Top swimming coach loses unjustifiable dismissal claim

David Lyles, who had previously coached in Britain and China, was employed as National High Performance Centre coach in 2013. Photo / Brett Phibbs

A top coach made redundant from Swimming New Zealand after a poor performance at the Commonwealth Games has lost his claim of unjustifiable dismissal.

David Lyles, who had previously coached in Britain and China, was employed as National High Performance Centre coach in 2013 but lost his job in February, less than two years later.

He was made redundant after the national sports body restructured its high performance programme in the wake of a poor performance at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Mr Lyles made a claim to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) that his dismissal was flawed, and that the newly created role of national head coach was effectively the same as his existing role.

Swimming New Zealand told the ERA that the high performance programme had not achieved the expected results at the 2014 Glasgow Games.

In the lead-up to the games, swimmers targeted for success at Glasgow were achieving slower times than previous personal bests.

And many swimmers aiming for the Rio Olympics in 2016 had elected not to train at high performance centres in Auckland and Wellington, so most of those training under the programme were "development swimmers", aiming for Tokyo 2020.

The failure to meet targets meant High Performance Sport New Zealand could slash funding for the sport unless Swimming New Zealand could show improvements in the lead-up to Rio.

Swimming New Zealand undertook to review its coaching structures, and decided to create a new national head coach role, which would have input into the training of swimmers overseas, bring them within the high performance programme and help them act as role models for other swimmers.

After consultation the restructure went ahead, and Mr Lyles unsuccessfully applied for the National Head Coach role.

The ERA found the national head coach role had greater responsibility and required different skills than Mr Lyles' role, and was not substantially the same.

The redundancy procedure, including the selection process for the new role, was conducted fairly.

It found Mr Lyles had adequate time to respond, despite being at the World Championships in Doha when he received the proposal.

The application was dismissed.