£180k for Ghosting the Job? Inside the BHA’s Champagne Governance and IT Graveyard

If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like if a regulatory body started confusing its balance sheet with a benefits package, look no further than the British Horseracing Authority’s 2024 accounts — a document so rich in contradictions it should be filed under “fiction”. It reads like a cross between a job application for The Reform Club and the last chapter of How Not to Govern a National Sport. Bonuses are handed out like confetti, digital disasters are swept under the rug, and a departing CEO is waved off with a payout you’d usually associate with leaving Goldman Sachs. After insider trading.

And the best part? The people running this ship still genuinely believe they’re in the business of transformation.

The Golden Goodbye for the Vanishing CEO

Let’s begin with the disappearing act of Julie Harrington, who glided out of the CEO suite in December with all the visibility of fog on the Rowley Mile. In return for this Houdini routine, she received:

• £598,000 in total pay, up from £370,000 the year before.

• A £180,000 “ex gratia” gift — corporate-speak for “thanks for doing bugger all, here’s a small house in Yorkshire.”

• And a £52,000 pension top-up, making her the only director with a retirement parachute inflated enough to float over the chaos below.

What was this for? The accounts don’t say. The board certainly didn’t. And she wasn’t around long enough in 2024 to explain it herself.

The BHA Board: Like a Parish Council With Pensions

Now, who rubber-stamped this executive pillow-fort? Every single member of the BHA Board, that’s who. A collection of otherwise intelligent people who stared at the numbers — impairments, losses, ballooning pay packets — and decided: “Smashing. Let’s publish it.”

This wasn’t a rogue payment. It was the institutionalisation of indulgence, the governance equivalent of doing your own driving test and then awarding yourself a trophy. And still they think they can reform the sport?

How can a Board that can’t say no to a CEO on her way out, or deliver a single IT project without writing off £1.9 million, be trusted to “transform British racing”?

The answer: it can’t. But it might “pilot a steering committee to review a framework to discuss possibly thinking about it.” Which is the same thing, right?

Racing Digital: Ctrl-Alt-Debacle

Now let’s check in with Racing Digital Limited — the BHA’s shiny joint venture that set out to digitise racing admin but ended up digitising its own obituary.

• £1.9 million spent.

• £1.9 million impaired.

• A project now worth less than a pub quiz token in Wolverhampton.

What did it deliver? Some PowerPoints, a few logos, and a debt of trust that may never be repaid. This wasn’t just mismanagement — it was mismanagement with a Gantt chart.

When the Spreadsheet Becomes the Joke

A forensic accountant — you know, someone trained to spot financial absurdity without fainting — could barely keep a straight face. The BHA 2024 accounts contain more red flags than a stewards' enquiry at Cartmel.

Here’s a highlight reel:

• Aggressive R&D tax credits used to dodge corporation tax — racing’s equivalent of claiming expenses for imagining a better future.

• “Adjusted operating profit” figures that ignore pensions and impairments, like doing a lap of honour with one leg missing.

• IT costs capitalised without timesheets, so asset values are basically drawn in crayon.

• A £1.4 million pension surplus mysteriously vanishing, thanks to technical actuarial wizardry.

• Generous director indemnities, ensuring no decision is ever really a mistake — just “a learning”.

It’s not criminal. It’s worse. It’s compliant chaos, tidied up with footnotes and hope.

A Clubhouse With a Regulatory Logo

What emerges from all this is a portrait of the BHA not as a regulator, but as a lightly disguised retirement village for executive ambition.

The Board behaves like a club that’s forgotten it has members. Its idea of risk is running out of gluten-free sandwiches at the AGM. Its idea of transformation is rearranging the terms of reference.

Meanwhile, the sport it allegedly oversees is shrinking, struggling and screaming for leadership.

Enter Lord Allen: Please Let Him Own a Broom

Into this theatre of optimism and oversight walks Lord Allen of Kensington, the BHA’s new Chair — and, crucially, someone who has actually run things in the real world. Former ITV boss. Boardroom grown-up. Man with a calculator and a face built for disappointing consultants. His job? Drag the BHA out of the mirror and back into the saddle.

Because unless Lord Allen is willing to:

• Cancel the backslapping,

• Shred the culture of “governance by vibes,”

• And say, plainly, “No, we won’t be handing out six-figure thank-you cheques to people who’ve left the room,”

...then the sport will continue to wither under the stewardship of people who think risk management means “sending the cheque recorded delivery”.

The Final Gallop: We Deserve Better

The truth is simple:

• You can’t fix a sport with the same boardroom that failed to challenge, question, or deliver.

• You can’t preach prudence while signing off perks.

• And you can’t digitise an industry by launching PowerPoints into a skip and calling it “strategic transformation.”

Until the BHA replaces delusion with discipline, opacity with ownership, and the comfort of continuity with the discomfort of accountability, British racing will remain a brilliant sport shackled to a broken system.

If Lord Allen is serious, he won’t just restructure committees. He’ll rewrite the DNA.

If not, expect next year’s accounts to include:

“Note 42: Further ex gratia payments for reasons we’re not legally obliged to share, but trust us — someone deserved it.”