18 July 2016 

British Athletics are pleased to announce the publication of the Official’s four year strategy ‘Make it Official’.

Officials are a fundamental element of our sport and without their dedication and expertise; competition at any level would not be able to take place. We are fortunate to have a strong, talented and dedicated cohort of officials and recognise the need to continue to support and develop these officials whilst also identifying, training and developing new officials to meet the needs of our changing competition schedules.

‘Make it Official’ sets out our strategic priorities for the next four years to ensure that we support our Technical Officials and provide the necessary training, guidance and development opportunities to enable us to deliver top quality athletics events.

British Athletics and the Home Country Federations recognise the challenges Officials face and the need to get more people involved in officiating at all levels. British Athletics will work closely with the Home Countries to provide easier pathways into officiating as well as alleviating the pressures for those who currently do the roles.

The document provides clarity and strategic direction to UKA and its partners, the Home Country Athletics Federations; defining roles and responsibilities relating to officiating within athletics.

It is acknowledged that there will be significant challenges along the way as the demands on people’s time become greater and the action plans at Home Country level that follow from this strategy document will need to reflect this and adopt flexibility and an ‘official-centred’ approach at the heart of their work. This strategy seeks to improve co-ordination and leadership of the Officials programme as well as setting the framework to deliver the operational side of the plans over the next four years.

To read the full strategy, click here. 

For further details on Officials queries, please direct to the respective areas:

UK Athletics – Paula Gowing pgowing@uka.org.uk or Claire Bensemann cbensemann@uka.org.uk

England Athletics – June Swift jswift@englandathletics.org

Scottish Athletics – Shona Malcolm shonamalcolm@scottishathletics.org.uk

Welsh Athletics – Chris Moss – chris.moss@welshathletics.org

Athletics Northern Ireland –info@athleticsni.org