Meeting documents

Richard Cassidy and Councillor Tanfield presented the Leisure Management Options Project Overview Report and requested that members consider three questions to aid in the development of this phase of the leisure service options work. Namely, are members satisfied that the Council is following a planned process that ensures a considered approach to the project? Does the panel have any recommendations with regards to indicative weightings given to the key feature of each potential option in the table set out on page 11 of the report? Are members satisfied with the key gateway questions being considered as part of this project, as detailed in the table on page 12 of the report?

Members asked questions, made comments and received responses as follows:

1. Councillor Yeulett stated that the Panel had found the report very interesting and found the Sport England and the Parliamentary attachments for guidance very informative. He added that the Parliamentary paper may be useful moving forward when we are looking at shared services. He asked what is the purpose of Leisure Services, why are we providing these services, are they linked with Health and Wellbeing and if so do we need to work more closely with partners to provide them moving forward. Councillor Tanfield stated that we want to ensure that people who live and work in Fenland have a service where they can get fit, meet people and make sure that their health needs are facilitated within the leisure centres. Partnership working is already in place with swimming clubs and other sports teams making use of the facilities and we need to ensure that these links remain. We need to get customers through the door and ensure that they are satisfied with what we are offering at the leisure centres, this is always a challenge because fitness is a fast paced business so we constantly need to adapt classes and equipment to ensure that we meet those needs;


2. Councillor Yeulett asked if there is any synergy between the leisure centres and the health service, and are there any other partners that we could work with. Councillor Tanfield stated that Fenland work closely with the Health and Wellbeing Board and we are always in communication with Sport England and other sports groups. Fenland is one of the worst areas for health in Cambridgeshire and we strive to get more people through the leisure centre doors to help with this issue. As part of outreach work, Health and Wellbeing groups and the NHS refer people who would benefit from improving their fitness by offering them vouchers to attend at a reduced cost, it is very important that we continue to work with these partners. Richard Cassidy stated that we have a Fenland Leisure Strategy 2013 - 18 which was approved by Cabinet. One of the key strands of that is to get more people, more active, more often, and whilst we have all of those partnerships in place we are looking to see if we can deliver the service at less overall cost to the community;


3. Councillor Booth asked does the council have a statutory responsibility around this service. Richard Cassidy confirmed that leisure is not a statutory service, but it is Fenland's interest that there are facilities provided to the community that otherwise would not be there, for example, if the council were not providing swimming pools in the area it is highly unlikely that a private operator would come in to the district to do that because of the profitability.  These services help when people are looking to move into the area and as a local authority we have a duty to encourage wellbeing and want to help to get more people more active in the community.;


4. Councillor Booth asked that as health and wellbeing a statutory duty is there anything that we have to do with regards to leisure services. Richard Cassidy stated it is important to look at these services as they all contribute to the wellbeing of people in the community along with regulatory work, environmental health work, pollution control and even planning and transport policies, as all of these things affect people's health and wellbeing. It is not just about services like exercise referrals but also about general facilities that people would expect to see in an area that they choose to live. Councillor Tanfield agreed, stating that leisure facilities are very important to people and although it is not statutory it is very important to maintain these services for economic development of the area moving forward;


5. Councillor Count stated that when you are going through procurement you need to outline what your objectives and your strategic outcomes are, but the Fenland Strategy appears to be a strategy for the delivery of the project. The primary question should be what do we want the outcomes to be before you can decide what you want to do about money. Looking at the Key Features table with the suggested weighting of each area, one of the key features is revenue savings this has been given a score of 5, which should be the most  important, he suggested that a number of the key features had a score that were not appropriate and that we should hold a workshop for members, officers and maybe some external stakeholders to work through this. He circulated a draft that he had prepared stating that this is not for officers to use but to show how he would approach it involving the wider community to get a more balanced outcome. He stated that there was a feel from the report of a preconceived outcome for an in-house option, and that he feels that having a wider engagement group would give a balanced outcome that could stand-up to a wider audience. Councillor Tanfield stated that this section of the report is about how we look at the options rather than what we are looking for once we have chosen the options. At the moment this has come to this meeting as an overview of the proposal, there are no preconceived outcomes, no members have looked or had an opinion about this yet, and we want to make it as easy as possible for people to make a decision looking at the scores from all of the options available.  We do have a leisure strategy which is about how we move forward but that is not what this project is about, this is about ensuring that members have all the information they need when they are looking at the leisure centres moving forward;


