Issue - meetings

LEISURE AND CULTURAL SERVICES REVIEW - UPDATE

Meeting: 29/11/2018 - Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Item 30)

30 Leisure and Cultural Services Review - Update pdf icon PDF 115 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Andrew Elkington, Assistant Director for Community Services introduced a report which provided the Committee with an overview of the progress of the Leisure and Cultural Services Review. The report also informed Members of the action the Council had and would take in order to conclude the review and secure the future delivery of Leisure and Cultural Services.

 

Bates Wells Braithwaite (BWB) were appointed to review and consider future options for the delivery of Leisure, Libraries and Cultural Services.

 

Options for each service were being developed and would be brought forward for consideration. The service areas being considered were:

 

·  Floral Pavilion

·  Golf Courses

·  Libraries Service

·  Leisure Services

·  Parks Services

·  Culture (Williamson Art Gallery & Museum and The Priory)

 

A series of scrutiny workshops were planned for December 2018 and January 2019 to review budget proposals and the first set of proposals from this review would be included for consideration. The Committee would also have the opportunity to consider proposals on other elements of the review prior to any decisions being made.

 

The BWB Report would be published once options for service areas started to be presented for consideration. The report did contain commercially sensitive information and would therefore be appropriately redacted to enable this to occur. A report had been taken to the Cabinet earlier that week with options for Council run golf courses and the Floral Pavilion.

 

In response to Members’ questions Andrew Elkington stated that different models had been evaluated for different service areas and the options were not exclusively about taking services outside or getting a contractor to run a service as, in-house options could also be suitable. With regard to the cost of the BWB report he did not have the figures to hand and he would have to circulate this information separately.

 

A number of Members asked with regard to the report on the Golf Courses and why it was that only two of the Council golf courses had been included and not Brackenwood. In response, Andrew Elkington stated that Brackenwood Golf Course formed part of the Green Spaces review, so until a decision had been taken on that no proposals were being made for this particular golf course and he could not respond further to questions on this.

 

A Member expressed the view that he remained unconvinced as to the motives for not including Brackenwood Golf Course in the report taken to Cabinet earlier that week.

 

Resolved – That the report be noted.