The Head of Community Services has submitted a report to present recommendations to improve how leisure concessions are used.

Recommendations: That Cabinet resolves to:

1.         Approve use of the Council Tax Reduction Scheme and or the housing element of Universal Credit as the primary criteria for concessions;

2.         Approve implementation of  the changes shown in Appendix 2 in parallel with promotion of alternative memberships and discounted prices;

3.         Agree that the age that someone is able to qualify for an older person concession should be increased from 60 to 65, and then until it reaches 66 in October 2020 and 67 between 2026 and 2028;

4.         Instruct officers to conduct an annual review of concessionary categories alongside the annual fees and charges process;

5.         Instruct officers to look to implement improvements to the leisure concessions offer from 1st April 2020; and

6.         Instruct officers to review the target groups and decide any changes for when the leisure contract is retendered in 2023.

The Head of Community Services had submitted a report to present recommendations to improve how leisure concessions are used.

Councillor Linda Smith, Cabinet Member for Leisure & Housing, introduced the report. The system for determining entitlement to leisure concessions was complex, this, combined with the introduction of Universal Credit,   had meant it was timely to review the arrangements. This had been a significant piece of work which would ensure that concessions were appropriately targeted. The input of Scrutiny Committee had been helpful in fine-tuning the proposals.

Hagan Lewisman, Active Communities Manager, said that the revised scheme had been preceded by wide consultation and was recognised by Sport England as a model of good practice. 

The Cabinet welcomed the proposals and were pleased, among other things, to note the potential benefit for service and ex-service personnel. The new arrangements were a clear improvement but would still require good communication to ensure that they were widely understood, not least because those who were most likely to need the benefit of concessions were likely, also, to be hard to reach.

It would be desirable to have some aspiration about increased   levels of take up as a result of the new arrangements and this would be raised with Fusion Lifestyle.

Cabinet resolved to:

1.         Approve use of the Council Tax Reduction Scheme and or the housing element of Universal Credit as the primary criteria for concessions;

2.         Approve implementation of  the changes shown in Appendix 2 of the report in parallel with promotion of alternative memberships and discounted prices;

3.         Agree that the age that someone is able to qualify for an older person concession should be increased from 60 to 65, and then until it reaches 66 in October 2020 and 67 between 2026 and 2028;

4.         Instruct officers to conduct an annual review of concessionary categories alongside the annual fees and charges process;

5.         Instruct officers to look to implement improvements to the leisure concessions offer from 1st April 2020; and

6.         Instruct officers to review the target groups and decide any changes for when the leisure contract is retendered in 2023.

At its meeting on 09 October 2019, the Cabinet will consider a report on Modernising Leisure Concessions. This item provides an opportunity for the Committee to comment on the report and make such recommendations to the Cabinet as it wishes.

The Cabinet Member for Leisure and Housing, Councillor Linda Smith, introduced the report. Recent changes to the benefits scheme necessitated a redesign of the concessions scheme. The simple expedient of, for example, offering concessions to those in receipt of Universal Credit (UC) was too blunt an instrument which would not target  those who should benefit with sufficient accuracy. The housing element of UC was however proposed as an appropriate criterion which, in parallel with entitlement to the Council Tax Reduction scheme would serve as the two primary criteria for concessions. Many options had been considered before settling on those proposed in the report going to Cabinet.

The Committee was broadly supportive of the report given the widespread recognition of the health and therapeutic value of exercise for everyone.  Given this value the Committee expressed some unease at the proposal to raise the threshold for entitlement to the older person concession from 60 to 65 and the consequent jump in cost for that group. This should not be taken as an indication that older people would not still be encouraged to take exercise. It was held that cost of provision was not a disincentive to the majority of older users.  There were limited data about some aspects of current concessionary memberships and it was hard to say with confidence how many current beneficiaries would lose out under the new proposals, however it was felt that numbers would be low. 

It was noted that the number of those with Personal Independence Payments (PIP) with current membership was very low (just 7 or 1% of the possible number) and it was agreed that more should be done by Fusion Lifestyle to encourage participation by this group, among others. Social prescribing by GPs accounted for very small numbers of users, the costs of which Fusion Lifestyle would be expected to pick up.

It would be desirable, with the help of other data which should be held by the Council, to reach out to those families and individuals in receipt of benefits who do not take advantage of the facilities on offer.

The report included a reference to Fusion Lifestyle’s agreement to consider recognising an existing MOD discount scheme for UK armed forces and veterans which was recognised elsewhere and therefore distinct from the other concessions being proposed. It was noted that this was often a very vulnerable group, which would benefit greatly from access to affordable exercise opportunities.  There were contrasting views about the desirability of this proposal in parallel with discussion about the desirability of such arrangements for other groups of public servants such as those in the NHS.

In conclusion, while the Committee generally agreed with the proposed changes, it recommended that the impact of raising the older person concession from 60 to 67 should be looked at, with a view to ameliorating its consequence by phasing the increase.