THERE were no major surprises or big smoking guns uncovered in the Indecon Review into Horse Sport Ireland.

Released on Tuesday by Agriculture Minister Michael Creed and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, overall the recommendations of the Indecon Review aim to streamline the organisation and maximise its effectiveness by tapping into the future potential of the sport horse sector.

Indecon described HSI’s spending as “transparent” and said it did not see any major areas where spending could be reduced.

Crucially, the Indecon Review recognised and endorsed what it termed the “significant potential” of the sport horse sector and its “potential greater contribution to economic development, particularly in rural areas”. The Review added: “There is a need to ensure the best use of scarce economic resources but Indecon believes that additional resources are likely to be required to facilitate the expansion of the sector.”

Indecon also endorsed the Reaching New Heights document as an “opportunity to expand” and urged HSI to “take ownership” of this strategy and implement its key findings.

Horse Sport Ireland was described in the Indecon Review, as a “complex web of organisations” with a Main Board; two Sub-Boards; several Board Sub-Committees and the existence of the independent Irish Horse Board.

It recommended that the Main Board be reduced from 19 to nine including an independent chair, appointed by the Ministers for Agriculture and Transport, Tourism and Sport, and external directors, all to be recruited via publicjobs.ie

One of HSI’s strengths was described as its role as a 32-county body with representation from Northern Ireland on it.

STREAMLINING HSI

The independent economic consultants questioned the balance of representational involvement and the impact on best practice corporate governance.

“We believe the existing structure is over-complex and is not best aligned with the need to develop commercial opportunities and maximise the economic contribution of the sector,” said the Report.

While Indecon recommended that HSI retain responsibilty for the national breeding policy, it suggested that the ISH and ID Studbooks be transferred to the Irish Horse Board which would be treated impartially as an affiliate.

On funding, Indecon advised that the revamped Board of HSI develop a “costed submission to Government outlining what would be achieved from Exchequer funding” and what options exist to develop other non-Exchequer funding sources.

It identified the Breeding Department as the single largest area of expenditure and staffing while equestrian coaching, CapallOir, accounted for “very small” proportions of spending.

International marketing represented 7.5% of spend.

Meanwhile the Indecon Review was welcomed by Horse Sport Ireland in a statement.

Jim Beecher, interim chairman of Horse Sport Ireland, said: “The report is very welcome but poses many challenges for Horse Sport Ireland. It is important that we keep the big picture in mind and work towards implementation in the interest of all our stakeholders.”

The report will be fully reviewed by the board and executive of HSI at their next board meeting on July 18th.

HSI BOARD

Describing Horse Sport Ireland as having a “very complex structure”, Indecon found that this was largely the result of the various agreement between the different sectoral interests.

Indecon did not identify any significant breaches of corporate governance within the HSI Board. As expected, the report did raise issues aimed at enhancing best practice governance in the future.

The Main Board was described in the Review as “exceptionally large” with 19 members with implications for governance and effectiveness. Indecon reported that it was “impressed by the commitment of board members who do not obtain fees for their inputs.”

The Sport Sub Board has 27 members while the HSI Breeding Sub Board has up to 19 members.

In its place, Indecon recommended a much smaller board of directors of nine people, backed by three consultative advisory councils, covering Breeding and Production, Sports and Leisure.

Indecon recommended that board directors should be appointed for a five-year period and that directors with specific skillsets be sought out to serve on the board.

It described as “very unusual” the existence within this structure of the independent company, the Irish Horse Board, a co-operative of breeders with a membership base and elected representatives.

Indecon recommended more focus on Risk Management, currently HSI is working on a Risk Register.