Agenda and minutes

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Town Hall, Watford

Contact: Sandra Hancock  Email: legalanddemocratic@watford.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

1.

Committee membership and election of Chair

Minutes:

Councillor Barks was elected Chair.

 

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Crout.

2.

Disclosures of interest (if any)

Minutes:

It was noted that any councillors who were ordinary members of Everyone Active or casual users of the sites did not have a pecuniary interest and therefore would not be prevented from taking part in the task group. 

 

Councillors Barks and Williams both indicated that they used the leisure centres’ facilities.

3.

Scrutiny proposal - Leisure Centre Management Contract Retender pdf icon PDF 93 KB

The scrutiny proposal provides details of the remit of the task group.

Minutes:

The Committee and Scrutiny Officer stated that the scrutiny proposal set out the remit of the task group.  It had been agreed by Overview and Scrutiny Committee at its meeting in September.  The task group’s membership had also been agreed at that meeting.

4.

Leisure Centre survey results September 2016 pdf icon PDF 51 KB

  • View the background to item 4.

The appendices set out the responses from the stakeholder engagement carried out during September 2016.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Corporate Leisure and Community Client Section Head provided a brief overview of the leisure centre management contract which was due to expire in June 2018.  The survey provided an understanding of current customers’ and users’ thoughts about the service.  There had been a total of 516 responses which was an increase of 103 when compared to the last survey in 2013. 

 

Representatives from SLM were present to respond to the task group’s questions about the current service and how they had spoken to various groups and users about completing the survey.

 

The task group noted the low response from school and college users.  The SLM representatives explained that the link to the survey had been sent to all schools that used the facilities at the two leisure centres.  It was noted that it was possible one person from each organisation may have completed the survey.  This would mean that approximately 50% had responded, which was considered reasonable.  The key tenant clubs, e.g. swim clubs and Harriers, completed a questionnaire on behalf of their management committees.

 

The task group considered the benefits of the leisure centres in comparison with budget gyms which had less facilities and classes than the centres at Central and Woodside. 

 

The Contract Manager for SLM explained to the task group the different types of membership arrangements for customers –

 

·       Casual users

·       Monthly direct debits, no contract requirements

·       Discounted annual membership

 

The Contract Manager informed the task group that they were introducing ‘single customer viewpoint’.  This would enable the company to track people’s usage patterns across all of the facilities covered in the contract, rather than separate monitoring systems across the contract.  It was also noted that it would help to identify when people stopped attending. 

 

In answer to the response related to opening hours, the Contract Manager advised that SLM had set itself a target to retain its membership following the introduction locally of budget gyms.  The opening hours had been reviewed at each of the sites and longer opening hours had been implemented; opening earlier in the morning and later in the evening.  He stated that none of SLM’s sites across the country were open 24 hours.

 

The Corporate Leisure and Community Client Section Head added that the company had to carry out competitive analysis to understand the competition in the Borough and cross border.  It was also necessary to consider the economic viability of any new proposals.

 

The General Manager for SLM explained that when the facilities opened there was usually a minimum of seven staff on site at Central.  At budget gyms there may be no one on site. 

 

The Corporate Leisure and Community Client Section Head referred to the negative response to the question about the mixture of activities at the sites.  He suggested that some of the responses to question 11 had referred to flumes or slides.  There was little capacity to change the mix of facilities at Central but may be some scope at Woodside.  However, most of the responses  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

5.

Exclusion of Press and Public

The Chair to move: that, under Section 100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public and press be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business as it is likely, in view of the nature of the business to be transacted or the nature of the proceedings, that if members of the public were present during consideration of the item there would be disclosure to them of exempt information as defined in Section 100(1) of the Act for the reasons stated below in terms of Schedule 12A.

 

Note: if approved, the Chair will ask members of the press and public to leave the meeting at this point.

Minutes:

RESOLVED –

 

that, under Section 100A (4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public and press be excluded from the meeting for the following item of business as it is likely, in view of the nature of the business to be transacted or the nature of the proceedings, that if members of the public were present during consideration of the item there would be disclosure to them of exempt information as defined in Section 100(1) Schedule 12A of the Act for the reasons stated in the agenda.

6.

Conclusions and recommendations

The task group to discuss the responses from the survey and consider any recommendations it wishes to be forwarded to the Executive.

 

It is considered that this discussion is exempt information in accordance with Paragraph 3, Part 1 Schedule 12A, due to commercial sensitivity and that the information could give an unfair advantage over other bidders in the retender process as to possible priorities for the council.

Minutes:

The task group further discussed the responses to the survey and commented on those areas it wanted the Executive to take into account in the development of the future service specification for the new leisure contract.

 

RESOLVED –

 

that the task group’s comments be forwarded to the Portfolio Holders’ meeting on 14 November 2016.

 

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