Agenda and minutes

To confirm the Minutes of the Meeting held on 23 January 2018 (to be laid on the table 30 minutes before the meeting).

The Minutes of the Meeting held on 23 January 2018 were confirmed as a correct record and signed.

To receive apologies for absence and note any substitutions.

Members who are unable to attend this meeting must submit apologies by the end of Tuesday 6 March 2018 to enable a substitute to be arranged, if applicable.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Val Henry, David Else, Mike Hodge, Sam Pritchard, Bob Upton and Ross Welland.

To receive from Members declarations of interests in relation to any items included on the agenda for this meeting, in accordance with Waverley’s Code of Local Government Conduct.

There were no declarations of interests in connection with items on the agenda.

To receive and note an update on the Leisure Centre Contract Management Review.

The Committee was advised that the previous Committee in 2016/17 had established a Leisure Centre Contract Management Review Sub-Committee in November 2016 to review the management of the Waverley Leisure Centre contracts with Places for People. The review focused on exploring the effectiveness of the contract and was to identify opportunities for improvement including potential cost savings and lessons which could be applied to other major Council projects. The review set out to establish how effectively the Council’s priorities of  Community Wellbeing, Customer Services and Value for Money were being delivered through the management of the contract for this discretionary service. Cllrs Wyatt Ramsdale and Richard Seaborne who were on the Sub-Committee attended this meeting in order to hear the status of the actions.

Tamsin Macleod, the Leisure Contracts Manager, presented the recommendations to the Committee and highlighted progress with some of the actions. Comments on the recommendations are noted below:

·         Develop a clear policy setting out the Council’s priorities for leisure centres in Waverley

Kelvin Mills, the Head of Community Services outlined that there were a number of policies adopted by the Council which addressed leisure. These consisted of the Corporate Plan, Service Plans, Health and Wellbeing Strategy and the Indoor Leisure Facilities Strategy. He asked Members whether this was enough was anything being missed. It was an Executive function to set policy decisions on health and wellbeing priorities for Leisure Centres and Cllr Jenny Else, who was at the meeting would take this away and look into it.   

The Committee asked how well GPs in the Borough were doing at referring patients to a leisure centre for specific classes as this was something that had come up recently with the Health Inequalities Working Group. Members were advised that there was a Health and Wellbeing Manager who was working hard to contact GPs and had written to all of them promoting the leisure centres rather than taking medicine to resolve a problem. Some GPs were better than others, Farnham in particular, was exceeding the others. It was a challenge though to get into GPs to spread the message and were always looking for different avenues. It was noted that there was a particularly good Patient Participation Forum in Cranleigh which reached out to a number of people. Cllr Patricia Ellis would forward the details onto the Team. It was noted that the Royal Surrey was good at referring people to leisure centres. It was noted that a number of people in the Borough would go to St Georges Hospital and they should approach them to use this scheme. 

·         Profit share should be set against costs incurred by the Council running the contract, together with asset depreciation and life cycle costs

The Committee was advised that financial data against depreciation and lifecycle cost could be presented to the Committee annually if they would like to receive it. Members felt that although this would be useful, they felt it was more important that the officers were aware of these on a  ...  view the full minutes text for item 43.

The report provides an analysis of the Council’s performance in the third quarter of 2017/18 in the service area of Community Services. Annexe 1 to the report details performance against key indicators.

Recommendation

It is recommended that the Community Wellbeing Overview & Scrutiny Committee considers the performance figures for Quarter 3 and agrees any observations or recommendations about the performance and progress towards target it wishes to make to the Executive.

The Committee received the performance management report for October to December 2017. The report provided an analysis on the Council’s performance in the third quarter of 2017/18 in the service area of Community Services.

Members were reminded that at a previous meeting it was agreed that performance indicators would be reported on an exception basis only. Consequently, the report would only focus on those PIs where performance was above or below target by more than 5 % or where those PIs without a target were notable. There would be a new careline indicator hoping to get more detail on the types of call per emergency.  

The Committee noted that there were two underperforming performance indicators; CS1 – Number of Access to Leisure Cards issues and CS2 – Number of visits to Farnham Leisure Centres. Members noted that the number of access cards issued had dropped significantly by 157 and at its lowest level since Quarter 3 in 2013/14. The Council though had little influence over the performance of this indicator and it was proposed to include this indicator in the review of them. Members agreed that this performance indicator provided little information to the Council and what might be a better indicator would be the monitor how many with the card actually used it and visited the centre. Members asked if there was a way of working with the Benefits Service to be more proactive in promoting the cards and Kelvin Mills agreed that he would go back to the Benefits Service and see what could be done.  

In relation to Farnham Leisure Centre, there had been a small improvement in attendance, and the performance was now 6.42% below the target. The proposed changes of the target would be included in the indicator review. Members noted that Farnham had 17 competitors in the near vicinity which probably was the main factor for its numbers being low. It was still a very good centre though offering a good service to the community. It was further noted that a report was shortly going through the Executive about investment in the Boroughs Leisure Centre and it was proposed to offer further services to Farnham Leisure Centre which had the potential to increase its numbers.

The Committee noted that at the end of the year, they would review all indicators and assess what indicators would be going forward.

To receive a verbal update on progress with the review.

The Committee was advised that with the amount of work involved, it was not possible for the report to be brought to that meeting for consideration. The Working Group had met 5 times and received evidence from a number of external representatives. The draft report needed to be considered by everyone who had contributed to the report to ensure its accurateness and then the final report would come before the Committee at its next meeting to consider.

The Community and Wellbeing Overview and Scrutiny Committee, is responsible for managing its work programme.

The work programme (attached) includes items discussed at the O&S Co-ordinating Board and takes account of items identified on the latest Executive Forward Programme (Annexe 2) as due to come forward for decision.

A Scrutiny Tracker has been produced to assist the Committee in monitoring the recommendations that have been agreed at its meetings. The Tracker details the latest position on the implementation of these recommendations and is attached as Part C of the work programme.

Recommendation

Members are invited to consider their work programme and make any comments and/or amendments they consider necessary, including suggestions for any additional topics that the Committee may wish to add to its work programme.

The Committee noted the work programme and forward plan. Members were advised that the Value for Money O&S Committee had agreed to establish a Budget Strategy Working Group consisting of Members across each of the four O&S Committees. The Group would meet a number of times over the next 2years to consider several work streams. Councillor Denis Leigh agreed to be a Member of the Group and the scope would be circulated following the meeting to see if any of the Members that could not attend the meeting wanted to be part of it. 

The Community Wellbeing work programme would include findings of health inequalities report and include health priorities for Waverley.