What’s going on in Rotorua? I’ve just read this Facebook post from an organisation called “Rotorua Aquatics SOS”.

Rotorua Aquatics SOS – Save our Swimming Pools

January 15 at 7:55pm · Rotorua ·

In the last year RLC Group Manager for Sport and Recreation – also the President of Swim Rotorua – oversaw a Memorandum of Understanding on a 5 year partnership between the two entities. So did this person sign on behalf of both parties? Coincidentally he steps down from the position of President just prior to the outsourcing of Aquatic Centre was agreed to, after the Union starts asking questions about conflict of interest….!! #coffeeconsult

I wish organizations that post stuff like this would print the names of the people they are talking about. Simply using titles gives the impression that they are so unsure of their facts that they avoid names for fear of being sued. In a story like this, if you are that unsure, if you are that concerned about legal consequences then you shouldn’t have published the story in the first place.

I have no idea of the background or even the truth of what is being said here. But the inferences are disturbing. The statement seems to be saying that the Rotorua Lakes Council Sport, Recreation & Environment Manager, Rob Pitkethley, was also President of Swim Rotorua when a five year partnership Memorandum of Understanding was negotiated between the Council and Swim Rotorua. The Council is, of course, a public body. Swim Rotorua is a non-profit swim club, registered with Swimming New Zealand. Deals done between public and private bodies are subject to a variety of important rules. Every society, even in Rotorua, needs to ensure public funds are managed properly.

The statement goes on to claim that Rob Pitkethley was the Rotorua Lakes Council Sport, Recreation & Environment Manager and President of Swim Rotorua until shortly before a second agreement was signed outsourcing the management of the Aquatic Centre. The inference is that Rob Pitkethley was involved in the negotiations and resigned from the swim club just before the management agreement was signed to avoid the accusation of a conflict of interest.

Whatever the detail, the impression of all this, is not good. I don’t think anyone is saying something illegal happened. But has Rob Pitkethley had his fingers in too many pies at the same time? Has he acted unwisely? It certainly seems like it. I did ask someone with good contacts in Rotorua whether these events were as bad as they looked. He said yes. If that is the case, I am disappointed. A prominent member of Swim Rotorua is Bronwen Radford. She is a long time administrator and should know better than to allow the same public official to do deals in his private and public capacity. Council employees simply cannot do deals with themselves. These contracts do not appear to go that far. But they do appear to be too close, a lot too close. And resigning just before a contract is signed does not improve the situation. If anything, it makes it worse. The impression of trying to hide something bad is magnified by the resignation. The timing suggests Rob Pitkethley knew he should not be there. The impression, or perhaps the reality, of a conflict of interest clearly concerned him sufficiently that it forced him to resign. If that is the case, why did he wait so long? He should have been gone when the idea was first proposed, not when a done deal was about to be signed and Union bosses were asking questions.   

Public officials need to be seen to be cleaner than clean in these sorts of transactions. That principle underlines good government in countries like the USA, New Zealand, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. The Americans thought it so important that, in a clause called the Emoluments Clause, they incorporated the rules for deals like this in their national constitution.

The purpose of the Emoluments Clause was to ensure that the country’s leaders would not be improperly influenced, even unconsciously, through any factor that compromised a clean, “arms-length” transaction. The Emoluments Clause also broadly encompassed any kind of profit, benefit, advantage, or service, not merely gifts of money or valuable objects. It was recognised that many arrangements, not just money, could threaten exactly the kind of improper influence that the clause was intended to prevent.

On the surface of it, events in Rotorua appear to have sailed close to a breach of the Emoluments Clause. If Rob Pitkethley acted for the Council and was the club President when a deal for access to the pool was being negotiated that would not be proper. And in the United States would probably be unconstitutional. If, as is alleged here, Rob Pitkethley, acted for the Council and a pool user such as Swim Rotorua while a lucrative management agreement was being negotiated, that also would not be proper. Apart from his last minute resignation he appears to have shown a Trump like disregard for emolument rules.

These events in Rotorua also raise questions about the fitness of Swimming New Zealand to govern. Swim Rotorua is a Swimming New Zealand registered club. Therefore Swimming New Zealand has a responsibility to ensure good behaviour. In this case the President of a Swimming New Zealand club may have been acting improperly. That needs to be investigated. I have had, “up close and personal” experience of what can happen when a club President behaves badly and is not called to account. When Swimming New Zealand abdicates their duty to monitor the leaders of their member clubs, chaos can result. Rotorua may have acted like the wild, wild west on this occasion. But that is no excuse. Even Rotorua is subject to rules and procedures that control those who govern. And it is the responsibility of Swimming New Zealand to ensure its members act properly. Swimming New Zealand should investigate, but they won’t.

