Westmorland County FA evidenced full compliance with the regional Code of Governance, which sets a higher precedent than the current gold standard for sport and aims to provide support and guidance to those running the grassroots game up and down the country.

In January 2020, The FA became the first national governing body in English sport to introduce a regional Code of Governance, with a number of other sports now following the model which has been endorsed by Sport England. The Code itself represents a ‘Gold Standard’ of governance, made up of 65 requirements based on Sport England and UK Sport’s Code for Sports Governance.

The requirements within the code means each County FA can assess their current practices against the highest standard of corporate governance in football, supporting their development and ensuring they have the structures, functional operations and decision-making processes in place to offer the best possible service to the game at a local level. The code also includes provisions for gender diversity, ethnic diversity and youth representation across the County FA network. All 50 CFAs have self-assessed against the Code and are committed to improving their governance, with Westmorland County FA becoming the 22nd to be fully compliant against the standard.

James Pattison, CEO at Westmorland County FA said: “We are immensely proud to be the latest County FA to achieve the FA’s Code of Governance. Over the last four years a lot of hard work and effort has gone into achieving the code and ensuring our compliance, once again showing our commitment to being a progressive forward-thinking organisation which strives for continuous improvement. There has been a lot of hard work behind the scenes from our fantastic Board of Directors and Staff team and my thanks go out to all of them for their contributions. Some of the highlights of our work in achieving the code include recruiting three independent directors to the organisation over the past 18 months and giving existing directors specific strategic responsibilities linked to the work of the County FA. 

"We have worked extremely hard in developing our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy and developing specific EDI targets for our County which we are now seeing fruition in. Ultimately, we want to ensure we are providing the best service to the game in Westmorland and having a robust, professional and effective governance structure is paramount to this and shows our commitment to our stakeholders in the game.”

Tim Foster, Head of Operations at The FA, said: “As the national sport that millions of people play and support across the country, it’s vitally important that The FA and the County FAs serve and lead the game as effectively as possible. Through this Code of Governance for County FAs, we have set out how they can enhance their governance at county level and ultimately deliver an even better service to their communities. I’d like to congratulate Westmorland County FA in becoming fully compliant and look forward to seeing many other County FAs achieve this same standard as their ongoing work progresses.”

Pictured: James Pattison Westmorland County FA CEO, Debbie Hewitt MBE, FA Chair & Peter Ducksbury Westmorland County FA Chair.