UK Sport's Safe Sport Report 2025: A Bold Vision for Transforming Sport Safety

Following extensive consultation with stakeholders from across the UK’s sport sector (including national governing bodies, sports clubs, venue operators, and survivors of harm and abuse in sport), as well as a number of international safe sport organisations, the five UK Sports Councils (UK Sport, Sport England, Sport Scotland, Sport Wales, and Sport Northern Ireland) have published their Safe Sport Report. 

The report sets out bold new proposals for the adoption by UK sports bodies of standardised regulations and codes of practice pertaining to safe sport, with compliance overseen by a new independent lead body.

The current safeguarding landscape

The report found that although many UK sporting organisations have established comprehensive safeguarding policies and codes of conduct, a lack of harmonisation across those rules (and the resources available to sports organisations to enforce them) resulted in stakeholders perceiving the current safeguarding landscape within sport as fragmented and inconsistent. 

Respondents to Safe Sport’s consultation also considered that:

1. the approach currently adopted by sports organisations to safeguarding cases is overly procedural, legalistic and adversarial, meaning not only that cases are often slow to be resolved, but that the cost of managing such cases often leaves little time or resource to focus on prevention;       
2. a lack of centralised evaluation of safeguarding cases and/or sharing of data between sports organisations can facilitate abusers moving between sports and reoffending, while also removing the potential to identify and share learnings across the wider sporting community; and     
3. as a result, victims of harm or abuse in particular can perceive sports’ current safeguarding systems as ‘inadequate, dismissive, and lacking in transparency’.

In view of this feedback, the report sets out a number of recommendations designed to create a comprehensive and integrated safe sport system and culture, that draws upon the experience of a wide cross-section of participants (including those who have suffered harm in sport), and that can be implemented at all levels of sport, from recreational to elite. 

Key Recommendations

The report's recommendations centre on five core areas:

1. Design Principles for Safe Sport

The report recommends that any future approach to safe sport in the UK should be:

• Person-centred – i.e., should focus participants' voices and perspectives, especially those of victims.
• Comprehensive, integrated and holistic, addressing all elements of safe sport (including prevention and education) in a manner that reduces duplication between sports organisations, and allows sector-wide trends to be identified and shared early.
• Clear as to ownership, responsibility, and accountability for all bodies involved.
• Understandable and accessible, with processes that provide transparency and build trust (including robust, timely, and impartial decision making).
• Clear and consistent in the standards it promotes, and the language it uses, across the board. 
• Independent and impartial, where required.
• Research and data-informed, so as to allow evolution of practices over time.
• Viable and sustainable, through effective resource allocation.

2. A Unified Framework

Applying the above principles, the report calls for the creation of a safe sport framework developed by an independent leadership body (see point (3) below) in collaboration with stakeholders from across sport, including national governing bodies, participants, coaches, those with lived experience of harm, and wider partners such as the police and leisure sector.

This framework would include a series of principles, policies and processes (including in relation to matters such as expected standards of behaviour, complaint and case management, and use of data) that, while clear enough to achieve consistency between sports organisations, could also be applied with sufficient flexibility to accommodate for differences between individual sports, and/or differing legislation throughout the UK, provided that the spirit of the framework is adhered to.

3. Independent Leadership Body

Perhaps the most significant recommendation is the establishment of a new independent body to "provide leadership, coordination and to drive forward efforts to keep sport safe." This entity would have authority to create, implement and oversee the safe sport strategy and framework whilst monitoring and holding sports governing bodies accountable for delivery.

The rationale is clear: as one anonymous athlete noted, "there should be an independent body, not tied to the [sports governing body], to handle these cases. The sport can't mark its own homework”.

4. Independent Complaints and Resolution Function

The report also recommends establishing an independent complaints and resolution function (ICRF) across the UK.

Under this proposal, the ICRF would receive and assess reports made of safeguarding concerns before triaging the compliant to the appropriate body. Complaints deemed to be ‘significant, sensitive and complex’ (the precise scope of which is yet to be defined) would be retained by the ICRF for investigation and resolution (either by way of an agreed outcome or via a hearing before an independent panel), while all other cases would be referred back to the sport to resolve.

5. Realigned Funding and Delivery 

Finally, the report proposes reviewing and reallocating safe sport funding to align with the goal of preventing harm rather than reacting to harm. The fundamental aim is to reduce spending on lengthy legal cases and shift resources towards measures focused on prevention, learning and behavioural change. 

By introducing an integrated and harmonised approach, the report’s proposals also aim to reduce spending that would otherwise be duplicated across many sports governing bodies. 

International Comparisons: Learning from Global Leaders

To inform their recommendations, the report's authors examined successful models from other countries. The report specifically references learning from “established independent models in countries like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand”.

Australia's National Integrity Unit and Framework serves as a particularly relevant model, maintaining unified standards that can be applied across all sports while also recognising different legislative jurisdictions across states. This demonstrates how a coordinated approach can work across devolved administrations.

Canada's approach through Sport Canada and their own Sport Integrity Framework provides another example of independent oversight, where the Canadian Government has produced a series of policies that enable them to take a more consistent, human rights-based approach to sport integrity.

Meanwhile, New Zealand's integrated model offers insights into comprehensive system design across broader sport pathways. 

The report also draws parallels with the recently established Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority (CIISA), which was created to “uphold and improve standards of behaviour across the creative industries and to prevent and tackle all forms of bullying and harassment.” This demonstrates that independent oversight bodies can successfully operate across complex, multi-stakeholder sectors.

Implementation: A Phased Approach

The transformation won't happen overnight. The report outlines a three-phase implementation plan spanning over five years:

Phase 1 (Years 1-3): Foundations and stakeholder alignment, including appointing the necessary core teams, establishing a Community Council, and developing the Safe Sport Strategy, Framework and Code of Practice.

Phase 2 (Years 3-5): System integration and expansion across all NGBs, establishing the ICRF, and beginning comprehensive data collection.

Phase 3 (Year 5+): Full implementation and long-term sustainability, ensuring long-term funding and budget initiatives, embedding behaviour change at all levels and ensuring ongoing system improvement.

Conclusion: A Defining Moment

This report represents more than just another review – it's a call to action that could fundamentally reshape safeguarding procedures within UK sport. The extensive consultation process, involving everyone from elite athletes to grassroots volunteers, has produced a comprehensive blueprint for change that builds on existing good practices from both domestic sports bodies and international safe sport organisations.

The international comparisons in particular demonstrate that, with sufficient stakeholder support, such transformation is possible, whilst the phased implementation plan provides a realistic pathway forward. Most importantly, the report's emphasis on survivor-led, trauma-informed approaches signals a genuine commitment to putting participant welfare at the heart of sporting culture.

As the co-chairs note, this is “an incredible opportunity to drive comprehensive transformational change and help position sport positively at the heart of our communities.” It is to be hoped that sport in the UK can seize that opportunity.

Written by Alasdair Muller and Victoria Boylett