Introduction

Trusts are in fashion; Best Value requires a back-to-basics examination by local authorities of how to deliver leisure services, and trusts or independent provident companies limited by guarantee are an option to direct service organisations depending on setting up an internal market or contracting to a commercial organisation. The most obvious and mercenary reason are that trusts can claim rate and tax relief; supporters of trusts, including, not surprisingly Mark Sesnan ( ) of one of the earliest and most successful trusts, Greenwich Leisure, and chairman of Sporta, the trusts' association, argues for a more strategic benefit, of responsiveness to and involvement through trusteeship of local communities in setting the aims and operating the facilities. By Dec 2002 Sporta had grown now to 75 members. The Institute of Sport and Recreation Management (ISRM) and the Association of Public Sector Excellence (APSE) wished to see how the Trust 'revolution' was working out; were they a short term act of opportunism or an attempt to obtain long term solutions? These were issues Leigh Robinson and I in the Loughborough Institute of Sport and Recreation Policy were interested in, so we joined forces.

As a background, Table 1 shows the continued growth of indoor dry and fitness provision, but the shrinkage of pool provision; it also shows that trusts have already surpassed the share of sites run by private contractors.

Table 1: Trusts and the indoor sport and recreation market

So APSE and ISRM contacted their members by post and telephone to see who would be interested in taking part. Then a second stage postal questionnaire sought to discover:

Forms of management - objectives, type of community involvement
Performance - usage, finance, performance indicators
Commissioning - what expertise remains with the host Council
Culture - effects of management change; interface with LA corporately
Investment - landlord/tenant relations; new monies for improved operation or investment.

The response was 38%, a total of 27 - 16 of 28 already with trusts, and 16 of 43 considering whether to adopt one. Of the 27, three were Independent Provident Societies and the other Companies limited by guarantee. Of the 43, 15 were running services in house. Surprisingly, only four were considering a Trust as a result of the 'Challenge' function of a Best Value review. Two authorities had decided against a Trust, one district because it had too few facilities to make a good portfolio after contracting out a recently opened major centre, and a major metropolitan authority because its service was meeting all the set objectives, and it could not see any better operation under trust status.

Findings (from our 11 respondents)

Objectives

These were overwhelmingly for social welfare, often using the same form of words, but variously specifying youth, disabled people and the elderly, and less often women poor people and rural residents. Others sometimes specified were to:

• be the best provider of affordable sport and leisure activities (Slough)
• help the Physical Education and development of (school & FE) students (Stockport), one adding 'so as to be productive members of society' (Coventry)
• advance the education of the public in leisure activities (Bristol).

Box A gives five very different examples of Trusts, ranging from the large operation of citywide leisure in Edinburgh to the geographically largest but smallest English population in Tynedale, proving that size is not an issue. Edinburgh Leisure, however, includes Scottish national facilities.

Rationales

Was a trust set up purely to gain financial benefits in a period of budgetary constraint?

Of our 11 cases, the citations were:

• obtaining benefits from reduced VAT, non-domestic rates (9)
• savings in local authority revenue spending (6)
• seeking new capital not available to local authorities (6)
• working closer with local communities (5)
• gaining freedom from constraints on local authorities (4)
• gaining from private outsourcing (2)
• motivating staff, so better able to compete with private sector, expressing the authority's belief in private provision (1).

Clearly, pragmatic financial reasons won out over the conceptual benefits of being close to community, and only one authority cited an ideological view.

The commissioning process

One trust was initiated by members, two jointly, and the rest by officers, three as result of a Best Value review. Six were whole service transfers, some large (Edinburgh, Bristol, Coventry, North Ayr), while Wrexham a single Tennis Centre. Some authorities retained Sports Development in house, while some included swim teaching (Bristol, Stockport).Tynedale's deed empowered it to act over the whole Northern region. Trusts varied from 7 to 15 members, some appointed for 3 to 5 years, some required a third to be re-elected/appointed annually. Two authorities formally had a say over pricing, usually as part of an annual review. The host authority's identity was always specifically retained in logos on all notepaper and reports, some also specified them on venues, events, and websites.

Two other issues seemed important. First, were trusts tied to host authority's central services or able through choice to get better or cheaper services? We found that office services were more often recharged, technical services more often outsourced, and payroll and other sourcing was split:

Second, regarding staff, all were transferred under TUPE regulations. Agreements with Unison and the GMB union, as one authority dryly remarked, in ways that 'subtly mirror local authority settlements, once agreed with Trustees.'

Links with the community

These were identified in three forms:

1. representation through trustees ( from commerce, Trades Unions, the ASA, employees)
2. involved through user surveys (10), non-user surveys (6), user groups (4), exhibitions (3), schools (1), and use of websites (2)
3. partnerships with schools, clubs, local associations of Youth Clubs; in sports development and the wicked issues Positive Futures projects, Regeneration partnerships, Primary Care Teams/Health Trusts, police/probation and social services.Measuring performance

Several authorities use APSE's indicators for facilities management, and promoting participation and excellence, but rarely have developed any for assessing their work on the cross-cutting issues. Here the work of Church et al (2002) for Sport England makes it clear that there are few and fairly general ones available. Some have adopted

Demanding local indicators: for example seeking 80% cost recovery, and 5% new users (North Wilts DC).

