Vale Farm February 2005

February 2005 has seen an improvement in the pool vacuuming and a continuation of improved cleaning of at least the men's wetside changing area. The problems with showers continue (often far too hot or to cold) but a notice has appeared saying that expert opinion is being sought. 

The car parking markings continue to fade so that they are increasingly harder to detect. This leads to less effective use of space. However, staff parking handy to the main entrance has been marked out and expanded. The disabled parking has also been remarked. After recent, further complaints I have not noticed any more staff cars using the disabled bays. On Sunday 20 February c. 8.50 am two cars were parked in the area that should be reserved for emergency access. This access needs both better marking and effective challenging of those who park there.  

Performance Management

The Council, in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act, sent a  reply on January 31st.  My response is inserted below it. In short, despite a history of leisure contract problems, complaints, Audit Commission findings and Brent Chief Executive's assurance in February 2004 that "the Sports Service is well on track to establishing a management framework",  the council could not find a single document prepared to advise senior managers and Councillor about contract performance.  It is inappropriate and unacceptable for a contract of this size to rely upon verbal reports and general data such as user surveys. It is all the more deficient that LC, as part of a consortium, have been given the contract for the new Willesden Leisure Centre,  without a satisfactory record of their existing performance being maintained.  I think this failure to record and report should be a resigning matter for both councillors and senior officers.  PB

31^st  January 2005

Dear Mr Burns,

Thank you for your request for information,  "I request copies of reports prepared for Brent Council managers, councillors or council meetings that pertain to the performance or performance management of Leisure Connection Limited between 2001 and 2004." 
received by e-mail on 4th January 2005. 

I apologise for the time it has taken to respond to you but I have been looking back through old records and reports that may have pertained to Leisure Connection's performance and I have been unable to find any. I have also spoken to staff that have worked in Brent since 2001 and they confirm that they have not produced any formal reports in connection with the performance of Leisure Connection. 

As you are aware, the Council's Best Value Review of the Sports Service recommended that the leisure management contract be re-tendered rather than extended for a further three years. A copy of this report is contained within the Publication Scheme which can be found on Brent Council's website, www.brent.gov.uk/commins.nsf . The report is an appendix to the 12th July 2004 Executive report titled, 'Findings of the Best Value Review of the Sports Service'. 

Within the two reports there is reference to supporting appendices. Supporting Appendix 6 is titled 'A financial review of Contracts'. This appendix includes a review and analysis of the sports and leisure centres income and expenditure. As we are in the process of re-tendering the leisure management contract it is felt that the information contained within this appendix is commercially sensitive and we are therefore applying the public interest test under the non absolute exemption - Commercial interests section 43. Once the tendering process has taken place we will re-evaluate the extent to which this document should remain confidential. 

Environmental Services does produce quarterly performance reports for Unit Directors and Councillors on Best Value and local indicators for Environmental Services. The information is used to monitor and improve service provision. This information is available on the Councils website at www.brent.gov.uk/env2.nsf as service specific quarterly reports. However if you would prefer, at a charge of 10p per page to cover dispersement costs (£4.10 for each quarterly report), I could provide you with hard copies of Environmental Services 41 page quarterly reports. 

The user surveys that were carried out in October 2003 provide information in relation to levels of customer satisfaction at Vale Farm and Charteris Sports Centres. Hard copies of these two reports are available at a dispersement cost of 10p per page making a total cost of £15.50 for the two reports.

If you would like to receive hard copies of either the User Surveys or the Environmental Services quarterly reports, please complete the Fees notice letter attached.
I hope this information has been of use.

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request please contact the Corporate Information Manager at Brent Council, Room 105, Brent Town Hall, Forty Lane, Wembley, Middlesex HA9 9HD, telephone 020 8937 1156, e-mail foi@brent.gov.uk.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner at...

Yours sincerely, 

Gerry Kiefer
Head of Sports Service

From: Paul Burns 
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 
To: Gerry Kiefer
Cc: Councillors Jones, John, O'Sullivan & van Colle
Subject: Freedom of Information Request - Leisure Connection

 Dear Gerry, thank you for your email. I am sorry if you had to stay late last night to meet the FOI deadline...

I am disappointed to learn that no formal report on the performance of Leisure Connection has been prepared for councillor or senior management review since 2001, and presumably before that. This means that those who have the major responsibility for managing performance have never been presented with reports that deal with:
* A review of contractor failings, responses to them and recommendations for further action
* A list or an analysis of the user complaints at Leisure Connection run centres
* An analysis of the findings of customer surveys with recommendations for improving action.
Please advise if I am wrong in my assessment.