Many Swimwatch posts have discussed the decline in the standard of New Zealand’s top swimmers. The evidence is pretty overwhelming. In 2017 New Zealand suffered its worst performance at a World Championships, a historic low number of New Zealand records were broken and the country could only qualify two swimmers for the 2018 Commonwealth Games individual events.

We have heard very little from the Swimming New Zealand Chairman, Bruce Cotterill, or from the Chief Executive, Steve Johns, about why New Zealand swimming was performing so badly. We were told a new Targeted Athlete and Coach Manager would be announced in mid-January. Well today is the 15th January and we’ve heard no more. Johns did talk to the Stuff website about swimming’s lack of performance. The gist of his argument was that fast swimmers were only a part of the organisation’s role. Swimming New Zealand should not be judged on performance alone. Participation was what was really important, he said.

This is how Stuff reported the views of Steve Johns.

“Swimming NZ chief executive Steve Johns said the organisation can’t solely focus on the performance “shop window” of the sport. “Some people often forget that the mandate of Swimming New Zealand is everything from grass roots – beginners’ swimming – right through to high performance swimming,” Johns said.

“Often the HP bit becomes the shop window – and certainly the bit as an organisation we get judged on. It’s an area where we put a significant amount of time and investment into, but there’s the other part of our business which is about growing swimming and getting more people into swimming, making sure our clubs are more capable and able to attract more people.”

“A lot of our big clubs in Auckland and Wellington can’t really take any more people because they’re at capacity in terms of the water space they have available.”        

The first thing that needs to be said about all that is – it’s a cop out. All he is saying is we might have failed to perform competitively but the important thing is to get more people into swimming. That is what we were really doing. My thought when I read that was, champions don’t talk like that.

But then it occurred to me – John’s is shifting the focus of attention from performance to participation. That’s understandable. He does not have any performance highlights to talk about. So change the subject. But then I wondered, how have Bruce Cotterill and Steve Johns performed as far as participation is concerned? Have their holistic goals yielded success elsewhere?

To test that I went back to 2010; two years before Bruce Cotterill existed at Swimming New Zealand, two years before Miskimmin gave us the flash new Constitution. And for the eight years since I found the number of competitive swimmers, the number of clubs and the number of coaches registered with Swimming New Zealand. The results are shown in the table below.

So here is the deal. In the reign of Bruce Cotterill at Swimming New Zealand and Steve Johns for the last twelve months:

1. The number of registered competitive swimmers has declined by 850 swimmers, 13%. The decline has fluctuated by small amounts but has also been steadily downwards.
2. The number of registered clubs has declined by 15 clubs, 8%. Johns suggests that might be a good thing. His view seems to be that bigger clubs deliver better service. There is no evidence of that argument having any validity. Incidentally his pool space argument is puerile rubbish as well. Eight years ago, with fewer pools the sport managed to accommodate almost 1000 more swimmers and 15 more clubs. In the eight years since 2010 more pools have been built (The National Aquatic Centre for example), 1000 swimmers have fled the sport and Johns is still using pool space as an excuse for the failings of the organisation he leads.
3. The number of registered coaches has declined by 381 coaches, 61%. The decline is the one that would concern me most. Throughout this eight year period these pages have argued that Swimming New Zealand’s focus on the Millennium High performance coaching centre was destroying the infrastructure of New Zealand’s regional coaches. The figures now seem to support that view. And that holds true even if there has been some alteration in the counting method. Coaches deliver this sport. Coaches provide the excitement and interest. And today Swimming New Zealand has only half the number of providers that it did eight years ago. And the blame for that lies 100% at the door of Swimming New Zealand. They pursued policies that tore the heart out of the sport. And they were told. In 2017 membership of the American Swim Coaches Association reached a record level; and so did the number of competitive swimmers registered with USA Swimming. It will be a while before New Zealand sees record numbers in either category again.

And so it seems that, whether the discussion is performance or participation, the message is all bad. I personally don’t think Johns or Cotterill are up to the task of fixing it. My view is that they simply don’t know the product. What they say publically doesn’t make sense. Excuse the pun, but I think they are way, way out of their depth.

The previous three Swimwatch posts have discussed concerns I have with the management history of Bruce Cotterill and Steve Johns. The culmination of the discussion was the revelation that Swimming New Zealand’s plan to introduce a program of “targeted individual development” was most probably a rehashed copy of a program Steve Johns tried at Tennis New Zealand. Johns even called it the same name.

