Lancashire on expansion trail

The Lancashire Cricket Board is on a recruitment drive to enlist the expertise and resources required to deliver the ECB's National Strategy for Cricket 'Building Partnerships' through to 2010.

As part of the strategy, all cricket boards are committed to delivering six Key Performance Indicators, each related to raising participation and performance levels, in order to qualify for extra funding and LCB has put in place a new staffing structure to enable it to meet its year-on-year targets.

It includes the introduction of a Business Manager, based full-time out of the LCB office at Old Trafford and appointment of three Cricket Support Officers to support the existing Cricket Development Managers. These Cricket Support Officers will ideally be based at Greater Manchester Cricket Partnership, Merseyside Sports Partnership and Lancashire Sports Partnership, who are the LCB's three key partners in the delivery of cricket.

Since County Cricket Boards were formed some 10 years ago, they had evolved significantly, explained Tony Crook, Chairman of the LCB.

"We are now required to be more professional and run the LCB as a modern business. This is further highlighted by the Board receiving large influx of funds and demands from us are inevitably high. It is therefore imperative we expand our structure so as not to compromise our position as one of the leading County Cricket Boards in the country.”

Andrew Hayhurst, Director of the LCB, added: “When Building Partnerships was presented to County Boards, it was vital that we were able to build our workforce in order to deliver in such a large cricketing County. We have received a huge amount of support off the Board itself, private enterprise and many of our local partners to give us these opportunities. This expansion also gives people coming into cricket development the chance to pursue a structured career, something that did not exist some three years ago.”

The new structure will enable the LCB to facilitate and service the county's Focus Club Community Clusters, which include Focus Clubs, plus the schools and communities linked to those Clubs. It is through these clubs that the LCB will be able to deliver all the outcomes through to the end of the ECB Strategy in 2010.

Bill Robinson, Treasurer of the LCB, commented: “Before the LCB was formed in 1996, if we had £3,000 a year to spend on cricket development and coaching, we thought we were doing well. Next year with the additional funding from the ECB and other agencies, our turnover will be over £500,000, provided we meet all our KPIs. It is essential, therefore, that we put in place an appropriate structure to ensure that we maximise our funding for the benefit of cricket throughout Lancashire.”

The LCB have already embarked on meeting KPI 4 – Coaches, by cementing a sponsorship deal with Barclays Wealth to employ Community Cricket Coaches. Currently 11 out of the 27 Local Authorities within the County have a full time community cricket coach. This will rise to 14 this autumn/winter.

Download the staffing structure as a PDF below:

LCB Staffing Structure (15 KB)

The six KPIs are:

1. Increase in participation through LCB-driven activity
2. Increase number of active accredited cricket clubs
3. Increase number of active members of cricket clubs
4. Increase number of qualified and currently active coaches and teachers delivering instruction in cricket
5. Increase number of active volunteers supporting cricket
6. Performance by teams and/or individuals in significant international championships and world rankings