6. Councillor Mrs Davis asked if we have talked to other local authorities that have gone through this process. Richard Cassidy confirmed that we have been in discussions, this is not a procurement evaluation at this stage, but when we come to that stage we will need an evaluation matrix to compare the different options, he thanked Councillor Count for circulating his approach and ideas for the table. He stated that there is no predetermination and we tried very hard not to do that in the report, and certainly not to sway towards an in-house service, in fact there are some very definite drivers as to why an outsourced management option might be the better for this council moving forward;


7. Councillor Booth stated that he has heard on the radio that East Cambridgeshire have set up a trading company and his understanding is that it is potentially a local trust, he asked if they are the same or different models. Richard Cassidy stated that they are different, he understood that the trading arm that East Cambridgeshire is setting up is primarily to develop the Council's current assets, support community land trusts and provide purely commercial services, giving the council more freedom in terms of how they deliver those services;


8. Councillor Booth asked why we have not looked at that as an option. Richard Cassidy stated that it could be one of the trust options considered in phase 2 of the project should a trust model be selected;


9. Councillor Mrs Mayor asked if there is any opportunity for members to get involved to get a better understanding of what officers are doing. Michelle Tanfield stated that we will update members and go into more detail, there is a process and a timeline for CSR, we need to make sure that all members are fully involved in these decisions including offering all member seminars as everyone is going to want to understand and be involved;


10. Councillor Count asked with regards to understanding the options that are available, would the community trust involve the possibility of asset transfer for example if a town council were to put something together and would the procurement options include the possibility of partnering with someone such as Peterborough, who have their own management called Vivacity in place. Richard Cassidy confirmed that we have had informal discussions with Vivacity and other potential delivery partners to gauge market interest;


11. Councillor Mrs Hay referring to the net costs of operating the leisure centres at of 6.2 of the report asked if the 2015/16 figures include Chatteris. Richard Cassidy confirmed that these figures do include Chatteris, the Chatteris centre makes a small surplus, it was developed as a cost neutral model and is performing as such;


12. Councillor Mrs Hay stated that it would have been useful if the operating costs had been broken down by each centre. Richard Cassidy stated that in terms of net costs, the biggest and oldest leisure centres cost the most and the newest and the smallest cost the least. He confirmed that the breakdown is Hudson £244,000, Manor £206,000, George Campbell £92,000 and Chatteris a £23,000 surplus. He added that the delivery model of having a smaller centre in Chatteris which is much more focussed to gym and dance activities, will help it break even;


13. Councillor Mason asked if any revenue streams have been investigated with regards to outdoor activities for example cricket, tennis and bowls. Richard Cassidy stated that although we do not see the local authority generally being involved in developing new services in those areas, we recently went to Cabinet with an outdoor pitch strategy where we commissioned a comprehensive survey to look at what facilities there are out there at the moment looking at what future needs there are for the area. The reason that we commissioned that survey with Living Sport and Sport England was to allow and to encourage local clubs to be able to bid for money through lottery funding to improve and develop their facilities. These sports clubs are something that communities can help develop themselves, whereas the leisure centres and particularly the pools are things that otherwise would potentially not be provided in parts of Fenland if the council did not deliver or commission the service;


14. Councillor Mason stated that he was thinking about a sports facility for outside bodies, so it could be hired. Richard Cassidy stated that these would probably not be significant income for us. He added that our major income is from direct debits from gym membership as essentially that is what the community want and that is what they are prepared to pay for, however there are things we can do ancillary to those but they will have a small impact on the overall income. Councillor Tanfield stated that community groups do not have the ability to pay vast amounts of rent, the best thing for us to do is work fairly with partners and sports groups but we cannot run the facilities for them. The reason the deal with the Wisbech Bowls club came about is because they came to us with a business plan and are running the club themselves and paying the rent. She agreed that we always want to ensure that our playing fields and pitches are in use but there are other ways that these can be run;


