Wight Leisure

Best Value Review

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

April 2002

 

1         EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

 

1.1      INTRODUCTION

 

1.1.1   This review is concerned with the provision of leisure services by the Council through Wight Leisure. The Council does provide for cultural and leisure services through other means although these were not included within the scope of this review. This did not however, preclude the consideration of other areas of leisure as part of this review, had the public demonstrated a need to do so.

 

1.1.2   The provision of leisure services contributes significantly to the realisation of the Council’s objective to “promote tourism, economic and cultural development”. To say that is the only contribution the services make to the Council’s objectives would however be a gross understatement as they can demonstrate close support for all of the remaining six objectives and an active involvement with 12 strategic plans for the Island across a range of activity areas. The declared mission of Wight Leisure is “to provide a comprehensive range of high quality leisure services, accessible to all, which enhance the quality of life and strive to exceed the expectations of our customers”.

 

1.1.3   The review was programmed to be completed in year 5 (2004/05) of the Council's Best Value Performance Plan but was brought forward at a meeting of the Council's Executive Committee held in August 2001. This followed advice that a proposal to externalise the delivery of the services via a Not for Profit Distributing Organisation (NPDO) may be successfully challenged if it was implemented ahead of a best value review.

 

1.1.4   A full review of the services has been conducted drawing on a great deal of information and research that was already in existence and making links with ongoing research into a cultural and leisure strategy for the Island and also a tourism services best value review. Particular attention has however been paid to two fundamental issues :

 

           •          Should the Council be providing all, any, more, or none of these services?

 

           •          What is the most appropriate method for the Council to deliver the services?

 

1.1.5   A great many stakeholders have been involved with the review, both directly and indirectly through other research projects. The Council's Citizens' Panel has been made use of on two occasions, users of the service have been consulted at length and 180 invitations were extended to representatives of the public, private and voluntary sectors, the tourism industry and representatives of the young and old to attend two challenge events (discussion forums). Lead officers from the review also took part in a particularly busy phone-in on Isle of Wight Radio. Unfortunately the timing of the review did not allow for any specific consultation with visitors to the Island. We do have consultation information through our own Customer Impact Study, also Isle of Wight Tourism has survey information, although not specifically regarding our facilities.

 

1.1.6   A core group of five Councillors have stayed close to the review at all stages and the review and the conclusions which it comes to have therefore benefited greatly from the input of these Members. This is not a document that has been produced in splendid isolation but is testimony to a close working, but challenging relationship between officers and Members.

 

1.1.7   Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, once remarked that, "Investing money in sport and leisure is not just a sports policy, it's a health policy, an education policy, an anti-crime policy and an anti-drugs policy" (September 2000). This review has demonstrated that this is as true for the Island and the Isle of Wight Council as it is for National Government.

1.2         MAIN FINDINGS

 

1.2.1      Introduction

 

1.2.1.1   Desk research undertaken at the beginning of the review revealed that the service had already demonstrated substantial and continuing improvement over a four year period net satisfaction levels with the service having risen by 27 points to +54%. The service was not however seen by the public as being important for the Council to provide given the relative importance of the service compared to other statutory services. The review attempted to examine this last point in some detail as it was felt that the services were being judged as an end in themselves rather than also as a vehicle for addressing wider Council and social objectives.

 

1.2.2      Challenge

 

1.2.2.1   In consultation with the general public it was identified that 80% of the community felt that the Council should be responsible for the provision of leisure services although, regrettably no measure as to the scale of this provision was made. Also, 34% of respondents had made use of Wight Leisure’s services over the preceding month. The most popular facilities being The Heights and Medina Leisure Centre. Of this same sample, 49% of people would expect to pay a price based on the cost of provision for using the service whilst 36% expected to pay a subsidised price for it.

 

1.2.2.2   The public’s view as to why the Council should be providing Wight Leisure’s services fits neatly with current research into the public’s view of what cultural and leisure services in general should be trying to do for the Island. The primary reasons for providing the services were identified as being:

 

              •       To help people stay healthy, fit and well.

 

              •       To promote economic development and tourism.

 

1.2.2.3   Relating these reasons to the range of facilities and services being provided by the Council, it was found that the community :

 

              •       See swimming pools, sports halls and sports pitches as the key facilities in helping them to stay fit and healthy but do not readily identify fitness suites with this aim.

 

              •       See events and seasonal facilities as central to the promotion of and support for tourism and economic development on the Island.

 

              •       Equate the provision of fitness suites to the promotion of sporting excellence.

