Agenda and minutes

Councillors and officers were invited to declare any interests they had in any of the items on the agenda for the meeting.

No declarations of interest were made.

Members of the public are invited to put questions to the Chair of the Committee on any matters within the powers and duties of the Committee, subject to the exclusions set out in the Code of Practice (Questions must be submitted prior to the commencement of the meeting on the cards provided. These are available the meeting and at local libraries and information centres.  You can also submit via the Council’s website at www.stockport.gov.uk/publicquestions.

Members of the public were invited to put questions to the Chair on any matters within the powers and duties of the Committee, subject to the exclusions set out in the Code of Practice.

No public questions were submitted.

To consider a report of the Deputy Chief Executive.

The report sets out proposed arrangements for this Committee when considering the performance of Life Leisure.

The Committee is requested to consider and comment on the report prior to its consideration by the Executive.

Officer Contact: Parveen Akhtar on Tel: 218 1450 or email: parveen.akhtar@stockport.gov.uk

The Chief Executive submitted a report (copies of which had been circulated) setting out the arrangements for the ‘Funding Committee’ when considering the performance of Life Leisure.

Following a review of a number of the Council’s partner organisations, the Council Meeting in May 2013 had decided not to appoint representatives to those bodies. Instead the Council meeting created a number of inclusive cross party Committees to look at monitoring the performance of these organisations.

It was reported that the Draft Terms of Reference on the comments of the ‘Funding Committee’ would be considered by the Corporate, Resource Management and Governance Scrutiny Committee on 1 July, Constitution Working Party on 2 July, the Executive on 15 July at the Council Meeting on 11 September 2014.

It was noted that Life Leisure had a different status to other arms-length council bodies and therefore their accounts were not consolidated within the Council’s accounts

RESOLVED - That the draft terms of reference as set out in the report be approved in so far as this Committee is concerned subject to the rewording of point 3 as follows and the deletion of point 11:

“3. To consider and approve or otherwise as necessary the Partnership Delivery Plan. (The Plan is a detailed service delivery plan setting out LL's proposals for the 3 year period.  LL's pricing policy must be included in the Plan, and it should identify clearly how it will ensure facilities remain accessible to all sections of the community and safeguard concessionary rates for identified target groups. The Plan should include how LL contributes to improving the social, community and personal outcomes for the Borough and its people).”

The Managing Director of Life Leisure will attend the meeting and make a presentation in respect to the company’s current programme and priorities.

Officer Contact: Malcolm McPhail  - malcolm.mcphail@lifeleisure.net

The Managing Director of Life Leisure (Malcolm McPhail) attended the meeting and made a presentation with regard to the company’s current programme and priorities. In particular the presentation focused on the work of Life Leisure relating to:

• Commercial (Financial, Operational and Investment)
• Social and Community Value
• Sports Development and Public Health

It was further explained that Life Leisure’s priority areas moving forward were:

• adding more value to non-leisure related areas. Become a key player in wider Stockport Strategic Delivery
• becoming Commissioned in a number of public health areas
• winning new contracts
• extending Stockport Contract
• continuing to be competitive in the commercial market
• focusing more on family and 50+ market
• strengthening Sport and Health Development teams
• introducing new internal brand

The following comments were made/ issues raised:

• A breakdown of current membership showing age, gender and postcode would be useful
• Life Leisure should explore opportunities to publicise the leisure activities on offer and their achievements other than on its website. It was acknowledged that the website was heavily weighted towards ‘Membership information’.
• Life Leisure were invited to consider within the Community Development activities on offer, provision for young people to play football in their locality as an alternative to playing ‘in the street’.
• The opportunities Stockport Exchange would provide in relation to Grand Central including promoting the use of the facility by employees of the Council.
• The current relationship between Life Leisure and Stockport College was noted.

RESOLVED (1) That Malcolm McPhail be thanked for his presentation and a copy be made available to members of this Committee.

(2) That Life Leisure be requested to provide members of the Committee with a breakdown of current membership showing age , gender and postcode together with a diagram showing how the various parts and strategies of Life Leisure fit together.

(3) That the Chief Executive be requested to consider providing a feature on Life Leisure in a future edition of the “Review”.

The Committee are requested to consider when they would like future meetings of the Funding Committee to be held.

RESOLVED – That this Committee would wish to meet quarterly and the Democratic Services Manager be requested to make arrangements for next meeting of the Committee to be held in October 2014.