15. Councillor Mason stated that he is the secretary of the County Bowls Association and that they are always looking for new venues to hire during the summer, and there is only 1 in Wisbech so there are ways that we could make a little money hiring out the facilities that we have got but are not utilising at the moment. Councillor Tanfield stated that it is not feasible to maintain an area in the hope that someone might want to hire it but we would always support a community group if they came forward to take over responsibility for a sporting venue;


16. Councillor Booth stated that sometimes it can cost just as much to do the administration and so it is commercially not viable to provide these services. Councillor Tanfield agreed stating that we try to work as closely as we can with community groups, and there are lots of them running sports clubs very successfully all over the district;


17. Councillor Mrs Hay asked what impact has the Tesco Gym had on our gym in Wisbech, are we now making a loss or are we still making a profit. Richard Cassidy stated that a vast majority of our income comes from gym memberships, and the gym and dance studio subsidise the loss making aspects of the centre so they are still making a profit. He added that the Tesco Gym is a different delivery model, the gym is open but with very little staff support, it tends to attract people who just want to pop into the gym and then go home. Although the Tesco facility did take some revenue away from us initially, that has remained stable;


18. Councillor Booth stated if an organisation is able to cut out the NNDR depending on their status the district council stand to lose a fair amount of income as that payment would have been coming to the council in the future, so you might make a saving with one hand that affects the bottom line. Richard Cassidy stated that this is something that we would have to look into, it is not 100% rate relief but would still be a significant amount of money;


19. Councillor Booth stated that there is a cost reduction but there is also an income reduction. Richard Cassidy agreed but reiterated that it would not be 100%, we would need to take some expert advice and that would affect how we would compare financial models against each other;


20. Councillor Yeulett stated that with regards to the key features chart, during discussions with the panel we are looking at a broader scope and some clearer wording on this chart. Councillor Count stated that the concerns he has about this chart still relate to this stage, the primary reason for this is the delivery of revenue savings against how you deliver the optimal service, and therefore the potential for revenue saving with a score of 5 will make a minor difference to this. He asked that as this model was lifted from the original document were the figures suggested too or were they changed. Richard Cassidy stated that the weighting number in the chart is a multiplication score and is multiplied by 5 to give an overall score, so something that scores a 5 is not just adding 5 to the total, it is a multiplication rating, and something that gets a 5 is absolutely getting the highest priority. He agreed that for the October Cabinet report officers will clarify how the scoring is made up in more detail;


21. Councillor Booth asked what the scale is, is it 1 to 10, as the larger the scale the more difference there will be in the matrix. Richard Cassidy confirmed that the scale is a 1 to 5 score with a multiplication factor;


22. Councillor Yeulett asked if the 1 to 5 scale is too restrictive. Richard Cassidy stated that with the multiplication factor taken into account the scores broaden out quite a lot, and makes a bigger difference. What we want to agree here today is the methodology and to find out from members what is more important to them in the table;


23. Councillor Mrs Mayor stated that this would have been easier to follow had the features been ranked in order. Richard Cassidy agreed that the table can be amended to show the ranking order when it is presented;


24. Councillor Count stated with regards to the feature - protection of staff, we have a role to play in delivering these services to the public and staff respect us when we are honest about that. To rate this at a 3 is too high, we simply have to deliver these services the best we can, we would protect staff through TUPE arrangements if that is the case but we do not need to build this in. Richard Cassidy that if the feeling from members is that this should be reduced to a figure you are happy with we can look at changing that;


25. Councillor Yeulett stated that these are just suggestions from the Overview and Scrutiny Panel. Richard Cassidy stated that they are all very valid points that will feed in to the proposal moving forward;


26. Councillor Count asked where have the weighting scores come from. Richard Cassidy stated that they are based upon Sport England documents which compare service delivery options, and we have tried to come up with a scoring system that works best for Fenland;


