December 11 - An inquiry into unaudited payments of £19.6 million from Sport England into grass-roots sports has found major flaws in its system but no evidence of fraud.



Led by Timothy Dutton QC, the inquiry found unsuitable funding for several sports not "fit for purpose".

Squash, hockey, karate and boxing took payments made through a Sport England bank account called the World Class Payments Bureau (WCPB) between 1999 to 2007.

But there was no proof of fraud as all payments were made to intended parties.

Dutton said: "What happened was that the WCPB became a processing function for the making of payments to sporting bodies or those working for them in circumstances where the sporting bodies were not deemed fit for purpose, but also in circumstances where there was not always adequate scrutiny of the requests for payment themselves."

Among examples of bad auditing that Dutton discovered was the case of a boxer being given £690 to compete in Lithuania but there is no airline ticket or hotel bill to back-up the claim.

In another, Dutton found a float for £1,500 relating to Karate England but no documentation on how it was spent.

Richard Lewis, the chairman of Sport, who ordered the £300,000 investigation after he was told of the account, praised the report.

He said: "I wish to thank Timothy Dutton QC for his report and firm conclusions as to how the World Class Payments Bureau was set up and operated, and the lessons that need to be learned from it.

"I asked for this inquiry to be established because I was concerned that between September 1999 and March 2007, a bank account had operated outside the usual financial controls of Sport England, falling far short of the procedures and safeguards now in place in this organisation.

"The report is detailed and in-depth and I welcome that.

"Most if not all the funding which was routed through the World Class Payments Bureau ended up in the hands of those for whom the payments were intended.

"There is therefore no basis for legal action by Sport England against those who were involved in the WCPB, or those who failed to report on its operations.

"There has been a clear improvement in management and financial controls since April 2007, and the chief executive has inculcated into staff a culture change: compliance is now high on the agenda."


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