Former Cricket Scotland chair assaults ‘fatally flawed’ racism report
The former chair of Cricket Scotland has issued a scathing criticism of final yr’s investigation into racism within the sport, calling the report “fatally and irredeemably flawed” and urging the Scottish authorities to fee an unbiased enquiry into the way it was put collectively.
Tony Brian, who was Cricket Scotland chair between 2015 and 2022, has submitted a doc entitled “complaints and whistleblowing disclosures” to SportScotland, the physique that oversaw publication of the Changing the Boundaries report in July 2022. His findings have additionally been copied to Scotland’s first minister and Audit Scotland.
Brian claims shortcomings within the report imply that the cost of institutional racism towards Cricket Scotland, which led to the board resigning en masse, was not supportable. He has additionally requested that the governing physique be faraway from particular measures.
“We now know that SportScotland’s so-called ‘independent’ report was flawed from its inception and a gross waste of large amounts of public money,” Brian stated. “The results of Freedom of Information requests and in-depth analysis of the report and its methodology now show clearly that it was a deeply flawed report with a pre-determined outcome conducted by ill-resourced and conflicted reviewers who failed to undertake proper forensic investigation or even to speak to many relevant individuals.”
Scottish cricket continues to take care of fallout from the Changing the Boundaries report, which recognized 448 examples of alleged institutional racism and located Cricket Scotland had failed 29 of the 31 exams used to measure the size of the issue.
In March, Brian’s successor as chair, Anjan Luthra, resigned after just six months in the role, citing disagreements with the way in which SportScotland was trying to run the sport. Cricket Scotland has but to interchange Luthra and is at the moment being run by an interim chief govt appointed final month.
Brian’s file argues that in addition to “up to £1m” in wasted public expenditure on the investigation, Cricket Scotland has missed out on “tens of millions of pounds of potential investment” via the ICC, with the report’s publication halting an software for Scotland to grow to be a Full Member nation, thereby unlocking additional funding.
Central to Brian’s criticism of the report is the function of Plan4Sport, which was commissioned by SportScotland to hold out the assessment into Scottish cricket. Plan4Sport is described within the file as “a small three-person consultancy operating out of a residential address in Staffordshire”, which had beforehand labored for SportScotland – and due to this fact was not totally unbiased.
Ten months on, the 448 situations of discrimination and 31 indicators of institutional racism haven’t been printed. After a Freedom of Information request, SportScotland revealed that it “did not validate or oversee the methodology or findings”.
Brian claims that key witnesses weren’t referred to as for interview, and that proof of “positive experiences of inclusion” was not given any weight. It can be steered that Plan4Sport had beforehand labored with Cricket Scotland on its Equality, Diversity and Inclusion framework, and didn’t elevate any issues about discrimination.
In response, SportScotland issued the next assertion: “That people still refuse to accept the findings of Changing The Boundaries is a cause for concern. The denial of racism is a barrier to racial equity and is doing further damage to the sport that so many people in communities across the country love.
“The findings of the Changing The Boundaries report had been accepted in full by the earlier Cricket Scotland Board who apologised a number of occasions for the racism and discrimination issues throughout the sport. The governing physique is now totally dedicated to implementing all suggestions contained within the report and we’ll proceed to assist them via the rebuilding course of.
“We have full confidence in how the Changing The Boundaries review was carried out and will not be conducting any further reviews.”