Agenda item

Business Development Manager, Ken Dale – a presentation and discussion

Pat Pratley, Senior Responsible Officer, Ken Dale, Programme Manager and Gary Spencer, CBC Legal Adviser gave a presentation on the Cheltenham Leisure and Culture Trust, the slides of which are attached to these minutes for information.

In response to questions from Members the following clarifications were given by officers :

• Should the Council find itself in the position that it could not repair the building there were funds in the planned maintenance budget and as this went forward the council would need to decide on those needs against other needs elsewhere. The Legal Adviser added that a variation of contract would need to be discussed first with the Trust although the Council would need to consider how to deal with a drastic change in funding e.g. terminate the contract. There was a procedure to follow should this be the case. There was however nothing specific in the clauses on such a scenario.
• In terms of which costs were borne by which party there was, in principle, a VAT efficient and cost efficient approach. Officers were currently looking at other service provision such as utilities whereby the Council, as a local authority, could purchase power on more favourable terms than the Trust.
• The Shadow Board for the Trust had its own independent legal adviser who was currently drafting the contract. The set up costs for the Trust included legal advice. To progress the project a brief had been put out to the market and there had been three expressions of interest.
• In terms of resourcing the governance function, the detail had not yet been worked out. Resourcing would be dealt within the business plan itself and this would need to be taken into account when the Trust looked at its structure.
• With regard to the risk management system that the Trust would operate, this was detail which had yet to be finalised. It was certain that there would be a risk register and possibly a risk committee. Risk management issues would be covered by the performance management framework and raised at the Partnership Board meetings.
• When asked whether lessons had been learned from Cheltenham Festivals, the Senior Responsible Officer explained that there were differences in terms of the way the Trusts were funded (management fee vis a vis grant) but lessons could be drawn on how contracts could be managed effectively. She highlighted that informal relationships had been built into the contract framework, i.e. the Chief Executives, the Trust Chair and the Cabinet Portfolio holder would meet quarterly. These relationships were important in terms of governance and moving forward.

The Senior Responsible Officer added that the team would like to attend a future meeting of the Audit Committee and in the meantime invited Members to contact them should there be any particular concerns they had about governance arrangements going forward. The Chair emphasised that the role of the Committee was to be satisfied with the governance arrangements and any areas of concern would be taken up with Internal Audit. Members were informed that the Audit Partnership Manager sat on the Programme Board for the Trust and he would lead the gateway reviews when they are undertaken.