25 January 2008

England Athletics at their Council meeting held on Friday 14 December 2007 made the following decisions:-

English nominations to uka Peer Groups for selection to Televised, International and National meetings are now the responsibility of the nine English Regions. For 2008 Indoor & Outdoor nominations the Officials Committees of the English Territories were asked to make nominations as before. With effect from 2009 these nominations will be through three newly formed Tri-Regional Groups (not Supra Regional Groups as some previous briefing papers have proposed) to which the nine Regions will delegate this role.

The three Tri-Regional Groups will be:-

• Northern Group – comprising North West, North East and Yorkshire & Humberside

• Midlands and South West Group – comprising East Midlands, West Midlands and South West

• Southern Group – comprising South East, East and London.

Arrangements relating to the composition are being finalised within each Group, but the process for nomination to National meetings will be similar to that used by the Territories.

Officials Tri-Regional Group selection it is recognised that as the Tri Regional Group boundaries do not correspond directly to the old Territories, it will therefore be necessary to divide the English section of the “National List” into three new sub-lists. Officials will be able to make their own choice on this, particularly relevant in areas where there may be divided loyalties.

Affiliation of Officials is confusing many people.  All Officials will in future be part of a single database (rather than County, Territory, National lists, depending on grade).  This database, with appropriate security, will contain official’s personal details and their qualifications (complete or in progress). It will in England hold their primary memberships of County, Region and Tri-Regional Group. Officials will have, within reasonable parameters, complete choice over each of these primary affiliations, rather then purely by postcode. In athlete terms, this can be thought of as first claim membership, and, as with athletes there can be as many second claim memberships as required. In other words, an Official can be on as many lists as they wish. No doubt every County and Club will continue to keep lists of the Officials who work with them, and every affiliated Club and Association should have appropriate access to the database, to help them maintain contact with those officials who are associated with them. This registration process to be put in place during the first six months of 2008 and will initially concentrate on those officials who are on the “National list”.

Celtic Countries arrangements will remain unaltered.

UK Athletics have consulted closely with England Athletics leading up to the decisions set out above. and endorses this statement. A flow chart prepared by UK Athletics, setting out these arrangements, is available below.