchy; it was facing a long-term decline in affiliations to the schools body.
• The quality of young players being introduced and developed (in particular girls) was universally acknowledged to be poor.
• Resources available to identify and develop talented players were inadequate.
• Mechanisms to produce and develop quality coaches at all levels were also not working.

In addition, only very limited progress was being made to bring the range of bodies that operate, often at cross-purposes, in the sport together ‘under one roof'.

Three external figures from industry were invited onto the Review Team; chair Tony Mallin (CEO of Star Capital Partners, Michael Sorkin Vice President of Rothschilds Bank and Stephen Redwood then CEO of Mercer-Delta UK. They were supported by staff from UK Sport, Sport England and ex-England international player Martin Henlan plus other consultants.

Knight, Kavanagh & Page was commissioned to manage the process, deliver the majority of the consultation plus the survey, and to prepare the final report on behalf of the Review Group.

KKP was selected because of its knowledge of the sport and its involvement was endorsed by England Basketball. CEO, John Eady who led the KKP team, also has extensive background in reviews of NGBs including the RFU, British Cycling, British Orienteering and Scottish Basketball.

The company also has a reputation for its ability to tackle tough assignments that necessitate both sensitivity to the issues and concerns of people and agencies within a sport and awareness of the needs of funding and delivery partners and stakeholders.

The Review included extensive consultation with governing body board members and professional staff (from England Basketball, basketballscotland, basketballwales, BBL and all the other bodies in the sport). It also involved speaking to players, coaches, administrators, home country sports councils and ‘grass roots' clubs, broadcast and press media representatives plus a wide array of other stakeholders. The process was underpinned by a survey of over 400 interested parties, which was completed largely by respondents from an e-mailing list supplied by England Basketball.

Its recommendations that cover all facets of the sport included the establishment and full funding of the, now functioning, British Performance Basketball and its gradual alignment (in an operational context) with a restructured England Basketball body. Wholesale change to the structure and composition of the board of EB along with the professional staff structure was recommended. This was, however, accompanied by a proposal (accepted by Sport England pending implementation of the changes proposed) for what amounts to a threefold increase in the level of ‘core' funding allocated to the sport in England. This, now superseded by England Basketball's whole sport plan settlement, was, in the view of the Review Group, a level of funding that, given the right leadership and management, would allow the sport to realise its full potential.