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A request was made to Great Yarmouth Borough Council under the Freedom of Information Act. Only one document was sent and the council's response raises  concerns, which are discussed below. PB

Extracts from the "Review of the Marina Centre" Report by the Environmental Overview & Scrutiny Committee" January 2004. 

"Levels of complaints about the Marina Centre rose significantly in Spring/Summer 2002 and the committee, therefore, decided to review its operation and the management of the centre” 

“Complaints received from April 2002 to May 2003 show that users of the centre were concerned principally with the following items:

“Members were advised that in October 2002 Leisure Connection Plc had been instructed to prepare a repair/maintenance programme but this, unfortunately, had yet to appear. It was further reported that Leisure Connection continued to challenge the management agreement with regard to the clause that places responsibility on them to finance the repair/replacement of plant where the material costs were higher that £2,948… A new plant engineer had recently been appointed but only on a part-time basis. When the plant was maintained by the Borough Council, two full time engineers were employed. It was not possible for a part-time engineer carry out all the responsive and planned maintenance for such a large site...” 

Following a complaint Great Yarmouth College about dirty kitchens at the Marina Centre in 2003 “… it was necessary to call the Environmental Health Department to inspect the kitchens which were dirty… Leisure Connection were instructed to clean the area… The Head of Environmental services explained that it was fair to say that the internal appearance of the Marina Centre  had seen some improvement but, unfortunately, it was still the case the Borough Council had to continue to ‘badger’ Leisure Connection on a regular basis to get the necessary works carried out. During discussion of the report, Members agreed that cleanliness and condition of some areas of the Marina Centre were poor.”

At the time of the report being written “…the cleanliness and condition of some areas of the Marina Centre  is still poor. It has been stated by many users that although cleaners work hard to maintain a certain level of cleanliness their work is made more difficult b the poor standards of repair or lack of repair in all areas of the Centre.” 

“Several users were concerned over the standard of training received by the lifeguards, stating that lifeguards just sat on poolside chairs and did not patrol the area. Messages sent over the public address system were incomprehensible… There had been a number of double bookings and incidents were money could not  paid to the Marina Centre  as relevant Duty Manager was not available. Concern was also expressed about the way emergencies were handled and during a recent alarm children were left in only swimwear, cold and unattended beside the pool with no guidance as to what to do and no towels/blankets provided.”

 “Other users mentioned that the Harpers’ staff were very pleasant and helpful but there was a high turnover of staff, due to lack of motivation and support form their management and constant criticism about the centre…” 

“In general, the greatest concern of users is the lack of staff available and also the failure of the Marina Centre  to book the customers properly… concern has been expressed that complaints have not been dealt with seriously, especially those regarding thefts from lockers. In addition, several users have expressed concern about the security of the premises in general.” 

“To date, no evidence has been produced that preventative maintenance is taking place…”A letter has been sent to Leisure Connection Plc stating that this Authority will not bear the cost of repairing or replacing items of plant that have not been regularly maintained.”

Despite the catalogue of problems and customer complaints from 2001 onwards, the Summer 2003 issue of "QUEST™ CHAMPIONS" records that the Marina Centre has achieved QUEST accreditation. It records;  ‘Leisure Connection are proud of the Marina Centre achieving Quest at such a diverse Centre. The Centre is extremely busy with holiday makers in the summer and Quest has helped ensure we provide a good quality service for both locals and visitors.’ http://www.pmpconsult.com/quest/Quest_newsletter.pdf  

Comments on the Council's Response to Freedom of Information Request

The FOI request sought, "... copies of reports, papers and minutes prepared for Council managers, councillors or council meetings that pertain to the performance of Leisure Connection Limited in 2005".  In addition I specified "...the report alluded to in item 5 of NOTES OF THE MEETING OF CABINET MEMBERS 21 September 2005 and the report said to be forthcoming in the 4 October and 3 November meetings." The letter in reply does not refer to this part of the request.

The only document sent, apart from the covering letter, was the 2004 report . Yet that 53-page report, a major undertaking in response to a history of complaints and issues, recommended "That Officers be asked to collate a dossier of evidence, including photographs, of all breaches of contract." And "That Leisure Connection be notified in writing of every breach of the contract. including a timescale for putting the problems right." 

A year after the report an Audit Commission noted;  "...the management of contracted out leisure services, for example the Marina Centre, has been less effective. The council has not fully engaged with the contractor in the past. Lack of rigour in the original contract and limited performance management has only recently been addressed with councillors and staff monitoring performance on a monthly basis. (see Great Yarmouth main page for more from this AC report.) 

So are we to assume there were no breaches of contract in 2005? Even if this is the case, why have I not been provided with  monthly monitoring information? 

The council reply did say, "There have been 6 complaints made to Environmental Health in 2005 concerning the centre. All area health and safety in heir nature (sic) and relate to various issues mainly concerning cleanliness and access to various locations in the premises. All complaints appear to have been dealt with verbally at the premises and we can find no correspondence relating to them on file."  I find the lack of monitoring of these complaints surprising given the history of the contract and the effort that went into the 2004 report.

I think the 2004 report and others should be available on the council's website for the leisure centre users and council tax payers who paid for it to see. I am interested to know why it was not made public. Had it been then it  could benefit other councils. Had another council with earlier issues with  LC or another leisure company put such a report on its web then perhaps Great Yarmouth and others would have been better able to prevent their sad stories. Concealing reports like this only helps inferior contractors and protects the reputation of councillors and officers, perhaps when they have grossly failed.

Even more worryingly, the report deals with health and safety issues. If there is a tragedy at a leisure centre and one of the contributing factors is found to be a matter in the 2004 report, e.g. a defective tannoy, Great Yarmouth Council should be censured for not helping to alert others to this risk. 

I advised the Council that my preference was for an electronic version of the report. This allows me either to make the original available for others via LCW or at least makes it easier to cite larger parts of the original. Despite my request  this I was sent a paper copy. Along with it came the warning; " The answers supplied to you are for your personal use. They are copyright of Great Yarmouth Borough Council and may not be copied, distributed, published or exploited for commercial purposes or financial gain without the explicit written ...".  Damn, and I wanted to turn it into a script for a  movie, "Carry On Mismanaging".