This was published last September and reaction was less than favourable from the grass roots of the sport.
Hopefully now the report has been shelved for good, although perversely it was well received by the senior administrators of the sport.
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The report though highlighted for me one of the biggest problems that athletics, particularly main stream athletics, now faces.
The thrust of the governing body is pulling in a different direction to the mainstream.
Currently UKA starts to recognise athletes from U13 level, and the earliest a child can compete in any UKA recognised competition is at the end of their Year 6 in April, as the track and field season starts.
They then have 2 years at U13 level before moving up.
The report recommended, for no logical reason, that the current age groups of U13, U15, U17 should be changed to U14, U16 and U18.
This would have effectively ruled out competitive athletics for any child at primary school, and leave them unable to compete until their first spring term of secondary school.
The reality on the ground is different. Although U11 athletics is not recognised by UKA, there are still opportunities, but mainly for endurance athletes.
The Red Rose Cross Country League has a highly successful U11 competition that has grown from just open races a few years ago, and been incorporated in to the League for the first time.
The Mid Lancs League also has U11 cross country races, often senior road races have junior races attached and at many fell races you will see extremely well supported junior races often starting with an U8 race.
In track and field the younger end have to rely on specially arranged open meetings, but they are in demand and U9 and U11 events are extremely popular, although not widely available.
As "Chief Recruiting Officer" at my club, attending town champs etc, and going directly in to schools at times, I encounter a regular problem.
When I identify a talented young athlete, they are all too often committed to one or more sports already.
Swimming, football, rugby, gymnastics and netball are the main ones, and the governing bodies of all these sports have structured support for the young participants starting several years earlier than athletics.
The grass roots in athletics is clearly responding to demand, by its unofficial competition provision, but until UKA ends it's ageist attitude and starts following the demand, then I fear that athletics will have difficulty finding the future Daley Thompsons and Mary Peters as they will most likely have been snapped up by football or netball by the time we get to see them.
When we hear the word ageism, we instinctively think of discrimination against people of an older age.
Unfortunately UKA is displaying an ageist attitude against the young, which is holding back the sport and will continue to do so until they come in line with the people at local level.
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