 

1.2.2.4   Relatively speaking public support for the Council to provide health and fitness suites and the Dotto trains and Shanklin Lift was low. In the case of the fitness suites, it would seem that the public view it as an elitist activity and perhaps not appropriate to their own fitness needs and there is clearly an education role to be undertaken in this regard. As for the other services, they are ancillary to the tourism industry and could conceivably be provided by others if they could be identified.

 

1.2.2.5   Generally the Island community felt that the mix of leisure services provided by the Council through Wight Leisure was about right and that there is a need to make better use of and improve existing facilities rather than create new ones. Although, that having been said, if new facilities are able to be provided, then these should link to existing and not be stand-alone. The main areas for improvement in this regard were :

 

                       -          to increase the range of provision for young people and especially in the age range 14-18 years

 

                       -          to increase the range of indoor leisure facilities available to support the tourism based economy and the Island’s drive to be a year-round attraction

 

1.2.2.6   There was no great public support for the re-organisation of the services into one central location as transport opportunities were consistently held up as the main barrier to the public’s participation in leisure activities. Also, facilities such as ice rinks, ten pin bowling and golf courses were not felt to be core activities to the Council’s leisure provision.

 

1.2.3      Consult

 

1.2.3.1   A customer impact study at the three principal leisure facilities (Heights, Medina and Waterside Pool) has shown that satisfaction with the facilities is high at 97% and had risen by 2% since a similar survey undertaken in 1999. Other key messages coming from this study are :

 

              •       Users were 95% satisfied with the standards of customer care they received but that overall user satisfaction with swimming pools had fallen 9 points to 81% from the previous study. There was evidence to show however that this may be due to increasing customer expectations.

 

              •       Satisfaction with changing accommodation remained relatively low at 69% although still some way higher than the 59% satisfaction of the previous study, due in no small part to the refurbishment of the Waterside Pool facilities in 2000.

 

              •       Improving fitness was identified as the main motivation for making use of the facilities with users making on average two visits a week to a facility. The evidence suggests that the demand for the facilities is increasing and that the opening times are appropriate for the users’ needs.

 

              •       New health and fitness facilities were the most requested future development, the current facilities being increasingly favoured by younger people over swimming as their main activity.

 

1.2.3.2   The users of the service have therefore the same aspirations of health and well-being as do the whole community, they have however embraced the role of health and fitness activities in meeting this aspiration. Whilst overall satisfaction levels with the service are high, the marked decline in satisfaction with the swimming pools would seem to point to an urgent need to invest in and refurbish these facilities to meet customers’ increasing expectations.

 

1.2.3.3   The general view of the public is that the Council is not best placed to take risk, commercial or otherwise, to introduce new and different leisure services to the community to keep pace with the rapidly changing leisure market. It is especially restricted by its inability to access investment funds and respond immediately to development opportunities.

 

1.2.4      Compare

 

1.2.4.1   An analysis of user numbers would bear out the results of the satisfaction survey inasmuch that they demonstrate a general increase in users for almost all service areas over the period 1998/1999 to 2000/01 like for like. Indoor facility users have increased by some 6% (to 760,000) over the period and would no doubt have shown a greater increase, had emergency works to the plant at Waterside Pool and The Heights not caused them to close for 12 weeks in total. The Waterside Pool was also closed for 12 weeks to refurbish the changing accommodation. When the facilities that were taken over by Wight Leisure during this period are taken into account (Waterside Café and Westridge Squash) then this increase in users is higher at some 12%, 806,000 users.

 

1.2.4.2   In the same period users of outdoor year-round facilities fell by 3% (to 180,000) largely on account of the disruption to Browns Golf Course caused by the construction of Dinosaur Isle. For outdoor seasonal facilities a fall in usage of 3% (to 327,000) over the period has been attributed to a change in accounting practices for Shanklin lift, the effect of Southern Water’s works at Appley and the effect of other development adjacent to sites.

 

1.2.4.3   Comparison of the performance of Wight Leisure’s operation of the Council’s main leisure facilities and of the organisation overall was made through the Performance Network’s Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) where 145 local authorities made up the membership of the sports and leisure network in which the performance of like facilities is compared. The 9 indicators considered were :

 

              -       Subsidy per head

              -       Customer spend per head (overall)

              -       Subsidy per opening hour

              -       Staff costs per user

              -       Net cost per visit

              -       Net cost per head of population

              -       Operational recovery ratio

              -       Community consultation and QA processes

              -       Customer satisfaction

 

1.2.4.4   Over these indicators The Heights was in the top performing quartile for 8, Medina Leisure Centre for 7 and Waterside Pool for 2.

 

1.2.4.5   For the service overall the performance of Wight Leisure was in the top quartile in 5 of the 6 indicators considered and was above average in the sixth.