27. Councillor Count stated that the features need to be tied into the strategic outcomes and there is a presumption that this is all about driving the down the delivery costs. Delivering the strategic outcomes are very important and a different model option may affect that, so we need to ask ourselves if we will be able to deliver under each option. Richard Cassidy stated that the comparison at this stage is about each of the delivery models delivering the same outcomes. When we come to the procurement stage we would get different offers made to us by the organisations that are competing to deliver against a price and quality threshold;


28. Councillor Count stated that this will end up being one of the most important drivers when we get to the later stages so the numbers need to be clear moving forward. Richard Cassidy agreed stating that it is good feedback and officers want to ensure that there are no misunderstandings when decisions are being made so want to make the report as clear as possible;


29. Councillor Booth stated that he feels that the comments made with regards to staff were right but that there should be a footnote to clarify that we will stand by our legislative duty to transfer staff. Richard Cassidy stated that we must reassure staff who put their heart and soul into these services, but we have to be clear that there is a potential for there to be a change to how the services are managed going forward;


30. Councillor Booth stated that currently we are looking at a like for like service, he asked if this is the point where we should look at the services that are offered and take this opportunity to remove things.  For example taking looking at what has happened at Wisbech and doing something similar ourselves in March. Councillor Tanfield stated that we look at these things all of the time, if there was no appetite for something we would not continue to offer it. It would be difficult individualising one centre, running one centre in a different way from the others. Richard Cassidy stated that the option that he has been asked to focus on as part of CSR is around an "as is" service and if we are going to get someone else to come in and manage our services they have to have certainties of what those services are otherwise they are going to cost in risk;


31. Councillor Booth stated that he feels that the score with regards to external funding should be higher as if we are looking at making the centres more efficient we could look at getting more external funding. Richard Cassidy stated that one of the things that might be attractive with a larger commercial partner is that they can bring investment into the business;


32. Councillor Mrs Davis stated that if we go down the route of involving other people their marketing expertise has to be taken into account. Richard Cassidy agreed stating that we would want to negotiate that with them at that stage;


33. Councillor Count stated that since the last time he looked around 2009 the website has vastly improved and noticed that some of that is down to partnership working, so something to be added to the table is that of commercial partnership. Also in a commercial operation there would be daily targets, for people to get people to sign up to memberships and well established partners would know about these things. With regards to the report there are many costs shown without internal recharge and we cannot make comparisons without these charges. Richard Cassidy stated that these are important points, the top level business models that we are looking at in terms of comparison do include re-charges. With regards to the website comments we have had good advice and a steer from Councillor Tanfield and taking the step to outsource the website design is making a significant impact;


34. Councillor Yeulett stated that the big challenge here is the CSR challenge which triggered this and delivering the service to the community, he asked the panel if they are satisfied that, taking into account the comments made today, the initial proposal is fit for purpose. The panel agreed;


35. Councillor Yeulett asked if there is likely to be any formal public consultation process moving forward. Richard Cassidy confirmed that we included the ranking of leisure as part of the CSR public consultation, but this is around how we deliver the service, the operational delivery.

Michelle Tanfield thanked the panel for their questions and the information that they have fed into this overview process, she stated that members will be updated on the process as it moves on.

Richard Cassidy thanked the panel for their feedback today,  the stated that here have been some really good challenges, and there is a lot of scope to take the report away and tweak it to offer Cabinet a much more refined version later in the year.

Councillor Yeulett confirmed that the Overview and Scrutiny Panel had no further comments to make about the overview questions they had been asked to consider and thanked Richard Cassidy and Councillor Tanfield for attending today.

Members considered the Asset Management Plan 2016-19 presented by Gary Garford, Councillor Seaton and Councillor Butcher and were asked to reflect and make recommendations on the proposed draft Asset Management Plan as part of the development phase of this Council policy document.

