Agenda item

Report of the Cabinet Member Sport and Culture

Councillor Coleman offered his apologies and left the meeting. 

The Cabinet Member Housing and Safety introduced the paper which she was presenting on behalf of her colleague, the Cabinet Member Sport and Culture who had been unable to attend the meeting.

She invited feedback from members prior to its consideration by Cabinet on the 26 July, before highlighting some of the conclusions which would be of particular interest to the committee.

The Leisure and Culture Commissioning Review was one of three strategic projects using the commissioning principles. 

The services cost around £4million a year, with net operational expenditure running at around £2.5million a year and the net spend representing 21% of the Council’s net revenue budget.  The services performed well and since 2007 the net cost had been reduced by nearly £600k. 

Despite the cash reduction in central government support, members have been clear that their priority was maintaining the level and quality of front-line services. 

The review was set a challenging financial target of reducing the costs of the services by £690k by 2013-14, which represented approximately 30% of the net cost of the service and asked whether the current service could deliver the outcomes needed with less money. 

Section 7 of the report outlined conclusions and recommendations, which rather than map out the final destination, set out the direction of travel and formed a ‘roadmap’ of the next steps. 

The recommendations were discussed and subsequently endorsed by members of the Cabinet Member Working Group (Councillors Barnes, R. Hay, Regan, Seacome and Smith and Cabinet Member Sport and Culture). 

Importantly, the report reaffirmed the Council’s commitment to high quality, value for money leisure and culture provision in the town. 

The council was an important provider of leisure and culture services and the public perception of these services, gained through the budget consultation last year, demonstrated that the services were held in high regard (in particular Leisure@ which was placed in the top 5 of services to protect).

Despite the fact that it has not been possible for the savings target (£690k) to be achieved in the first phase, almost a third has been identified as deliverable, mainly from Leisure@.

The Art Gallery and Museum (AG&M) would be a priority area for further focussed work, the principle reason for the AG&M having been excluded was the timing of the review alongside the outcome of the second round Heritage Lottery Fund application.  Ultimately the bid was successful and the redevelopment was underway, which provided an opportunity to assess whether alternative delivery arrangements might be appropriate for the future during the period of closure. 

In response to a question from a member of the committee, the Strategic Director advised that another priority of the next stage would be consultation with local partners and other stakeholders, providing an update on the review and to consult on the outcomes and priorities for future work. 

There were no further questions or comments made by the committee. 

The Chair recognised that the review was a sizeable undertaking and thanked those that had compiled and presented the report.  The committee were aware that the review was ongoing and in its initial stages and that there were a number of further discussions to be had. 

Upon a vote it was unanimously

RESOLVED that the recommendations as set out in the report to Cabinet, be endorsed by the committee and recommended to Cabinet for approval in conjunction with the comments made by the committee.