 

1.2.4.6   The review has demonstrated an urgent need for investment into all of the facilities connected with the services. Condition surveys completed by Property Services at The Heights, Waterside Pool and Medina Leisure Centre identified repairs to the buildings’ structure and fabric totalling £271,000 that should be completed within a 5 year period. Of this sum £61,000 of work was identified as being necessary to items that were coming to the end of their useful lives, were related to Health and Safety or environmental controls and that if they failed may necessitate complete or partial closure of the facility.

 

1.2.4.7   This ‘ideal requirement’ for building works needs to be considered in the context of a total maintenance budget for all buildings associated with the service of only some £40,000 in 2001/2002. If this discrepancy is not addressed then the outlook is for a general deterioration in the quality of the building stock and further reduction in customer satisfaction as has already been seen with the swimming pools.

 

1.2.4.8   Over and above the need to spend money on the fabric of the buildings, a wide range of service/operational other investment costs and opportunities have been identified which are summarised in three areas as detailed below :

 

The Council has allocated £351,000 towards these works from its anticipated capital receipts in 2002/2003.

 

1.2.4.9   It has also been found that there is a need for a properly resourced planned preventative maintenance programme to be established. By so doing the service can proactively plan to replace key plant and equipment at a time that is least disruptive to the service and especially the customers. The present system of reacting to equipment failure can cause long facility closures, as at Waterside Pool and The Heights, dissatisfied customers and lost income to the Council.

 

1.2.5      Required Improvements

 

1.2.5.1   Following the Challenge, Consult, Compare phase of the review it was possible, within the context of the two main service aims, to identify seven distinct areas of improvement in the service being :

 

              (i)     To make the services more accessible to the public by removing transport barriers.

 

              (ii)     To improve access to the services in general, supported by the use of appropriate promotional material.

 

              (iii)    To increase the range of existing leisure services/facilities to support tourism and the economy.

 

              (iv)    To create a climate in which the service is more flexible and able to react quickly to commercial opportunities.

 

              (v)    To provide more for young people.

 

              (vi)    To improve the fabric of existing facilities thereby extending their life.

 

              (vii)   To improve awareness of and education about activities which promote/enhance health and fitness.

 

1.2.5.2   The improvement plan that follows sets out the detailed actions to be undertaken to ensure that the services can address these seven improvement needs.

 

1.2.5.3   The areas for improvement formed the basis of the analysis of the best method available to the Council to deliver the services to the public under the “compete” element of the review.

 

1.2.6      Compete

 

1.2.6.1   Given the public’s general satisfaction with the range and mix of services being provided and the identified improvements, it was felt appropriate to consider models of service delivery that would involve all of the services being provided rather than as distinct elements.

 

1.2.6.2   It was also agreed that the most important issues in considering which service delivery model would be the best for the Council were :

 

              •       That the Council should be able to influence rather than control service delivery

 

              •       Maintenance of staff morale

 

              •       Sustainability of the business

 

              •       Creating employment opportunities on the Island

 

              •       Access to Funds (in terms of speed, levels etc)

 

Each factor was weighted for importance.

 

1.2.6.3   An interest from the private sector in providing the services was established very early on in the review and some constructive meetings were held. The general view of the sector was that it would work through any form of partnership that the Council determined but that its preference would be to establish not for profit companies as a subsidiary of a parent company and to recycle any potential rates savings back into the development of the services. The preferred contract period was for ten years and the contract would be between the main company and the Council and therefore a profit element would be payable. Whilst some companies are backed by ‘cash rich’ parent companies there was not a great deal of evidence of funds being made available by the parent company to achieve immediate improvements in service provision. If a company fails then the Council’s assets would transfer back to it relatively quickly and enable the service to be reinstated. If however a company was only under-performing it could frustrate the development of the service throughout the full contract term.

 

1.2.6.4   The private sector companies would wish to negotiate around the exact terms and conditions of a contract and required investment levels before a tendering process began.

 

1.2.6.5   Interest for a Not for Profit Distributing Organisation (NPDO) was the catalyst for this review. Research undertaken in this review has found that NPDO will also recycle savings on the rates into facility and service developments, and would expect a minimum ten year lease on the assets to be used. Service delivery would be agreed on an annual basis in consultation with the Council which, as the principle funding body would be able to withdraw all support if it were unhappy at proposals for service delivery. With no track record a new NPDO may be unlikely to attract external funds in the short term to make immediate service improvements.

 

1.2.6.6   A continuance of the in-house DSO would leave the Council with ultimate control over both the planning and delivery of the services but also with no ability to fund or create funds to enable service improvements. Changes to the capital finance roles planned for 2004 may allow it to access funds with which to undertake specific projects but the cost of borrowing would be a charge to the revenue fund which in itself is already under extreme pressure.

