LEISURE SERVICES PLAN TO MOVE AND IMPROVE

9.00.00am GMT Fri 2nd Nov 2007

At this week's Executive Board meeting, the Liberal Democrats at County Hall voted in favour of creating a not-for-profit Leisure Trust to manage and operate twelve of the existing in-house dual leisure services provided by SCC, in conjunction with District Council and school partners.

Somerset County Council Leisure Services run 17 dual use leisure centres across the county, which welcome over one million customers a year. Their annual turnover is £4.2m, to which the County Council currently contributes well over £1m. Costs are increasing and with budget restraints, the contribution to this non-statutory service has decreased by £500K since 2004/5. With two District Councils also withdrawing their funding over the same period, budget pressures are clearly an on-going problem which needs addressing.

In spite of this, eleven sites now hold the national QUEST leisure industry quality standard award, with two further sites aiming to achieve this in the coming year. Also, the service has a break-even target, having successfully cleared the long-standing accumulated deficit of £187K over the last two years. This is excellent news and a good starting point for the new venture, which will not only protect existing jobs but also create many new ones.

The new Leisure Trust expands the role of Somerset Activity and Sports Partnership (SASP) and this type of 'social enterprise' vehicle has become increasingly popular in public sector leisure provision across the country over the past fifteen years. SASP is one of 45 UK County Sports partnerships, core funded by Sport England and hosted on behalf of a multi-agency partnership, including the County Council. It has a key role in co-ordinating the delivery of community sports and physical activity programmes, as well as support to schools in enhancing PE delivery. In keeping with the Liberal Democrats wish to see more Somerset youngsters involved with the 2012 Olympics, there will be a continuing focus on sports activity for young people.

Sport and leisure services have always been identified by the Liberal Democrat administration as playing an important role in a number of cross-cutting services such as; health, crime and disorder, social inclusion and community wellbeing.