The Tennis version failed, but not before it had revealed itself as an expensive ruse to extend the Federation’s power into the daily preparation of talented players. In Tennis the program contributed nothing to New Zealand’s international results. And it certainly was not “targeted individual development”. It was Federation control dressed up in a fancy new name.

There is every reason for concern that the Cotterill and Johns’ plan for “targeted individual development” is a copy of the Tennis program and will have the same fate. When will these guys learn? Centralised, Federation controlled, preparation is a thing of the past. It does not work. It failed in Germany, the Soviet Union, Germany, Australia, France and after spending eleven million dollars it failed in New Zealand. And changing the name from “centralised high performance training” to “targeted individual development” will not change that fact.

So what are the chances that this is what Cotterill and Johns are scheming? The best way to answer that is to look into the history of both men. That’s why we wrote the previous three posts. And the conclusion, I believe, is that there is every reason to fear that we are about to be conned blind.

What is it about Cotterill and Johns that leads to this conclusion?

First of all we know that Johns is a self-confessed authoritarian. He has already promoted the idea that senior swimmers should be forced to shift to Auckland if they want to be selected for the national team. Second we know he was committed to his version of “targeted individual development” in Tennis as a way to extend Federation power.

We also know his experience of senior pool swimming is limited. He made an early choice to focus on waterpolo and surf lifesaving. It seems as if he was not particularly academic either. We have commented before on the standard of English in some of his emails. In School Certificate he managed to pass three subjects with a Grade of B2 or better.

And finally there is ample evidence in his Tennis New Zealand Annual Reports that he curries favour with Sport New Zealand. I think it is very reasonable to believe that he is acutely aware Miskimmin wants swimming to hold on to a central training program. And being as Miskimmin pays most of Johns’ wages, I suspect, that is what Johns and Cotterill are going to deliver.

And so on one side we seem to have a not particularly academic, authoritarian administrator with limited senior pool swimming experience.

On the other side we have Bruce Cotterill. He certainly seems to have the talent to manipulate events. The internet tells me Cotterill uses the expression, “It’s easy to soar like an eagle when you surround yourself with turkeys.” An employee at Yellow Pages called it “a practice he implemented to the max.” Is he doing the same thing at Swimming New Zealand?

In fact the circumstances around Cotterill leaving Yellow Pages are full of worrying events. The respected “National Business Review” reported his departure with the comment, “One well-placed insider welcomed the change telling NBR they need a turn-around person, not a blind cost-cutter, but someone with vision that can free up bureaucracy”. If vision is a Cotterill shortcoming perhaps he genuinely does not understand why a club and coach-based program yields superior results. Perhaps he should ask.

Of course we have no idea what his goals are at Swimming New Zealand. The evidence suggests communication is something he preaches but does not practice. However whatever his goals are, there is every reason for the members of Swimming New Zealand to be very cautious. Cotterill could very well be leading us into a “targeted individual development” trap.

Because there appears to be another side to Cotterill. Here is a range of comments made in the “National Business Review” article published in February 2011.

1. Based on his performance he should resign from all boards.
2. A right-off 1.8 billion dollars in debt! Very few CEO’s that have underperformed consistently have any reason to stay or get pushed.  Interesting where he will appear next.
3. Sources say it is a genuine resignation, not a case of being pushed.  Sounds like a good candidate for a Tui billboard.
4. Who has been a naughty boy then?
5. Mr Cotterill does though have a unique way of going about things when it comes to dealing with others. Mr Cotterill, what goes around, can and usually does, come back and spank you on the arse.
6. Brucie wasn’t up to the task.
7. Reading this thread makes you wonder how did he ever get promoted to this level?
8. This guy leaves a trail of destruction at every company he joins.  Look out the next sucker that takes Bruce on. He will destroy any company in the shortest possible time.
9. Bruce resigned because he underperformed regardless of the debt restructure.
10. Mr Cotterill was never a people’s person.
11. The managers who deserted Yellow will end up with a level of CV attractiveness equally that of dog-shit floating in a swimming pool on a hot summer’s day.

Is it somehow prophetic that this final comment on the Yellow Pages mess should end up in a less than successful swimming pool?

It is worth stressing that I have no personal knowledge of the events that occurred at Yellow Pages. However there were serious problems and it appears that not everyone was delighted with the way Cotterill went about trying to sort them out.

Whatever the truth might be, I believe, there is sufficient evidence for us to be very cautious about the motives of Swimming New Zealand’s leadership. If “targeted individual development” is a ploy that these two have invented to con us all and keep Miskimmin happy it should be rejected before your son or daughter becomes another pawn in their pursuit of power.

