#27 CAPS

According to the NGB website the Club Action Plan Scheme (CAPS) is designed as a ‘development tool which enables you to develop a wide range of areas within your club’. 

To be fair to the NGB they acknowledge the vast amount of work volunteers put in to make netball happen and go on to say ‘ England Netball relies on volunteers and clubs to help us in all areas, and they make a huge contribution to the game of netball. We have developed a toolkit to help you pull together the evidence you will need to gain the accreditation and will show you key areas where you might need further work.’

https://www.englandnetball.co.uk/support/support-for-organisations/clubs/caps/ 

In essence, CAPs is meant to help volunteers run their netball club - give them the tools to make it easier and ensure netball happens in a safe way, so participants keep coming back for more! 

Except it doesn't, well not in my opinion anyway. I’ve just finished coordinating my third CAPs folder, and despite assurances that ‘it’s so much easier and quicker’ online, it’s not. 

In fact I would go as far to say it’s much more difficult and takes much longer. 

It has taken me best part of a year from first email to confirmation that we have passed. 11 months if you take out the month long ‘break’ I took from it. 

That in itself should tell you everything you need to know about CAPs - I had to take a break from completing it because it became so stressful, overwhelming and all-consuming. 

This is a tool that’s meant to help volunteers! 

I’m happy to explain some examples to emphasis my point - there are far more then just these three  though! 

1) 6 months for my DBS check. To put this in some context I had to do another DBS for my job just before Christmas: which took 5 days! I even worked out what the problem was (automated email for payment was going to an old work email - those who know my old employers will see the irony!) but still nothing was done! I called the DBS service myself - where they did indeed confirm my suspicions! Eventually, after nearly 6 months, the NGB took payment over the phone! 

2) The vast amount of chasing up I needed to do. To their credit I know how hard our local NGB staff members work - but with a part-time NDO (Full time until recent years but the County has not got any smaller!) and the fact that they were over subscribed with CAPs folders ('‘We had such a high number of folders at this assessment - think the competition changes definitely contributed as we had by far the most folders!’') The poor staff members must be stretched to the limit. I know they have targets and successful CAPs folders are one measure of success. Perhaps there was just too many to support in the last year, maybe they wanted some held over until the next year!?!

3) Over qualified volunteers! Our Safeguarding Officer is a high ranking Children’s Social Worker and as such her qualification superseded the documents listed to be verified. I wont go into detail but honestly, it caused so much adversity we nearly lost a valued volunteer over it! 

In conclusion the CAPs folder just doesn’t do what it sets out to do! I would go as far to say it’s become a hindrance, not a help. 

It’s probably best to confirm I do agree, in principle, to some of what CAPs sets out to achieve. Of course clubs should have safeguarding measures in place, an appropriate number of qualified first aiders, regular communication with parents and qualified coaches looking to up skill. 

You only have to watch the recent ITV investigation into British Gymnastics to know how important these checks are. 

Our already overworked and undervalued club volunteers, the ones completing this never ending CAPs folder, probably don’t have time to up skill everyone on the benefits of website design, for example, at a committee meeting though. 

My research indicates there may even be clubs that ‘fake’ evidence or have committee members ‘for the sake of CAPs ’ in order to pass the accreditation. 

Why do clubs need the CAPs accreditation anyway? Well, in some areas, leagues demand that all clubs competing must have at least a bronze CAPS accreditation. 

It is the ONLY reason I had to go through this process. 

I am pretty sure a brief, but concise, checklist of qualifications and documents - with support from NGB members of staff as to where volunteers can obtain such qualifications, would be a beneficial alternative for all. It would also help those staff members plan such courses! 

I am not an expert but common sense dictates that list should include 

- a recent safeguarding / child protection course

- an in-date first aid qualification

- relevant equality training

- DBS checks for all adults working with juniors 

- check that coaches have relevant qualifications and recent CPD. 

How many of each document would reflect how many members the club has. 

I also agree that these qualifications should be regularly checked and updated. 

I don’t think it needs to have whether a Club cheque book has two signatories on it (who uses cheque books anymore anyway!?!), different ways the club communicates with members (if they weren’t communicating effectively they wouldn’t be a club!) or a declaration that committee members live at the same address. (Really!?!) 

As the CAPs folder stands at present I would estimate at least 50% of it is either not relevant or can be lost. That’s half the work load for our fabulous netball volunteers and half the work load for our NGB staff members - resources that can be deployed in more beneficial ways. 

I am a huge advocate of our army of netball volunteers, netball simply wouldn’t happen without them. I believe we need to be making their job easier  in order to administrate, organise and grow our great game. 

We need more hardworking, passionate volunteers not less. 

CAPs needs an urgent review and until that happens my advice to all netball volunteers is not to touch it unless you really have to!