England Hockey Officiating (EHO) is a Proprietary Club owned by England Hockey to which all umpires, umpire support and technical officials belong. EH has devolved the management of EHO to the Officiating Working Group (OWG). The Branch Areas to which the members are registered correspond to the 8 new Areas established by EH and the Branch Area Committees are synonymous with the Area Officiating Committees with the Chair sitting on both the OWG and the Area Management Committee.
In London that means that all officials active in the Area are led by the London Hockey Officiating Committee.
The objectives of the EHO are to create opportunities for all to share best practice and innovative ideas in order to recruit and support officials at ALL levels of the game and to establish a uniform and consistent approach to officiating in England through national leadership and local delivery.
The OWG with the help of a skills based Officiating Operations Group will assist EH in the development of strategies and resources to improve the umpire, umpire support and young umpire pathways, create uniformly high standards of umpiring and umpire support, a consistent approach to umpire coaching and assessing and to improve the recruitment and development of technical officials.
Already league rules and regulations have been standardised in England.