Meeting documents

Venue: The Paralympic Room, Aylesbury Vale District Council, The Gateway, Gatehouse Road, Aylesbury, HP19 8FF

Contact: Craig Saunders; Email: csaunders@aylesburyvaledc.gov.uk; 

Items
No. Item

1.

Election of Chairman

Minutes:

RESOLVED –

 

That Councillor Rand be elected Chairman of the Committee for the ensuing year.

2.

Appointment of Vice Chairman

Minutes:

RESOLVED –

 

That Councillor Everitt be appointed Vice Chairman of the Committee for the ensuing year.

3.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 120 KB

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 14 January, 2019, copy attached as an appendix.

Minutes:

RESOLVED –

 

That the Minutes of the meeting held on 14 January, 2019, be approved as a correct record.

4.

Leisure Centres Management Contract - Annual Report 2018-19 pdf icon PDF 474 KB

To consider the attached report.  (Representatives from Everyone Active, the Council’s leisure management contractor, will be attending the meeting to support the presentation of this item and answer questions.)

 

Contact Officer: Teresa Lane (01296) 585006

Minutes:

The Committee received a report, as well as a short video presentation, on the key outcome and outputs achieved by the Leisure Management Contract in 2018/19 and which also provided key performance information and an overview of the key suggested actions for 2019/20.

 

Representatives from Everyone Active, who were responsible for the leisure management contract for Aqua Vale Swim and Fitness Centre and at the Swan Pool and Leisure Centre attended the meeting to support the presentation to Members and to answer questions.  The current contract had commenced on 1 April 2013 for 10 years with a mutual option to extend for a further 5 years.  This report looked at Year 6 of the contract.

 

Members were informed that the Leisure Management Contract realised betterment to AVDC of circa £620,000 per annum, £120,000 saving was achieved by no management fee being paid to the leisure centre operator as per the previous contract and £500,000 income was generated by EA paying the Council for the opportunity to manage the centres on AVDC’s behalf.  The management fee payable to the Council for the period 2017/18 was £547,379 which took into account the CPI annual increase.

 

AVDC provided a monitoring role as part of the contract arrangements and conducted monthly monitoring by holding Contract performance meetings and inspections.  This was stepped up if there were areas of concern or an increase in complaints.  The regular performance meetings examined a range of performance indicators which included information similar to that contained within Appendix A to the Committee report.  The information provided a baseline for future reports and for measuring contract outcomes and outputs.

 

The council had undertaken an extensive £2.7m modernisation project of Swan Pool and Leisure Centre between February 2015 and February 2016 which had delivered new and improved facilities and increased levels of customer satisfaction and usage.  The last major modernisation project at Aqua Vale Swimming  and Fitness Centre had been completed in 2012 at a cost of £6.7m.

 

Members were informed that £702,700 had been spent on updates and improvements of both leisure centres in the last financial year. Projects had included modernisation of the Aqua Vale pool side toilets, private showers and accessible changing.  A state-of-the-art drowning detection system Pool view had also been installed.  Investments at Swan Pool had included gym replacement equipment, new boilers, a range of lighting improvements and CCTV installation for the all-weather pitch.  A list of all improvements undertaken last year and planned for this financial year was detailed in Appendix A to the Committee report.

 

Section 9 included a proposal to introduce a new soft play area to the Swan Pool centre in place of the climbing wall. Soft play areas have become increasingly popular whilst unfortunately, despite good marketing, demand for the climbing wall had reduced with users prepared to travel to bigger leisure centres or preferring instead to use dedicated climbing centres such as Big Rock in MK.  The proposal was to apply for unallocated Section 106 money to provide the new  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

5.

Quarterly Finance Digest pdf icon PDF 1 MB

To consider the attached report.

 

Contact Officer: Nuala Donnelly (01296) 585164

Minutes:

The Committee received the Quarterly Financial Digest for the period to 31 March 2019, which represented the final outturn position for the Council for the financial year 2018-19.  The digest was attached as Appendix 1 to the Committee report, and was based on the actual income and expenditure for the 12 month period from April 2018 to March 2019.  The Council’s financial statements for this period had been submitted to the external auditors although their audit work had not yet been completed.

 

As at the end of March 2019, the Council was reporting a surplus of £432,000 for the financial year 2018-19, before the transfer from general fund balances.  The outturn was better than planned by £192,000 and better than forecast by £353,000.  A planned surplus of £240,000 had been assumed in budget plans for 2018-19.

 

The year end position represented an overspend against the Portfolios of £740,000 that was offset by a favourable variance of £932,000 across the Corporate level budgets.  The Committee report at Appendix 1 detailed the forecast outturn for each Portfolio and Digest. 

 

A total spend of £150.702m had been incurred in the delivery of the Council services in 2018-19, and income levels of £151.134m had been generated.

 

As a consequence of the outturn, General fund balances would be marginally higher than predicted as at the end of March 2019. The level of general balances for the financial year was now £2.353m, and above the minimum assessed level of balances of £2.0m.

 

The financial outturn position is also consistent with that used in budget planning for 2019/20.  Members noted that the draft annual accounts would be presented to the Audit Committee meeting on 15 July 2019.  The accounts had been completed by the deadline of 31 May 2019 to allow for external audit and final approval of the accounts by the 31 July 2019 statutory deadline.  However, the Council had been informed by the External Auditors that due to their resourcing issues at their end this would not be possible and the final audit of the accounts would not be undertaken until September 2019.

 

The year end position within the statutory accounts contained transactions that were required by the accounting regulations.  The statutory accounts only present actual expenditure and income, without reference to budgeted levels.  Therefore, whilst the accounts presented the definitive position on the Authority by way of its financial resources, they did not inform Members as to whether this was a planned or expected position.

 

The Quarterly Financial Digest was the primary reporting tool for in-year financial management and provided management information to help explain significant financial events that had occurred during the year by comparing them with the expected or budgeted equivalent figures.

 

The financial position for the year was largely being driven by above budgeted levels of staff costs.  Spending on agency staff, in particular, had been a priority area in terms of focused financial management.  Granular detail of spend was reviewed to support on-going financial decision making.  Agency staff had been  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

6.

Future Work Programme

To consider agenda items for future meetings.  Meetings are scheduled as follows:-

 

·                    9 September 2019 – (Quarterly Finance Digest Q1, 2019-20), Treasury Management 2018-19 Year End (report), Debt Management report

·                    11 November 2019 – (Quarterly Finance Digest Q2, 2019-20, Treasury Management 2019-20 (Mid Year Review)

·                    17 February 2020 – No items as yet

Minutes:

RESOLVED –

 

That the future work programme as submitted to the meeting be noted.