Agenda item

To receive a presentation on the leisure operating contract.

Members considered the Freedom Leisure Operating Contract Annual Report, which was shared in the form of a presentation, welcoming Dan Palframan, Matt Wickham, Carol Pilson, Phil Hughes and Councillor Wallwork to the meeting.

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

·         Councillor Barber referred to the figures shown in the presentation for the past year but there is nothing to base this on as there is no evidence of the previous year’s figures. She asked for an explanation as to why the participation figures were down from last year as stated in the presentation. Dan Palframan responded that George Campbell has some competitors emerging locally, and in cases like this, if a low cost operator opens customers will tend to try it out and swap memberships, but then over time there is a turnaround and customers start to return and when looking quarter on quarter George Campbell is recovering in terms of numbers of participation on the gym and the fitness side. He continued in terms of the aquatics this is up year on year, however, there were some closures due to unplanned repairs that needed to take place.

·         Councillor Barber stated two-thirds of the staff are female and only a third are male, is there a reason for this?  Dan Palframan stated the reason for this is that there is a large learn to swim school scheme for swimming lessons and a high proportion of those employed are women, with it being a sector industry standard across the country, with a lot of the teachers being female. Matt Wickham added from a national perspective the statistics in Fenland are slightly skewed and there is an overall good mix to create a balance to the business, but locally this is a consistent trend.

·         Councillor Barber stated that looking at the presentation she found it hard to read the small print around the pie charts. Dan Palframan agreed with the statement and noted it for future presentations.

·         Councillor Barber stated that she had noticed that some of the customers had mentioned that there were not enough evening swim sessions and wondered if this was going to be reviewed. Dan Palframan responded that a review on the pool programme takes place quarterly and the approach is that as long as there is a balanced programme across all the pools with the idea that the customer can swim at any pool at any one time. He continued the programme does get reviewed and changed based on user trends.

·         Councillor Sennitt Clough asked what the plans are there to improve the cleanliness of the Leisure Centres and to improve the maintenance of the gym equipment? Dan Palframan responded that recruitment had been a struggle, especially at the Manor Leisure Centre, this has now been resolved with a new manager in place, and he is slowly building his team around him to improve the service. He continued in regard to the maintenance of the gym equipment, this remains to be an ongoing challenge, however, there are talks on going to bring back a maintenance package which will speed up improvement to services across the Leisure Centres. Councillor Sennitt Clough stated that when attending the gym she overheard a conversation about a piece of leg equipment and it was evident that the staff did not know how to answer the questions being asked, with them stating ‘it was above us’ and she feels that the information shared today needs to be transferred down to the staff so they are better equipped with being able to deal with customer queries. Matt Wickham thanked Councillor Sennitt Clough for the feedback and will take this back to the local team.

·         Councillor Foice-Beard stated, with another new gym opening in Wisbech, are there any plans in place to maintain members and promote new joiners? Dan Palframan responded there are some national campaigns coming up, but it is also recognised that the core of the staff and the team are local and know what is going on in their local community, there is funding and with the help of Phil there will be a campaign promoting what the Hudson provides versus other organisations. Councillor Foice-Beard asked if there were any concerns around Snap Fitness coming to Wisbech? Matt Wickham responded that there was not because this has happened so many times in the past and members leave out of curiosity but Freedom Leisure have a different offer and can go head to head on price on these budget gyms, but as stated previously there needs to be an improvement on cleanliness and maintenance of the gyms and also investment in trained experts as budget gyms do not supply that service and it is important to get the right knowledge and motivation from a trained team of experts which the Freedom gyms offer.

·         Councillor Booth asked when the promotions are happening is there a focus on the fact that Freedom Leisure has these trained professionals and is the advertising more personable to show who those people are? Dan Palframan responded that this is something that is currently being worked on, there are national campaigns coming up as well as localised ones which can be adapted to local community needs. Matt Wickham added that the way the company is recruiting has changed from just qualification based to more personality, with the interview technique questions having been changed to focus on the personality because that is what interacts with the customers rather than just based on a qualification. He continued if the employee is the right person this will be presented to the public through social media as part of the advertising.

