Item 6 (Minute 22) and Item 7 (minute 23) were taken together.

Cllr Smith, Board Member for Leisure, Parks and Sport introduced the reports and said that they contained some very positive headlines, such as a 71% increase in visits to leisure centres since the contract commenced and the expected achievement of a zero subsidy per user in 2017/18. 

The Head of Community Services added that in 2008 the Council was spending £2M per year on subsidising visits to leisure centres and next year this would reduce to zero.

Cllr Fry raised concerns about how quickly minor maintenance requests and IT failures were dealt with and questioned whether these issues were considered in performance assessments.  The Head of Community Services said that Fusion used a variety of assessments including mystery visits and customer journey mapping.  He could not excuse failures to fix minor maintenance issues but was not aware of any continuous problems, and such issues should be seen in the context of a vast increase in usage over recent years.

In response to a question about tracking the numbers of individuals visiting leisure centres rather than the total number of visits, Cllr Smith explained that there were lots of casual users.  She wanted these users to buy into the loyalty schemes and these needed to be promoted more.

Cllr Fry asked what user involvement there was on the Leisure Partnership Board and commented that a user representative had been unable to attend recent meetings because they had taken place in the daytime on a week day.  The Board meets quarterly and its minutes are published on the Council website.  The membership included two elected members as well as customer representatives including older and younger people.  The Committee suggest that the Council should look to strengthen user representation on the Board to provide useful consumer opinion on matters before the Board, and if necessary, the meeting times should be changed to facilitate this.

The Committee noted that Ferry Leisure Centre had a user group in place and suggest that the Council should encourage the formation of user groups at leisure centres that don’t already have them, targeting regular customers if possible.  The Committee commented that each user group could have a representative on the Leisure Partnership Board, which would help to strengthen user representation.

The Committee queried annual reductions in swimming visits by people under the age of 17 (from 48,400 in 2014/15 to 45,200 in 2015/16) and by people over the age of 60 (from 33,000 to 22,600) and asked what the explanations were.  Work is taking place nationally to address a decline in swimming and officers wanted to address the reductions by attracting new swimmers, particularly amongst older people.  The Committee noted that the Service Plan included a target to deliver a 3% year-on-year increase in over 60 swimming.  The Committee suggest that, given the 32% drop in over 60 swimming in 2015/16, Fusion should be challenged to deliver a higher increase in 2016/17.

Cllr Tidball asked whether leisure centres linked in with other local community facilities and suggested that there may be opportunities to increase footfall at non-peak times by offering discounted entry to daytime users of nearby community centres or nursery schools, for example.  The Committee heard that such changes would have contract implications and affect the subsidy.

The Committee considered a suggestion that differential membership pricing structures should be introduced at different leisure centres to encourage visits to less well used facilities.  The Committee voiced some reservations around fairness and the accessibility of centres for people living in different parts of the City but indicated that it would support this proposal being pursued provided that no prices would increase and that all existing concessions would be unaffected.  The Committee noted that consideration would need to be given to the implications of such a change on the Fusion Lifestyle contract.

Cllr Fry asked whether the Council benchmarked fees and performance with the wider market, including the private sector.  As the insights gained may help the Council and Fusion Lifestyle to fine-tune performance targets in future years.   The Head of Community Services said that neighbouring authorities are used as a benchmark and that all facilities in the City are QUEST accredited.

The Committee considered a proposal that gym-only membership package be introduced.  Cllr Smith said that Fusion thought this could lead to a decrease rather than an increase in participation.  The Committee suggested that further consideration be given to introducing this type of membership option, perhaps on a trial basis at one centre so that its impacts could be assessed.

Cllr Hayes asked whether the five key strategic objectives for 2016/17 listed in the Service Plan should be read in priority order and suggested that it would be helpful to prioritise these. As it may help to inform considerations about things like the possible introduction of differential pricing, for example.

The Committee thought that information on the following would be useful in future years to supplement the performance dashboard provided to Scrutiny:

• The numbers of visitors as well as visits;
• Seasonal variations in usage;
• More analysis around changes in usage levels amongst different target groups and communities of interest;
• More detail around actions taken to address any reductions in usage;
• National trends such as changes in the take up of different activities;
• Contract performance over the longer term, perhaps through the inclusion of performance data for a base year as well the preceding year;
• Capital responsibilities and the capital spend profile for the coming years;

The Committee requested a written response in respect of the following points:

• The extent of competitor benchmarking against neighbouring leisure providers;
• How customer satisfaction is measured;
• The marketing and accessibility of leisure services to women from black and ethnic minority groups;
• The use of social media and the marketing and visibility of leisure services to groups who may be less likely to engage with these channels, such as older people.

The Committee AGREED the following recommendations to CEB:

1 That the Council encourages and seeks to facilitate stronger user representation on the Leisure Partnership Board, including by varying meeting times if required.

2 That the Council encourages the formation of user groups at the remaining Leisure Centres and considers how these user groups could link in with the Leisure Partnership Board, perhaps with each user group having a representative on the Board.

3  That the Council takes further steps to understand why the numbers of swimming visits have declined amongst some target groups and challenges Fusion Lifestyle to set a more ambitious target for increasing swimming visits by people over the age of 60 in 2016/17.

4 That further consideration is given to the case for and expected impacts of a proposal to introduce reduced non-concessionary membership fees at less well used leisure centres.

5 That benchmarking on performance, participation and price is undertaken with the wider market, including the private sector, not just with neighbouring local authorities.

6 That further consideration is given to the idea of introducing gym-only membership options, perhaps on a limited trial basis.

7 That consideration is given to the priority order of the five key strategic objectives for 2016/17.