Financial matters

• Leases ranged from 10 to 50 years
• Only 3 authorities promised to hold their revenue contributions stable for three years, others operated year by year
• North Wilts DC had reduced the promised grant by 10%, retained the VAT and NND rate savings; there was a pool roof failure, and the Trust needed more support.

Achievements of the case study trusts

Our case studies claimed the following:

1. New investment, especially in health and fitness (12 centres in 7 authorities), a pool, a leisure centre, a tennis centre, health-related schemes, and IT. This was funded by loans from banks (Edinburgh £1m, while the City Council invested £12.5m, Chester £1.2m, Slough £0.5m, N Wilts £1.5m, Tynedale £0.35m with £0.3m from its District Council)
2. Attendances had increased 3-5% through fitness, marketing, and 'promotion in high priority areas'
3. Unit costs had been reduced through new staff conditions, scale of purchasing, better market responsiveness; Tynedale saved £200kpa, £22k on electricity
4. gaining trustees who were knowledgeable and helpful, and whose status strengthens the Trust's negotiating stance
5. Refurbishing ageing facilities (Stockport, Edinburgh Royal Commonwealth 50m pool, Port Edgar sailing centre, Meadowbank)

One has taken in joint use centres and playing pitches (Bristol City), others are seeking to extend into adjacent areas and undertake consultancy (Tynedale, North Wilts).

Some cited by respondents were

• Between SD and cross cutting issues: in Bristol 'there have been few….since sports development now recognises (and is often funded by) the wider agenda… [it] would more frequently occur between the cross-cutting agenda and the need for profitable activity'; in Hertsmere 'howeve,r we are in a relatively affluent part of the country with only minor issues in terms of cross cutting matters.'
• Financial fairness: North Wilts Trust wrote 'if the Council continues to reduce our grant and ignore their landlord responsibilities….then we will face service cuts and a reduction in standards.'
• Competing with commerce: Hertsmere's Beaumonts fitness suites will have 6 sites, 6,000 members, and £3m income).

Conclusions

The proponents of trusts are very enthusiastic; one of our case study officials said 'we have achieved much more, more quickly than we would under direct LA management, but the positive way we were set up by the Council, and their continued support and encouragement have been important.' There have been undoubted successes under 'flexibility and freedom to achieve' and Audit Commission and Best Value reports on the work, for example, of Edinburgh Leisure, demonstrate this.

Trusts range from single site operations to large organisations like Edinburgh Leisure and multi-authority operation like Greenwich Leisure. The former may flourish or struggle for lack of resources and elbow room for strategic choice. The middle-sized trusts will equally struggle if their parent local authorities have set them up merely to divest themselves of costly and difficult responsibilities, and not to use them as sports development tools, but seek to squeeze them by progressively reducing revenue and capital contributions. They could just accelerate closures and shrinkage of the ageing facility base underpinning popular recreation (see my article in Recreation, ?? Ralph insert ref ). The large ones like Edinburgh require an ongoing partnership with their hosts, because strategic planning must be shared in those circumstances.

But trusts, almost without exception face refurbishment and new service issues demanding an investment. These modern trust have no 'fairy godfathers/mothers' like their Victorian and Edwardian counterpart had to provide a generous endowment fund. They need at least a few years' trading experience before they can borrow large sums for reinvestment from banks or the money market, and still need the financial support of their host authorities if the infrastructure is not to be driven into obsolescence. Meantime the rash of fitness suite introductions and extensions will continue as the most likely form of gaining new income, and commercial operators, who have clearly committed many new fitness centres before the effects of Sept 11 were known, will complain of unfair competition - but both they and Trusts are now in the same private sector!

Trusts comprise another form of managing public leisure facilities, a growth in the plurality of public governance (Pierre and Peters, 2001, Glover and Burton, 1997). But with their independent trustees, they are even more 'at arms length' from local authorities than contractors, and likely to grow more so. This has two major effects. First, like all forms of devolution, this will lead to a greater variety of styles, quantity and quality of provision, either side of municipal boundaries. Second, it is clear that this will make both monitoring and strategic planning more difficult. There is no requirement for Trusts to report the same level of data to their host authorities, and it is clear that, as it presently stands, the Audit Commission and CIPFA will only be able to audit what is reported - in some cases this is clearly just the total number of users, maybe broken down into adults and juniors. What is reported will depend on what is specified in the trust deed or memorandum/articles of association, as much as what was in CCT contracts. Judging what is Best Value, compared to those authorities with direct provision or commercial contracts will be difficult or may be impossible, certainly on a comparative basis. Second and consequently, strategic planning over sub-regional or larger areas will also become very difficult - for Sport England, the lottery funding agencies, DCMS, Regional Development Agencies, sub regional consortia or partnerships, CIPFA and APSE amongst others! As ?? might have said on TV, I don't think we intended to do that!

References

A. Church et al
M.F. Collins (2003) Recreation
T. Glover and T. Burton (1997) in M.F. Collins and I.S. Cooper (eds) Leisure management: Issues and applications Wallingford: CAB International
Mintel (2002) Sports centres and swimming pools London: Mintel
M. Sesnan
J. Pierre and B.G. Peters (2001) Governance, politics and the state Basingstoke: MacMillan

© Mike Collins

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