·         Councillor Roy made an observation that in the Fenland years in numbers section of the presentation it would be useful to have the comparative figures from previous years so the difference can be seen. He continued it has been mentioned that gas is burnt to produce electricity, and he would like to understand if this is sustainable and whether there are plans to change it? Matt Wickham responded that the numbers can be provided but were not added to this presentation on a comparable basis. He continued the Combined Heat Power Units (CHP) are very common because gas is cheaper than electricity and generally new Leisure Centres will be built without a CHP unit, they will have installed air or seat pumps and solar PV, using solar thermal to offset the cost of the air seat pump which run electricity. Matt Wicken stated that in the Fenland area the buildings used by Freedom are inherited facilities which is a concern and from a sustainability point of view all the buildings would need to be closed down and solar PV or even wind farms would be used, but the cost is prohibitive and to take out the CHP would be phenomenal so there needs to be a balance taken between Freedom Leisure and the Council as a whole and officers to understand exactly which way this needs to be taken. He continued there is Government funding and Public Sector Decarbonization Scheme Funding, but it does remain a challenge to remain cost effective and reduce the carbon numbers.

·         Councillor Mrs Davis stated that the sauna and steam facilities have been closed for some time and are there any plans to reintegrate them or are they going to be permanently closed? Councillor Wallwork responded that there are no plans to re-open them as the cost of the renovation would be astronomical and the evidence showed that the footfall was not great enough to warrant the work needed.

·         Councillor Mrs Davis asked what measurable incentives are there in place to ensure inclusivity and accessibility for the underrepresented and the lower paid? Dan Palframan responded Freedom Leisure have a concessionary pricing structure available to those who are eligible, funded through Cambridgeshire County Council, which allows children to enjoy an activity at the venue and Freedom provide food vouchers which can be taken to a supermarket or any retailer who is part of the scheme. He added that Freedom Leisure work closely with other governing bodies such as Sport England, Swim England and UK Active to allow as much access as possible.

·         Councillor Booth asked for more information concerning the five MPS and issues stated in the report and mentioned the quantum seems to be missing, for example, how many people are raising these and how big an issue is it? He also mentioned the Net Promoter score and the fact that certain people have been excluded because of known issues. Matt Wickham responded the issues with the Net Promoter score is probably around the George Campbell pool, it was a known issue, it was being fixed but it was unfortunate the survey went out at the same time so that was the justification because there was a problem which everyone was aware of, which took longer because more issues were found, and it was being resolved and that was the only item that was retracted. Councillor Booth asked what impact this had on the Net Promoter score and reiterated the question asked about the quantum and the five issues with the numbers of complaints made against each issue found. Dan Palframan responded he could give an indicative number and could provide the physical numbers directly through Phil Hughes’ team. He continued around 100 surveys were received for the bigger venues, which is a finite snapshot in terms of volume and in terms of the MPS score it will be neutralized, ranging from some venues which were sightly negative to some venues that were very strong positives, but excluding the known issues over 53% were promoters so were scoring as nine or ten out of ten, there is also another 30% of people who are neutral and 27% who did not share a view. Councillor Booth recommended that this information is shared within the presentation as this is what the public get to see and congratulated the organisation on a successful MPS score.

·         Councillor Sennitt Clough stated there has been a lot of discussion around customers coming back to Freedom Leisure after a new gym has opened in the area and asked what happens if these customers fail to come back? Matt Wickham responded ultimately Freedom are in a contracted position, the contract is set and will be in place for as long as that contract runs, with the key strength being to keep working with the Council, and the community to deliver the service and Freedom is in a strong place to deliver that as a partnership.

Members noted the information reported.