Members asked questions, made comments and received responses as follows:

1. Councillor Yeulett asked what the driver is behind selling assets, is it for the capital or because we want to dispose of the asset. Gary Garford stated that previously it might have been simply to dispose of the asset for capital receipt, but today we are also looking to see if we can achieve revenue income from that asset;


2. Councillor Mrs Hay stated that it has been mentioned that the income does not include income from the leisure centres and asked if the annual running costs for the leisure centres are included. Gary Garford confirmed that the running costs from the leisure centres assets are included in the figures outlined;


3. Councillor Mrs Hay asked how a comparison can be made if we do not include the income form the leisure centres, but do include the running costs. Gary Garford stated that part of the asset management function is FDC managing the asset, if the service provided from that asset realises an income it is separately accounted for. There is an element of repair and maintenance that we manage corporately, but the income on that building is about what FDC sell as services, so the income is linked to the leisure service, whereas the income that comes in from business premises is just the space that we sell, tenants are renting the asset. All that is shown in the report for this purpose is the asset related income. Councillor Mrs Hay stated that it would have been helpful to show the income separately for clarity so there did not seem such a difference between income and cost. Councillor Mrs Mayor stated that in accounts you would have an additional note to quantify. Gary Garford agreed that we could show it in the AMP with some explanation;


4. Councillor Yeulett asked for clarification with regards to the backlog maintenance figures, do we benchmark these figures. Gary Garford stated that we sit on a group called the CIPFA Property and Asset Group which is a regional group, and we have compared our backlog maintenance figures will similar authorities at this group. Councillor Yeulett asked how we can be sure these similar authorities have similar assets. Gary Garford confirmed that we have looked at like authorities that have similar assets;


5. Councillor Mrs Hay asked if the backlog maintenance figure is going up or coming down year on year. Gary Garford stated that there are 2 elements to maintenance, one is the annual maintenance revenue budget which covers building repairs and maintenance costs up to around £10,000 maximum, the backlog maintenance is for more fundamental elements and we have made a decision to spend some money on refurbishing and improving at the expense of some maintenance jobs, so we are playing catch up in terms of some of the historic elements that have been deferred in the past for good reasons;


6. Councillor Booth asked for confirmation with regards to sewage treatment works and the transfer of the works over to Anglian Water that this is just a voluntary agreement and there is no legal requirement. Gary Garford confirmed that we are looking at them one at a time, and trying to pass them on but at the moment they sit with us and we have to manage those. Councillor Booth stated that he understands that there is a change in legislation in October and asked if that will affect us. Trevor Watson confirmed that in October the water authority will be taking over pumping stations but not sewage treatment works;


7. Councillor Butcher stated that the Asset Management Plan has been working well but it is now time to refresh the plan as it has been a long time since members have gone through it with this much detail, and great that we can bring it to this panel for overview;


8. Councillor Seaton stated that from the finance point of view he is looking at income and outgoings and this plan is making the best use of the assets that we have;


9. Councillor Mason asked how often the asset register is reviewed and updated. Gary Garford confirmed that the asset register is reviewed on an annual basis;


10. Councillor Mason stated that there are parts of land that he knows about in Whittlesey that are not registered but FDC maintain it at a cost to the council. Gary Garford stated that local members would know about some of those areas, some of the land that we own can be difficult to capture and asked Councillor Mason to pass on the details following the meeting so that it can be investigated;


11. Councillor Count asked if we have looked at pairing up with neighbouring authorities when looking at insurance as there could be a saving to make. Gary Garford stated that we buy our insurance on a 5 year tender and that tender is up in 1 years' time, he agreed that there is a potential for us to talk to other local authorities but often insurance is bespoke to each authority especially with regards to specialist insurance for the port;


12. Councillor Count stated that there does not seem to be anything in the plan about how we review the performance. Gary Garford confirmed that we review the plan every 3 years and if we feel that there is specific area that needs to be investigated further we will do so, if members feel that these reviews should take place more frequently, we would be happy to do that;


13. Councillor Count stated that the strategy is reviewed every 3 years but the strategy should include some wording on how we review decisions on day to day operations. Councillor Butcher stated that although it is not written into the strategy that is being done all the time. Councillor Count stated that there should be some wording in the strategy about how we review the operational decisions that are made on a day to day basis. Gary Garford agreed that this is already taking place so it will not be a problem to add in some wording;