My previous two posts discussed concerns I had about the Swimming New Zealand CEO, Steve Johns and the Chairman, Bruce Cotterill. The Steve Johns post discussed his authoritarian suggestion that elite swimmers should be forced to swim at the Millennium Institute. I pointed out apparent contradictions in his policy positions. I highlighted the perfect example Steve Johns swimming career was of the swimming malaise of early teenage dropout. And I expressed concern at the close contact he once had with surf lifesaving admirer, Stephen Pye.

But there are other issues that should be discussed.

In my coaching career I have been fortunate enough to know some of New Zealand and the world’s best coaches and administrators. People like Schubert, Lydiard, Laing, Jelley, Hurring, Judith Wright, Rudd and Thomas. One feature characterised them all. They were uncompromisingly positive. Problems were dismissed in their quest for success.

I have also met those who always have an excuse for being beaten or a well prepared reason to explain failure. Many of the comments made by Steve Johns appear to put him in this ready-made excuse gang. A series of Steve Johns’ quotes illustrate the point.

“Success on the international stage requires a significant financial investment in both our players and coaches. 

In a sport (tennis) that receives no high performance financial support from Sport New Zealand we are always going to struggle to provide sufficient support to our players to enable them to have a real ‘crack’ on the international circuit.

Because of our geographical isolation, we will always struggle to participate fully in the international tennis circuit.”

As you can see none of that appears to have much in common with the spirit of Loader, Snell, Halberg, Walker, Dixon and Quax; or even Jeffs, Copland, Chellingworth, Baker and others who went out, on their own dime, took on the world and were successful.

It would be interesting to hear Steve Johns explanation of an apparent decline in club membership while he was at Tennis New Zealand. During his tenure his policy emphasis appeared to change, from elite success to mass participation. I suspect he made the change because it gave him better access to a Sport New Zealand welfare cheque. The table below suggests that attracting more club members was not a Steve Johns’ shining moment. The table shows the registered club members in each year of Steve Johns’ employment. Although Steve Johns left in 2017 I have included 2017 membership numbers. The policies put in place by Steve Johns in 2016 would have influenced the numbers the following year.

The old expression in statistics that “figures can’t lie but liars can figure” has never had more validity that an interpretation of this set of figures. I would argue that the policies prior to Steve Johns arrival resulted in a membership of 37152. During 2013 and 2014 this early good health gradually deteriorated until in 2015 membership began to decline and continued to do so, in ever increasing numbers, through to the period immediately after Steve Johns left. Overall the sport’s club participation numbers declined by 7%. If that analysis is accurate we can only hope he has learned something from the experience and does a better job in swimming.

However I have kept the worst until last. My main concern is we may be about to witness the biggest policy heist in swimming history. Readers of Swimwatch will be aware of the qualified welcome given to the news that Swimming New Zealand has decided to replace the centralised Millennium high performance centre with a targeted athlete program based around the appointment of a Targeted Athlete and Coach Manager. That welcome is withdrawn. There is the very real prospect we are being patted and placated in order to be deceived. You see the swimming proposal is simply a rehash of a targeted athlete program imposed by Steve Johns at Tennis New Zealand.

The tennis version only seems to have lasted a couple of years. Having failed to make his version of “targeted athlete development” work in Tennis Steve Johns seems to be having a crack at doing the same thing in swimming. While the program in Tennis was a Steve Johns favourite it appears to have had less to do with individual development and more to do with the federation imposing and extending its influence. We know Steve Johns has authoritarian tendencies. Remember he said in his first interview at Swimming New Zealand that it might be a good idea to force swimmers to attend the Millennium Institute if they wanted to swim for New Zealand. We are not East Germany and should resist efforts by Steve Johns to push us in that direction.

In Tennis the deception was promoting the scheme as targeted individual development; the reality was more state control. For example, in the first year of the tennis targeted athlete program, players were selected to go off to Europe in a Federation team, coached by federation coaches. The Federation had a base in Holland where players competed and trained as a Federation team. That is not “targeted individual development”. That’s an old fashioned state run dictatorship. Training camps for young tennis players were added to lure and seduce more players into the Federation’s “targeted” web. This had nothing to do with making the players and their home clubs and coaches stronger. It was a simply a $248,000 per year ruse to extend and consolidate Federation influence and power.

It annoys me that I thought Swimming New Zealand may have seen the light; had turned a corner. It annoys me intensely that I may have been conned by them.

I was asked recently if I would support the targeted athlete program. I said yes. However if Steve Johns and Bruce Cotterill, having utterly failed to impose state control of the sport through the Centralised High Performance Program, are trying to do the same thing under the cover of a deceptive stunt, then they and the new manager will get nothing but grief from these pages.