Swim England to review historic safeguarding cases

Swim England, the national governing body for swimming, is set to review all historic safeguarding investigations amid concerns children have been left at risk of harm. Lauranne Nolan, Associate and Safeguarding Lead in the Keoghs specialist abuse team, considers this further.

As the national governing body for swimming in England, Swim England covers every area of swimming, diving, water polo, open water swimming and artistic swimming, including individuals from learners to teachers, from athletes to coaches as well as assisting swimming providers with information on facilities and best practice. In recent times, the governing body has been under criticism following complaints about how they have dealt with allegations of mistreatment, bullying, emotional abuse and weight-shaming. To address this, they commissioned Sports Resolutions to conduct a review which was carried out by barrister Louis Weston of Outer Temple Chambers and completed in March 2023.

The review looked at the handling of three complaints, looking specifically at the safeguarding processes and the culture around the complaints process. The review made the following nine recommendations for Swim England to:

1. Reassess its policies and recommendations and adopt a current meaning for “child abuse” which would trigger a safeguarding concern.
2. Introduce a new reporting process and investigation which makes it clear to whom safeguarding complaint reports should be made and how evidence should be recorded and prepared.
3. Provide sufficient training to volunteers where responsibility for safeguarding and other disciplinary functions falls to them.
4. Aim to create an independent disciplinary structure in order to resolve disputes independently of Swim England law officers.
5. Streamline and simplify its disciplinary processes with simplified rules, procedures and standard directions.
6. Redraft and reconsider the structure of Regulation 241 which relates to child protection and the powers entrusted under that Regulation to the CEO.
7. Give urgent consideration to the creation of a new disciplinary process.
8. Revisit its disciplinary and safeguarding processes so that any case in which sanctions are imposed are only reached after contested hearings in which the basis of sanctions are explained and justified against relevant criteria.
9. Review and reframe its regulations so that any sanction imposed can be subject to review by an independent person as well as any decision not to pursue a safeguarding investigation and/or inquiry are capable of being challenged by review by either an independent disciplinary officer or the body’s prosecutorial team.

The number of cases to be looked at as part of this historic review will be determined in due course and it is expected to be time-consuming, challenging to implement and costly. It is intended to cover complaints that are not only serious in nature, but also those where disciplinary action was not taken when it ought to have been. Swim England has stated that it is committed to creating a culture and environment in the sport that makes everyone feel safe, included and welcome.