Agenda item

PARKWOOD LEISURE - ANNUAL SERVICE REPORT

To Consider the attached report.

Minutes:

David Scott, Head of Communities, introduced the report and informed members what each set of information was. David Scott informed the Panel that the current format of the report was how it had been done in the last few years. However, if Panel members felt that they would prefer another format in order to be able to scrutinize the performance of Parkwood Leisure better, Officers would work with the operators to develop a new format.

Councillor Price informed the Panel that she had concerns about the process and strongly felt that it needed to be tightened up. Councillor Price was concerned that that the previous meeting where Parkwood Leisure had presented the Annual Service Report, no information had been provided to the Panel before the meeting. The leaflet distributed by Parkwood Leisure was tabled and the presentation was one that could not be added to the website. Councillor Price felt that this gave Panel Members no knowledge of knowing what the agenda item would consist of.


Councillor Price requested that all presentations given at all meetings should be in a format that the public could see on our website and could be downloaded.


David Scott informed the Panel that the Managing Director, who was present at the June meeting has asked for a front sheet explanation for each item on an agenda that does not have a report, going forward. That would include items that were being covered as presentations and verbal updates/reports.


Councillor Price suggested that since the work of the leisure centres directly linked to one of the borough's strategic priorities, it would be easier to measure if all the objectives were responded to on how the operators were meeting them.


David Scott informed the Panel that there were more than one strategic priorities that the operators met but the format could definitely be looked at.


Councillor Price suggested that it would be useful to find out and see in the report of the overall population in an area, how many were members and how many were users. It would be interesting to see who was using the facilities. It would also be useful to see what facilities each centre offered.


The Lead Member, Councillor Rayner informed the Panel that operators/providers were always at the Panels ready to answer questions or supply answers after the meetings.

Councillor Price felt it would be more useful to pre ask any questions so that the operators/providers could come prepared with answers, very similar to how the Chief Constables presentation was carried out. David Scott confirmed that we could do this as best as we could in the future.


Kevin Mist informed the Panel that they did not have to wait for meetings to ask questions. Members could approach him at any time if they wanted to ask questions.


ACTION: Kevin Mist to provide Panel members a summary list of all leisure centres with what facilities they offered and times of opening.


The Chairman suggested that all Panel members visited each leisure centre before the January meeting, announced or unannounced.


Councillor Baskerville took the opportunity to ask some questions to the operators. They were as follows:


How were the GP referrals going? Mark Camp-Overy informed the Panel that this had increase to 488 and had a stable growth. The leisure centres had an intake every six weeks. The operators were working very closely with surgeries directly.


With SMILE, were the users benefitting? Mark Camp-Overy informed the Panel that SMILE was very successful at the leisure centres and the program was definitely benefitting its users.

Kevin Mist informed the Panel that the bullet points in the report were all the points the borough had put in the contract that the operators had to maintain.


Parish Councillor Lenton asked what the security was like for the young people in the leisure centre environment. Parish Councillor Lenton was reassured that there was a strict safeguarding policy in place, the duty managers were trained, the ratios of adults to children was strictly adhered to. The car parks were managed like all other car parks in the borough. There were plenty of seen and unseen CCTV cameras in place and there was always a presence of someone in a high vis jacket around. It had been proven that this deterred crime.

Mark Camp-Overy informed the Panel that the trained staff at the Magnet had recently saved a person's life, and thus was one of many.


Parish Councillor Beer asked the officers about the Thames Valley Athletics Centre and what had happened to it. Kevin Mist informed the Panel that it still existed and was still operating with a Trustee from each of,  the College, RBWM and Slough.

 

ACTION : A report to be presented to the Panel at a future meeting on TVAC to provide an update.

Supporting documents: