Name

Subject

Reason

Interest

Councillor Michael Leaves

Minute 43

Plymouth Life Centre and related leisure projects programme update

Taxi driver

 Personal

Councillor John Smith

Minute 43

Plymouth Life Centre and related leisure projects programme update

Taxi driver

Personal

Councillor Vincent

Minute 43

Plymouth Life Centre and related leisure projects programme update

employed by Citybus

Personal

(a)

Plymouth Life Centre –

?

internal works were progressing well, including the tiling, changing rooms and sanitary wares, the glazed balustrades and the specialist lighting;

?

works due for completion by the end of November 2011, included –

u

the external cladding

u

the final water fill of the main swimming pool

u

main swimming pool seating

u

installation of the specialist sprung floors in the main hall and the multi purpose dance studios

?

the Programme Director’s report stated that the project was on programme for a practical completion on 16 January 2012 and still remained on budget; (Councillor Bowyer noted that we had recently been made aware that there would be a slight delay in the practical completion date and this would not e reached on 27 February 2012);

?

members of the panel had visited the site and building on 25 October 2011;

(b)

Leisure Management Contract –

?

Everyone Active continued to develop the mobilisation of the Plymouth Life Centre and had brought in a number of new resources including a sales manager, an activities manager and a manager for Brickfields and Plympton Pool;

?

the SHOKK gym within Brickfields Sport Centre would be relocated from the ground floor to the first floor (adjacent to the main gym); this would improve attendance and reduce staffing costs);

?

an Everyone Active’s visitor booth would be installed in the foyer of the Mayflower Centre to handle enquiries;

?

details of the recommended opening hours for Plympton swimming pool and Brickfields Sports Centre were provided;

(d)

Events Field -

?

the design and delivery of the new events field formed part of phase 2 of the Plymouth Life contract; once the scheme had been developed it would be shared with the panel;

(e)

Skate Park –

?

the skate park had opened to the public on 29 October 2011;

?

the handover of the project had been slightly delayed but it had been delivered within budget;

?

feedback received from users had been extremely positive.

(f)

Sports and Leisure Management Limited (SLM) was formed in 1987 and was the company behind Everyone Active; Everyone Active operated and managed local leisure centres (18 local authority contracts and 60 managed sites across the country) and had won a number of awards including ‘Inspiring Clubs Award’;

(g)

Everyone Active’s mission was to encourage everyone to participate in 30 minutes of moderate  physical activity five times a week;

(h)

Everyone Active had been operating/managing Plympton swimming pool and Brickfields Sports Centre since 1 September 2011;

(i)

with regard to Plympton swimming pool several changes had been implemented, which included –

?

the temperature of the water had been increased;

?

the pool programme had been changed to include dedicated swimming lanes; 700  ...  view the full minutes text for item 43.

(a)

Community Services –

?

there was a forecast overspend in Adult Social Care of £0.750m, which assumed that all delivery plans were achieved by the year end; the variations were attributed to an increase in supported living packages and some continuing health care funded cases becoming the council’s responsibility; however, efforts were being made to reduce these levels;

?

there was a forecast overspend in Culture, Sport and Leisure of £0.032m as a result of an operating deficit on the Mayflower Centre, which the council has a longstanding agreement to underwrite;

?

the forecast overspend in environmental services of £0.234m had reduced to nil which had been mainly due to the forecasted reductions in tonnages going to landfill (79,000 tones to a projected 77,5000 tonnes);

?

there was a projected £0.027m under spend in safer communities which was as a result of additional commissioning savings and efficiencies in business support;

(b)

Corporate Support –

?

customer services – social care complaints performance had improved significantly due to the increased  focus and assistance from legal services in helping with the very heavy court costs;

?

finance, assets and efficiencies – the cumulative average time to process new housing and council tax benefit claims was currently 28.9 days against an annual target of 20 days; there had been a 10 per cent increase in workload from the previous year which had impacted on performance;

national non domestic rate collection was above target at 65.85 per cent against the in year target of 60.65 per cent;

?

Human Resources and Organisational Development  - sickness statistics continued to have a downward trend towards the council’s target of 6 days per FTE;

?

ICT – the number of Freedom of Information requests processed had improved;

?

Democracy and Governance – the deficit had been reduced through ongoing efficiency savings and reductions in general running expenses in legal services.

(c)

the support services overview and scrutiny panel was considering the sickness statistics at its meeting on 24 November 2011;

(d)

Community Services had the highest proportion of front line workers, such as refuse collectors, which attributed to the high levels of sickness.