Minutes:
Councillor J M Palmer, Executive Councillor for Health and Leisure addressed the Council on the activities of One Leisure and the Active Lifestyles Team. A copy of Councillor Palmer’s PowerPoint presentation is appended in the Minute Book.
Attention was drawn to details of the context
of the service and its
non-statutory function but corporate objective of the Council to
improve the health and wellbeing of its residents. Members were
reminded of the existing Leisure Centre facilities located
throughout the District, the partnership arrangement with Urban and
Civic to provide a facility at Alconbury Weald and responsibilities of the Active
Lifestyles Team.
In noting the strategic overview of the focus of the Active Lifestyles Team, specifically health, education, economic and social values, Members were advised that this work was undertaken by a Team of seven staff managing around 50k attendances in 2015/16 through physical activity and sports sessions and focussing on the various different groups of people in the community.
Councillor Palmer reminded Members how well the District was currently served by provision of the Leisure Centres with 2.35m visits per year and updated the Council on the joint venture with Urban and Civic at Alconbury Weald that would be managed by the District Council.
Attention was drawn to the benchmarking of One Leisure’s performance across the country, with only 35% of facilities provided in-house by the Council and the best Council operated at £201K surplus whilst the worst Council subsidised the operation of £360k, comparable to One Leisure that delivered a £431k surplus in 2015/16. Members noted One Leisure’s 2016/17 performance of income against expenditure that had showed a steady increase in income but this year would be impacted by an increase in minimum wage costs. Councillor Palmer drew attention to the level of membership sales and recent increase as a result of a membership publicity drive but intimated that improvements continued to be required to maintain the levels and remain competitive with the private sector market.
In his concluding remarks, Councillor Palmer outlined the developments for 2017/18, including delivery of the capital programme of improvements at the One Leisure facilities, new programmes by the Active Lifestyles Team and made reference to the five year strategic plan of One Leisure reaching its objective of £8.5m income with a surplus of 10% by 2021/22 thereby creating a financial contribution towards the overall cost of the Council.
Following praise expressed for the One Leisure facilities by Councillor Ms L A Duffy, a question was raised in relation to the retention of individuals completing exercise referrals following the end of their programme and ability to offer membership at a reduced rate to encourage their continued attendance. Whereby Councillor Palmer explained that provision currently did not exist for such a reduction in the cost of membership but undertook to investigate the feasibility of this option.
Councillor T D Alban commended the competitive pricing structure of facilities at One Leisure but questioned whether the age bracket of young people using or hiring the facilities could be extended from above 16 to include all children in full time education. Councillor Palmer intimated his support for such a proposal as one of its core objectives was to encourage activity in young people and endeavoured to investigate further this proposal.
In response to a question by Councillor D A Giles on the possibility of charging car park fees at the Leisure Centres to encourage more users to walk to the Centres, Councillor Palmer suggested that this option would not be explored.
Arising from a question by Councillor Ms S L Taylor on the timescale for completion of the One Leisure St Neots Synthetic Turf Pitch and usage by Ernulf Academy, Councillor Palmer explained that the Council had been working closely towards finalisation of extension of the lease with the Academy to ensure that there was at least a 25 year term to enable the funds to be released from Sport England.
Councillor M F Shellens commented upon the improvement of the gap between income and expenditure at One Leisure, but questioned as to how this had been eroded by capital expenditure and it was explained that capital expenditure had not been taken into account in the performance figures presented.
In response to a question from Councillor Mrs S A Conboy on engagement with young people and the ability for parishes to engage more to encourage their participation, Councillor Palmer referred to the importance of engagement with all social groups through the use of social media and ability to target specific age groups and work undertaken with schools.
By reference to comments raised previously by Councillor Giles on car parking, Councillor B S Chapman commented upon the public subsidy and Councillor Palmer made reference to a review of the membership pricing structure in the light of the fact that new members appeared to be picking up additional charges. Councillor J A Gray also explained that there appeared to be a misunderstanding with the public subsidy as the One Leisure service had clearly been making a profit and clarified the situation with the capital costs that had been built into the figures presented at this meeting.