Lack of documentation of problems and options for dealing with them is all the more surprising as the Audit Commission Inspection Report 2002 judged the leisure service to be "poor" and pointed to inconsistent customer care and service data that was incomplete, confused and too unreliable to make useful comparisons. It recommended that Leisure Connection should take steps to apply consistent high standards of customer care and presumably expected the council to monitor effectively these steps and the standards of care. I believe it is unacceptable for audit specified monitoring not to be formally reported to senior managers and councillors annually. I will be writing to the Audit Commission to ask whether the lack of such performance reporting was picked up in their last and more favourable leisure review, and, if it was, why it does not feature in the report.

I have in my possession performance reports prepared for councillors in other areas where Leisure Connection has contracts. These deal with complaints and list the penalties imposed on the contractor for failing to meet standards. I wish to know why Brent has felt it does not need to produce such reports when its problems with leisure are greater than in some of the areas that produce annual performance reports?

I note that Brent's Best Value Review of the Sports Service Self Assessment Report from June of 2004 says; "The Council had established a positive working relationship with the contractor but the Council's own planning and performance management was weak. It had failed to identify discrepancies and variations in reported data. Short and long-term planning was hampered by the lack of a good performance management system and by the unreliable performance data."

The absence of a focused review on the performance of Leisure Connection is all the more appalling as there have been numerous complaints about Leisure Connection from users, three stage three complaints about Vale Farm from me, and the awarding of the new contract for Willesden Leisure Centre to a consortium that includes Leisure Connection. Frankly, I am outraged that a massive, new contract was awarded to Leisure Connection without a single report on this company's performance to date in Brent.

Thank you for the reports that you do suggest. I was already aware of the Environmental Services quarterly performance reports but the indicators in these say little about the quality of service. I do not require copies of these.

I have already seen one of the user surveys. It contained some useful indicators on quality of service but also raised new questions, which it appears the council has not sought to follow-up. For example, if people feel unsafe at leisure centres, for what reasons do they feel unsafe? Again, I do not feel the need to have a copy but may again seek to study one in your offices.

Having first raised in May of last year in correspondence with the Chief Executive the possibility of using FOI to obtain information on Brent's performance management of Leisure Connection, I must say I am surprised that in the intervening months still there was no attempt to formally review.

Please advise me if now there will be a documented, comprehensive review of the performance of Leisure Connection, including complaints, before the contract for Vale Farm is re-tendered?

Paul Burns
 

From: Paul Burns 
Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2005 
To: Gerry Kiefer
Cc: Councillors Jones, John, O'Sullivan & van Colle
Subject: Lack of Written Records Relating to the Performance Management of Leisure Connection 

Dear Gerry, Further to my email of February 1st:

Your email of January 31st stated that: "I have been looking back through old records and reports that may have pertained to Leisure Connection's performance and I have been unable to find any. I have also spoken to staff that have worked in Brent since 2001 and they confirm that they have not produced any formal reports in connection with the performance of Leisure Connection."

Re-reading the Audit Commission Inspection Report of August 2004 into Cultural Services in Brent, I found the following paragraph:

104 Performance is reported to councillors and senior officers in different ways
dependant upon circumstance. For example, the council has identified a raft of key
performance indicators, known as its vital signs, which are reported to cabinet
monthly. Where services have experienced significant weaknesses in the past, for
example sport and leisure, senior managers are meeting with the leader and chief
executive bi-monthly to discuss any issues and monitor the sustained improvement
in service delivery. General service performance is reported quarterly.

It strikes me as peculiar and deficient that the time of the council leader and chief executive has been taken up reviewing an area of "significant weakness" that relates at least in part to the work of Leisure Connection without reports or other documents pertaining to this contractor being prepared.
Is Brent Council quite sure there are no documents relating to these meetings that might meet my request under FOI for "...copies of reports prepared for Brent Council managers, councillors or council meetings that pertain to the performance or performance management of Leisure Connection Limited between 2001 and 2004"?

I further request under FOI papers shared with the Leader or Chief Executive and the records of meetings that pertain to the performance of Leisure Connection, complaints received about this company or its operations, or findings of council monitors at Leisure Connection run sites. I request all papers that meet these criteria between January 2001 and December 2004.

The lack of formal reporting about Leisure Connection that you indicated appears all the more bizarre given the Audit Commission Inspection Report of July 2002 on Brent Sport & Leisure. There was a recommendation: "In consultation with staff, set clear targets for change to be delivered within a rigorous performance management framework."
There are at least two paragraphs in the 2002 Report that suggest what "rigorous performance management" might entail.