Mark Camp-Overy, General Manager, Legacy Leisure, to give a presentation on the annual update on operation for leisure centres.

Mark Camp-Overy, General Manager, Legacy Leisure, gave a presentation on the operation for leisure centres. Attached.

Mark Camp-Overy informed the Panel of the key detail covered in the report. The report covered the period 1 January to 31 December 2017, the third year of the partnership.

The past twelve months had been a challenging time for Legacy Leisure especially as a result of economic uncertainty impacting consumer choice and this had been noted through some of the casual usage trends.

Overall attendance was 1.8 million, showing a marginal decrease compared to 2016 but that had included a period of closure for the leisure pool at the start and end of the year and other competition.

The key highlights for the Windsor contract included:

·         Events Diversification of bookings - notably a South Indian show that added the Magnet in between their shows at Birmingham NEC and O2.

·         Aquazone - Attracted more to swimming lessons - offering more classes and aligning the programme times to be as effective as possible for families.

·         Children’s activities - Reviewed holiday provisions. Re-energised the programme and achieved an average attendance of 92% throughout 29 of the summer holidays in 2017 - 1334 attendees.

·         Group Exercise - attracted more to workout together - offering a new and exciting class timetable and developing more studio space

·         Partnerships - Took on the operational management of Marlow Road community centre from August 17 on behalf of the Council.

·         Health & Safety - External audits carried out in 2017, all sites achieving over 80% with Magnet at 87% and Windsor achieving 91% in its largest audit.

·         Environmental Management - Continue to commit to reducing our carbon footprint. Both the main sites building management systems now fully use to manage consumption in line with operations.

·         Training - Strengthened partnership with Lifetime to provide education pathways to new and existing staff.

·         Apprentices - Legacy joined the 5% club and is one of the highest performers in the sector for attracting and retaining apprentices.

·         Retail - Launched a new menu in the cafes with an even wider range of healthy products to choose from

·         Sports Development - Linked with national governing bodies including Swim England, England Triathlons and the latest with England Squash - This Girl Can campaign at Magnet Leisure Centre. Resident volunteer to increase participation.

·         Social Media - Facebook over 5000 followers: up 48% on 2016; Over 6,564 enquiries; Over 1 million page views

It was evident that participation in structured activities such as swimming lessons had performed well from the swimming lessons. There had been an increase of 427 to 2783, during the service period. School swimming had continued to engage and educate children on water safety with 900 children from 30 schools participating each week. Working with the National Aquatics Manager, both Windsor and Magnet swim programmes supported national campaigns such as water safety, getting safe for summer and drowning prevention. A few appointed apprentices supported qualified teachers to deliver lessons, benefitting from on the job training whilst completing their qualifications in swimming teaching. There are now 14 apprentices on qualification programmes across the leisure centres, ten of which are local residents. The apprentices currently appointed are training in sales management, leisure attendants, customer service and fitness instruction. The membership for health and fitness had gone up to 6789, which showed a 4.8% net gain on 2016.

A fixed and flexi membership was introduced throughout the service period, in response to the changing behaviour in casual use, this was well received.

Mark Camp-Overy explained to the Panel that it was crucial for centres to offer and attract a wide range of users and non-users to engage in an active lifestyle by offering a diverse range of programmes and offers to suit everyone.

On average, the sites welcomed over 5000 users per day, so managing the demand on the facilities was a constant focus for the site teams. Cleanliness and housekeeping had both been raised in feedback and after additional measures had been put into place, this had significantly improved.

Of the 1.8m visitors that came to the centres, there was a reported 909 customer feedback reports of complaints, compliments and comments. We actively engage customers to comment on their experiences and have many ways for customers to get in touch.

Pool feedback at Windsor was highlighted from feedback in 2016. In the last year with the introduction of Front of House customer care team, general assistants in the pool changing village and full time cleaners in the pool hall throughout peak times has worked well to maintain standards.

Planned replacements were co-ordinated with the client officer. Boiler replacement at

Magnet, Changing rooms at Windsor, Court works at Charters, Changing room upgrades and fire door work at Cox Green, Heating and water works at Furze Platt.

Health and safety remains the Number 1 priority. There were 836 reported accidents and incidents in 2017. A breakdown of the incidents highlight slips and trips during sporting activities make up the dominant cause. The centre’s continue to review risk assessments and take proactive action in a number of areas to positively impact activities. An example of such action is the Roller disco where the floor space has been increased for beginners and the number of stewards have been increased to help novice skaters. The centres have also invested in a slip test monitor to record and monitor flooring conditions in all areas.

A new Fitness and Retention Manager has been appointed across all sites

purely to work with members to ensure they are getting the most out of their workouts and to develop the customer journey and enhance the fitness community experience.

Mark Camp-Overy and his team are also:

·         adapting group fitness to bring in new genres

·         having more diversification with cultural events to attract more non-users to the sites

·         introducing of the online swimming lesson platform with home portal so parents can track swimming progress in real time.

·         Introducing a new sports development programme for holiday activities and participation opportunities.

·         Introducing a new Sway dance outreach programme with local schools.

·         Corporately - there was a new app under development to make accessing, booking and recording attendance at the centres a more streamlined process.

The Panel discussed the following points:

·         The growth of usage at all centres and advertising that was used such as the school newsletter at Furze Platt.

·         The team were focussing on the customer journey, from the point the walked into a centre to the time they left and concentration on how to make it better.

·         The team monitored the centres to understand who were using them, for what and why.

·         Sports England carried out an actual score. RBWM had a high scoring nationally but the borough still had a long way to go.

The Chairman summed up all discussions and the Panel were happy to hear that the centres were running well. The Chairman requested that it would be useful to have benchmarking data with other boroughs and nationally. The Chairman suggested that this good news should be effectively communicated to residents.

The Panel suggested that it would be very beneficial to invite users to try all facilities at the new leisure centre before the Magnet was closed and before the new leisure centre had opened so that there was a smooth transfer from one to the other. All areas of the new centre should be tried and tested before the grand opening.

ACTION: Look to advertise all the good news about the leisure centre. Kevin Mist to contact the Communications Team.

ACTION: Look into offering a trial day to users before the grand opening of the new leisure centre and the closure of the Magnet.