 

1.2.7      Conclusions

 

The service has demonstrated continuous improvement.

 

1.2.7.1   This review has demonstrated that the improvements in the service which took place between 1996 and 1999 have continued to the present day. A third of the Island’s population make use of the Council’s services provided through Wight Leisure and 97% of users of the principle facilities are satisfied with the services. The performance of these facilities is consistently within the upper quartile of the majority of performance indicators as compared with like facilities.

 

There are key barriers to further improvement

 

1.2.7.2   Whilst seven main areas for improvement have been identified some of these areas may prove difficult to tackle without the provision of additional resources. The quality of the facilities being used is of serious concern as this appears set to deteriorate as customer expectations are increasing. A lack of available funds and the constraints of being part of a larger corporate body mean that Wight Leisure is not able to demonstrate business flexibility to create investment into the services and react quickly to commercial and service opportunities.

 

The Council should provide the leisure services considered

 

1.2.7.3   Although not felt to be the most important of the Council’s services 80% of the public do feel that the Council should provide for leisure for the purposes of helping people to stay fit and well and promoting economic development and tourism. Although there is concern that the services are not able to do this as well as possible given the barriers listed above.

 

The range of service provision is appropriate

 

1.2.7.4   In the main the public felt the scale and mix of facilities and services was adequate and would not support a centralisation of the facilities. There was mixed support for the provision of health and fitness facilities but as these are part of a wider facility it would not be possible to split them away from the main service. This is possibly a way forward for the Dotto trains and Shanklin Lift which found little public support, if an operator could be identified but these services are revenue beneficial to the overall service.

 

The Council should externalise the provision of services

 

1.2.7.5   Given the relative importance of the service, as compared with other Council services, the support which it attracts in its own right would lead to a splitting of the service delivery, from service planning and strategy. By so doing, the Council can concentrate its efforts on the strategy element leaving others to concern themselves with delivery. As a consequence some of the barriers to service improvement would also be removed.

 

A Not for Profit Distributing Organisation (NPDO) would be the most effective route to externalisation

 

1.2.7.6   Such an organisation is the best suited to meeting the demands of the improvement plan and for ensuring continuous improvement in the services. It is as well placed as the private sector to recycle savings on the rates and VAT bill into service/facility improvements and, on the basis of an annual funding agreement with the Council is flexible enough to meet the needs of the service, the public and the Council. It may not initially have the same access to capital funds as does the private sector but it is not certain that the private sector would always utilise such funds as it has access to, thereby guaranteeing a long-term commitment to the Council.

 

1.3         Recommendation

 

1.3.1      On the basis of this review it is recommended that the best way of maintaining the level of continuous improvement as demonstrated by the service to date and of achieving the targets set out in the improvement plan, is to externalise the delivery of the Council’s leisure services currently provided through Wight Leisure to a Not for Profit Distributing Organisation.

IMPROVEMENT PLAN

Isle of Wight Council

Corporate Objectives

For ease of reference the Corporate Objectives are listed here so that they can be cross referenced against the Areas for Improvement that have come out of this review.

The following tables note the seven main improvement areas with the actions required against the responsible officer, target date, budgetary implications and the desired outcomes. This formula is essential to maintain and drive forward a programme of continuous service improvements in the coming years. Equally important is the procedures that ensure consistent and periodic scrutiny by the appropriate Select Committees and Monitoring Officers. The monitoring of these outcomes against the prescribed actions will continue the existing pattern of service improvement over the next 5 years.

Corporate Objectives

 

1            To care for vulnerable and disadvantaged people

 

2            To raise standards of achievement, encourage learning and promote opportunities for all

 

3            To develop the knowledge and skills needed for employment opportunities

 

4            To protect and enhance the health, safety and environment of the Island and its people

 

5            To develop the Island’s transport network for the benefit of local people

 

6            To support and develop staff and to manage the Council’s property and other resources efficiently and effectively

 

7            To promote sustainable tourism, leisure and culture and economic development

 

1.      Area for Improvement :  To make the services more accessible by removing the transport barriers

 

 

2.      Area for Improvement :  To improve access to the services in general supported by appropriate promotional material

 

 

3.      Area for Improvement :  Increase the range of existing leisure services/facilities provided/available to support tourism and the economy

 

 

4.      Area for Improvement :  Create a climate which allows greater financial flexibility

 

 

5.      Area for Improvement :  Provide more for young people

 

 

6.      Area for Improvement :  Improve the fabric of the existing facilities thereby extending their life

 

 

7.      Area for Improvement :  Education about health and fitness, eg doctors referral schemes