Vale Farm Recent

8.10.07 

Brent Council renewed LC's contract to run Vale Farm Sports Centre despite the opposition from users aware of the company's history of poor performance. The new contract came into effect in November 2006 and in September 2007 the Council received a report form its officers reviewing it. The full report can be seen on LCW.  Below, after the recorded response of councillors to the report,  are some of the damning extracts. PB

from Meeting of the Brent Council Executive 11.9.07 http://www.brent.gov.uk/commins.nsf/a38fe0e63682737580256c7a006a8208/66a3021dfbdfef4780257348005824e7/$FILE/Exec%20Decs%20Sept%2007.pdf

"Decision Taken: That it be noted that this Executive is disappointed at the performance of Leisure Connection Ltd at Vale Farm and that the Director of Environment and Culture meet with the Chief Executive of the company to discuss the Council’s concerns and seek a timetabled action."

I find this response worrying. The lesson that should have been learned from the old contract was the need for sufficient financial penalties for under-performance sufficient to motivate LC. Asking the a departmental director to talk to LC suggests Brent's new contract is still deficient and that the penalties listed in the report would seem to confirm this. And why wasn't LC's Chief Executive or at least the regional manager at the meeting to apologise? PB

Extracts From "Progress report on leisure management contract at Vale Farm Sports Centre" by  Director of Environment and Culture to Brent Council Executive on 11.9.07. 

3.5 It has therefore been necessary for the Sports Service’s Recreation Commissioning Team (client officers) to work with and support Leisure Connection and the centre managers to enable them to understand the new contract and embed the changes that the new contract requires. This has taken time and has not resulted in the step change in service that officers had wanted to see from the new contract.

3.7 Leisure Connection initially failed to provide the level of staff detailed within their tender submission. This resulted in fewer staffing hours in areas such as lifeguards / recreation assistants, fitness consultants and cleaners. The Sports Service is satisfied that failing to implement these new levels was due to the changes in senior managers at the centre not being aware of what was required. This was brought to the attention of Leisure Connection, they have addressed the situation and have given assurances that this will not reoccur. Rates of pay for some posts have increased as set out in the tender but not all staff are being paid the increased levels proposed by Leisure Connection. Leisure Connection have submitted a proposal to the council that will enable the centre manager to pay staff at a level that recognises experience, skills, responsibility, training and improvement in performance rather than a blanket pay increase. This will incentivise staff to improve their performance and gain new skills which will enable them to move to a higher rate of pay. This review of staff performance will take place in October 2007 and this should result in most staff being paid at the level submitted within Leisure Connection’s tender.

3.16 Survey respondents were asked to state how satisfied they were with a range of services at the centre including cleanliness, water quality, helpfulness of staff and standard of coaching. The results are shown in appendix one. Customers were also asked how satisfied overall they were with the service...  

3.17 It can be seen that the results for 2006 (93% satisfied) showed a significant increase on previous years but have dropped again in 2007 (74% satisfied). On the specific service areas included within the survey (see appendix one) satisfaction had dropped in most areas. These results are disappointing and officers are in discussion with the centre management as to how they intend to address this drop in satisfaction. 

3.19 In addition to the user surveys, complaints are recorded at the centre. Between November 2006 and June 2007 there have been 27 complaints from 18 different users which is equivalent to approximately one complaint per 9,000 visits. The twenty seven complaints is a decrease over the same period in 2005/06, when 33 complaints were received...   The suggestion is that the decrease in complaints is significant, even though the user survey reveals a large drop in satisfaction. The only conclusion that can be drawn from less complaints is that more people are doubting that complaints make any difference.  And there is no mention of the petition in March signed by many regular users demanding that "all aspects of the contract are managed to ensure adequate staffing, maintenance and cleaning over the rest of its duration. " PB

3.21 As well as formal complaints the centre provides a customer communication diary and since January there have been 5 negative comments and 6 positive comments... The report was dated August 29th so this is suggesting only five negative comments in over seven months. This is preposterously misleading. Foe example, on 21.6.07 I emailed the Council saying, "... in the Customer Feedback Diary there are eight unfavourable comments about the showers in January and February of this year." PB

3.33 ... Officers are disappointed that some areas of the service have not achieved the ‘step change’ that the Council requires.  Despite regular meetings with Leisure Connection’s managers there has been no significant improvement in some aspects of the quality of service provided and therefore officers recommend that this situation is escalated such that the Director of Environment and Culture meets with Leisure Connection’s Chief Executive to discuss the Council’s concerns.

4.2 The new contract includes a payment mechanism that enables the Council to implement a system of financial deductions for failure to achieve the required service standard, as discussed in the main report. Within the first three quarters of operation, the Council has made financial deductions with respect to the KPI (key performance indicator)  for opening hours / availability and cleaning. Failure to achieve the performance standards resulted in financial deductions of £1,632 and £1,750... My guess is that these fines are piddling compared to the money LC has banked by keeping staff levels low and that until there is a serious financial incentive or use of breach of contract LC will continue to fail at Vale Farm.  PB

Percentage of Vale Farm Survey Respondents in 2007 that were satisfied (Appendix 1)