Agenda and minutes

To provide an opportunity for Members and Officers to declare any personal and/or prejudicial interests in any item on the agenda

No interests were declared.

In accordance with Procedure Rules Nos.11 and 35, a total period of 10 minutes is allocated for members of the public to address the meeting on any matter relevant to the work of the meeting. Individual members of the public may speak for up to 5 minutes but the Chairman will decide how the period of time allocated for public speaking will be apportioned where there are a number of speakers.  Members of the public are not required to give notice to use this facility.  However, as a matter of courtesy, a period of 24 hours notice is encouraged.

Members of the public wishing to ask a question at the meeting should provide 3 clear working days notice, in writing, in order for an informed answer to be given.

There were no members of the public present.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 2 June 2010.

RESOLVED

That the minutes of the meeting held on 2^nd June 2010 be approved as a correct record.

To consider a report on a proposal document on the process by which the Leisure Facilities Service is structured, developed and transformed in the future to take into account the corporate priorities of the Council.

The Sub-Committee considered a ‘vision’ document for Cheshire East Leisure Facilities, which was based on the discussions held at the previous meeting of the Sub-Committee on 2^nd June 2010.

The current main leisure facilities inherited by Cheshire East could be categorised as follows:

• Type A – Principal Towns and Key Service Centres with community swimming pools
• Type B – Joint Use High Schools with dry sports facilities only
• Type C – Other stand alone dry sports facilities
• Type D – All other school, voluntary or private sports and leisure facilities with the potential for wider community use but not currently directly financially supported for community leisure activities by the Council.

The proposed strategic approach was that Type A facilities, which were highly valued by local communities and required the highest levels of professional leisure management expertise and experience, would not be recommended for transfer out of Council control at this stage although this would need to be reviewed on a site-by-site basis.

For Types B and C it was proposed that with the right safeguards, service level agreements and client monitoring it would be possible to negotiate the transfer of the operation of some or all of these facilities to other partners, including high school governors and Town or Parish Councils.  The financial savings from this could be used to pump prime and encourage via new service level agreements other high schools, primary schools and voluntary groups in Type D to consider extending community access to their facilities to help widen the availability of leisure facilities to people in their immediate localities.

Members discussed the proposals in detail and supported the approach outlined in the ‘vision’ document for the future delivery of the leisure service. The document would be submitted to the Corporate Scrutiny Committee before going on to Cabinet for formal approval and implementation.

RESOLVED

That

(1)   the briefing document ‘Cheshire East Council Leisure Facilities – A Potential Vision for the Future’ be recommended as the strategic approach for the future delivery of the leisure facilities service; and

(2)   the document be submitted to Cabinet for formal approval and implementation.

To consider a report on how the Council is approaching the ‘Swim Free’ programme in the light of the recent decision to stop external grant funding on 31 July 2010

The Sub-Committee considered a report on how the Council was approaching the ‘Swim Free’ programme in the light of the recent decision to stop external grant funding on 31^st July 2010.

The Council had taken advantage of the Government’s two year ‘Swim Free’ programme which commenced on 1^st April 2009.  However, the Department of Culture, Media & Sports had announced in June 2010 that this funding would cease from 31^st July 2010 and the Council would only receive the pro-rata funding up to this date. 

A number of options had been suggested to the Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing on how to proceed from 31^st July.  These included:

(a)   Giving notice to all existing free swimming card holders that as a result of the withdrawal of funding, free swimming would end on 31^st July 2010.

(b)   Discontinue free swimming for the 60s and over on 31^st July 2010 but allow juniors 16 and under to continue free swimming for the school holidays until 31^st August 2010.

(c)   Discontinue all free swimming on 31^st July 2010 but offer to transfer all previous junior and senior free swimming cardholders to the existing Council ‘Everybody’ options care at no extra cost.

Having considered these options, the Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing had asked officers to proceed with option (b) and to discontinue free swimming for those 60 and over on 31^st July but to continue free swimming for those 16 and under until 31^st August 2010.

This decision was based on the fact that there was sufficient funding available from the Government (four months to 31^st July) and £100,000 from the Council’s own revenue funding to allow the Council to remain within budget.

A detailed Communications Plan had been produced which aimed to deliver the message to the maximum number of users without incurring costs.

RESOLVED

That the information on the ‘Swim Free’ programme, including the Communications Plan and associated publicity, be noted.