Agenda item

Report of the Executive Manager – Neighbourhoods.

The Service Manager – Neighbourhoods provided a report on the Parkwood Leisure Contract for the reporting period August 2017 to July 2018 and noted the following highlights:

·         Growth in both gym and swim memberships

·         Increase of 147,926 visits on previous year

·         Launch of Parkwood Radio and new fitness / booking app

·         Investment in virtual classes to increase availability

·         Customer satisfaction rating of 93%

The Service Manager – Neighbourhoods introduced Alex Godfrey and Luke Colaluca from Parkwood Community Leisure who delivered a presentation to the Board summarising the performance of the contact across four leisure centres – Rushcliffe Arena, Bingham, Cotgrave and Keyworth.

In summary, the Board was informed about the growth in leisure centre users and the range of clubs, classes and activities they could participate in over the four sites; the low attrition rate of the Rushcliffe contract (4.22%) in comparison to the company average of 6%; and the increase in community activities such as blood donation sessions, markets and conferences. To meet increasing demand Rushcliffe Arena was now opening at 6am each morning. In addition, leisure centre staff had noticed a migration from Keyworth and Cotgrave in particular over the course of the year to the Arena with people presumably making use of the more modern facilities or the central location of the site.

Despite targeted marketing campaigns, trial sessions and a close working relationship with the bowls club, membership has dropped again from over 250 before the refurbishment of the Arena to 149 members in this reporting period. To counter this underutilisation, specialist matting has been purchased to protect the flooring and enable the space to be utilised for other activities.

Planned improvements included developing a swimming lesson growth strategy to retain a greater proportion of children learning to swim as they moved through the different grading levels, more advanced methods of access control to facilities such as finger print scanning, and the achievement of ISO 45001 Health and Safety accreditation.

The Chairman thanked the representatives of Parkwood Leisure for their comprehensive presentation and asked why the usage figures presented in the report for 2017/18 were identical to those from 2013/14. The Board was informed that this was a result of Rushcliffe Leisure Centre closing and being removed from the contract.

The Board asked several specific questions regarding whether the measure relating to the number of young people accessing services was particularly useful and questioned whether a more informative measure would be to look at the difference accessing services had made to their lives. The Regional Director explained that it was not possible for the leisure provider to measure the impact engagement in leisure services has on a young person’s life as their contact with the leisure provider was only a small part of their overall journey.

Questions were also asked about the timing of water safety sessions. The General Manager clarified that the leisure centre staff talked to children as part of normal school assemblies in the run up to the summer school holidays thus making sure that all children received these important messages not just those that attended swimming lessons. Councillors asked about who held responsibility for setting the strategic objectives within the contract and asked whether a target which better reflected reality could be set for the financial objective. The Executive Manager – Transformation agreed to discuss this with colleagues and report back to the Board. Councillors also questioned the customer satisfaction target which was regularly exceeded and the Service Manager – Neighbourhoods confirmed that this was being reset for the next reporting period.

The Board also asked about the GP referral process and who ensured the goals of the scheme were met for each individual. The General Manager confirmed that the GPs themselves follow up on their referrals but that Parkwood were in the process of extending their GP referral work by training more staff and hiring one of their treatment rooms to the Rushcliffe Livewell team to facilitate greater access to assistance through the GP referral scheme.

Following a question from the Board about the slight increase in accidents, The General Manager reported that he felt the increase was a natural part of the leisure centre environment and reflected the larger increase in leisure centre usage. He went on to clarify that the most serious accident was now the focus of a RIDDOR investigation which Parkwood were fully supportive of and related to a slipping accident in the pre-pool shower area. This had now been closed pending the investigation and contractors were assessing the problem with a view to making the necessary improvements.

The Chairman expressed concern about the low usage of the bowls hall for bowls and asked about the usage of the squash courts. The General Manager outlined the partnership working between the leisure provider and the bowls club and the efforts they had both made to increase usage. The squash courts were exceptionally well used at peak times – early morning, lunch and evenings – and that staff were looking at options for alternative uses such as children’s gymnastics classes outside of squash usage.

The Chairman thanked Mr Godfrey and Mr Colaluca for their thorough and informative presentation and for providing great leisure services to the residents of Rushcliffe.

It was RESOLVED that:

a)     the performance report and Parkwood Community Leisure Ltd Annual Review for the contract year 2017/18 be accepted.