The Paralympic Panel complements the line up already announced for Olympic sports, with both groups set to take up their duties this Autumn.

 

Chaired by UK Sport chief executive John Steele, and meeting quarterly, the Panel’s task is to provide objective assessment of each sport’s progress against its performance ambitions, as well as expert advice, to help the sports remain on track.

 

The information will be published quarterly on a sport by sport basis.

 

Details of the Paralympic Panel membership and how UK Sport’s Mission 2012 process will work were presented to a meeting of Summer Paralympic National Governing Bodies (NGBs) held today in London.

 

Steele said: “We will be measuring sports against three key criteria that centre around their performances on the field of play and the quality of support and governance they provide off it.

 

"Where things are not as they should be, our Performance expertise will be coupled with some of best thinking that Paralympic sport has to offer to find creative solutions to issues that threaten to have an adverse impact on performance in five years time.”

 

The Panel members are:

 

• John Steele – CEO, UK Sport
• Liz Nicholl – Director of Elite Sport, UK Sport
• Peter Keen – Head of Performance, UK Sport
• Chris Holmes – Nine times Paralympic gold medallist and a UK Sport Board Member
• Sue Wolstenholme - Director of The British Tennis Foundation
• Tanni Grey-Thompson - 16-time Paralympic medallist

 

Using a traffic light system, each sport will be benchmarked against its agreed aspiration for 2012. 

 

If scored green then progress is deemed to be on track; if amber then challenges have been identified that require attention or increased support. 

 

If the assessment is red, then the panel believes immediate remedial intervention is required and will make recommendations.   

 

The results of each evaluation will then be captured on a giant ‘Mission 2012’ tracking board in UK Sport’s Headquarters in London – with the overall status of the sport the main rating that will be visible. 

 

The board will be updated every quarter and will therefore give a regular and powerful visual representation of progress and areas of success and concern for all the Paralympic sports.

 

Steele said:: “Mission 2012 will be a means for UK Sport to continue to account for the substantial public investment now in place, but it is much more than that. 

 

"It is a vision for how everyone involved in the mission through to 2012 and beyond needs to work collectively and ensure that we maximise this unique opportunity for British sport. 

 

"There is no hiding place – nor should there be.”