Board of Management
The Doping Authority has a board with three members: a chair, a secretary and a treasurer. The secretary is nominated by the NOC*NSF, and the treasurer is nominated by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. For an overview of the board members at the end of the year under review the reader is referred to Annex 2.
The board delegates the responsibility for day-to-day matters, and for policy preparation and implementation, to the CEO. In other words, the board provides 'overall' direction.
Advisory Board
Under its articles of association, the Doping Authority has an Advisory Board. At year-end 2017, the Advisory Board comprised seven members (meaning that the board is up to strength), who all represent specific interest groups or a specific area of expertise. The Athletes Committee has also decided to appoint a regular deputy who can, when required, take over from the regular Advisory Board member on behalf of the Athletes Committee. The task of the Advisory Board is to advise the board, either on request or at its own initiative. It meets a few times a year. A list of the members of the Advisory Board can be found in Annex 2.
Office staff
In 2017, we lost two colleagues in a short time, in both cases completely unexpectedly. Bart Coumans, head of the Prevention Department, passed away on 12 June. Cor Mouw, doping control official, passed away on 5 December. They will be sorely missed.
During the year under review, the Doping Authority had three departments (Prevention, Enforcement & Investigation and Support), and a legal officer. The three department heads and the legal officer constitute, together with the CEO, the Management Team. One extra person (a documentalist) has been added to the staff temporarily for the implementation of projects financed separately. In addition, another member of staff was appointed at the Enforcement & Investigations department given the expansion of the national doping control programme.
At year-end 2017, the office organisation comprised 17 people and 15.3 FTEs. In addition, one position was held by a temporary employee and there is a vacancy. For an overview, the reader is referred to Annex 3.
Doping Control Officials (DCOs)
In addition to the permanent staff, there were 14 part-time Doping Control Officials at the end of 2017 (eight men and six women, see Annex 4), who were appointed under 'minimum hours' contracts.
Quality
Quality is of paramount importance in anti-doping policy. Many doping organisations therefore work with quality systems. This is particularly relevant for the implementation of doping controls: the National Doping Regulations require ISO certification as a precondition for conducting controls. However, other tasks such as the granting of therapeutic use exemptions and prevention activities should, in our view, also meet ISO standards. The Doping Authority and its predecessors in law received ISO certification back in 1998. In September 2013, our organisation acquired a new ISO 9001:2008 certificate. This certification expired in September 2016 and it was decided not to apply for a new certificate given the planned establishment of the Doping Authority as an independent governing body (which was planned for 1 January 2018). ISO certification will be addressed after the independent governing body has been established.
A Complaints Procedure was adopted and published on the website in May 2011. No complaints were processed using this procedure in 2017.
Therapeutic Use Exemption Committee (TUE Committee) and TUE Appeals Committee
One of the provisions in the doping regulations relates to the procedure for the use of prohibited medication. The Doping Authority has established, for the Dutch sports associations, a committee known as the Therapeutic Use Exemption Committee (TUE committee), which consists of independent doctors.
Athletes who disagree with decisions made by the TUE committee can appeal to the TUE Appeals Committee, which was established in 2016. The TUE Appeals Committee consists of three people. An appeal was submitted to this committee once in 2017.
Compliance with Doping Sanctions Committee and Compliance with Doping Sanctions Appeals Committee
The World Anti-Doping Code requires the Doping Authority to monitor the implementation of sanctions imposed for doping. If there is any failure to comply with a sanction correctly, the same sanction begins again after the end of the original sanction. The Compliance with Doping Sanctions Committee is responsible for determining whether there has been correct compliance with a sanction and whether there are any reasons to reduce a subsequent sanction. A Compliance with Doping Sanctions Appeals Committee was established in 2017 for appeals against decisions made by the Compliance with Doping Sanctions Committee. Neither committee had any cases in 2017.