14. Councillor Count asked how we define investment risk in terms of asset management. Gary Garford stated that in terms of finance we invest in UK based companies as part of treasury management, with regards to our other assets we look at opportunities such as with leisure, looking at introducing energy saving changes to the buildings. The decision was made by Cabinet to borrow that money because we know from the business case that it will pay back with the reduced utility costs in  an acceptable period. So we make an individual risk based assessment;


15. Councillor Count stated that CIPFA have a recommended percentage of asset value for buildings and repairs, he asked for clarification if this is 5%. Gary Garford stated that it depends on the age and the type of stock, one of our business centres asset value would be a small percentage but some of our older leisure centres would be higher, so condition and suitability are taken into account, there is not a one size fits all figure it would depend on the asset;


16. Councillor Mrs Hay stated that the asset management plan was last written in 2007, she asked if it has been reviewed in past 9 years. Gary Garford stated that we have continued to manage our assets based on the principals contained in that plan, we are now reviewing some of those principals, they have been robust and held us in good stead and the new ones will be very similar but we are trying to take them up to the next level;


17. Councillor Mrs Hay stated that if the plan was meant to last for 3 years we would have expected it to have been reviewed even if there were no changes made. Gary Garford confirmed that it was reviewed by officers but was not brought to members as we constantly review our policies;


18. Councillor Mrs Hay asked if the fact that we have not reviewed this and are looking at it 9 years later has had any effect on the backlog of repairs. Gary Garford confirmed that we continue to take the same priority approach to repairs, and repairs are sometimes related to members decisions on their priority of the capital spend and sometimes this includes prioritising improvements. Councillor Seaton stated that some of those decisions that were made in the past had more emphasis on investment that would bring in a return, and that emphasis has caught up with a bit and we have to start to address those problems. Councillor Yeulett asked if that is getting best value for your assets. Councillor Seaton agreed;


19. Councillor Davis asked if we have not had a proper review of this document because we had a shared service agreement in place. Gary Garford confirmed that previously we had an in-house arrangement , we only had the joint arrangement with Peterborough for 2 years and this had no impact on the review of this document;


20. Councillor Booth asked with regards to the disposal of assets and looking at the small parcels of land that we discussed earlier, do we ensure that these are disposed of at a cost neutral basis or is there ever a scenario that it costs us money to dispose of something. Gary Garford confirmed that some of the smaller and more difficult land will go to auction with a reserve on to ensure that disposal costs us nothing. Councillor Booth suggested that this should be set out in the strategy to prevent us from losing money when we dispose of an asset;


21. Councillor Booth stated that a lot of these small parcels of land are near housing association stock and he asked why we did not take the opportunity to transfer them at the same time as the transfer of housing stock. Gary Garford stated that as good asset managers we reviewed the areas of land that we might benefit from moving forward, and we have benefited from selling those small pieces of land that were worth very little during the transfer but have increased in value since;


22. Councillor Count asked how the backlog maintenance funding going to be managed, he suggested that in order to come to a theory on how to manage this we will need to look at all repairs together as some might be capital repairs as opposed to revenue repairs and the report will need more detail on these issues before it moves on. Gary Garford stated that as this is the asset management strategy we are trying to treat each property equally, the majority of the backlog is in the leisure facilities and separate to that is the car parks, so we are looking around £1m over 2 years, we have allocated £400,000 at the moment with the possibility of further allocation when we look at the next budget. Some of those assets will be challenged before they are repaired as we do not want to go ahead with the repairs when following the challenge it is decided that we will sell the asset. So this document says that we will challenge our assets first and if it fits our purpose we will then look at the repair strategy always focussing on assets that realise an income for the council;


23. Councillor Booth asked if we have looked at how we can work with external funders for example we could sell some of the assets to a property fund and still manage it. Gary Garford stated that we have had discussions with external funders with regards to the business centres but when we looked at the comparisons there was no benefit for FDC. There will be another opportunity with the Nene sites and we are preparing a report for members to look at the options for that.

Councillor Yeulett thanked Gary Garford, Councillor Seaton and Councillor Butcher for attending the meeting and to panel members for their contribution today.