Leisure Cards were introduced in the late 1980s as firstly large urban local authorities realised the depth of the growing poverty gap between the bottom 20% of incomes and the rest, and the magnitude of the challenge, with 25% of town dwellers and 24% of rural dwellers and 30% of children poor. By 1995-96 one in two authorities in Britain had a card1. The overwhelming political and professional motive was to remove the cost barrier to make leisure services more accessible to people who were on low incomes, including those retired, disabled, and from ethnic minorities; managerial issues like filling empty off peak space and simplifying the labyrinthine charging systems that had evolved piecemeal were very secondary reasons (Collins and Kennett, 1998).

I have made a severe critique of the majority of authorities (Collins, 2003) with conclusions as follows:
They have not situated their Cards as part of an overall pricing and anti-poverty policy (Audit Commission, 1999).

Few have dedicated budgets and staff, or enough of either.

Few used direct outreach marketing to sports, arts and social groups, most using passive means like posters and leaflets and expecting purchasers to come to town halls and leisure centres to register instead of more accessible places like Post Offices and libraries.

Most limited their offers to public sports services, with less than a third extending to public arts, or including commercial retail and professional services.

Many had allowed budget pressures to reduce their discounts below a threshold attractive/effective enough for poor people.

How has the situation changed since 1995-96?

1. 72% of authorities now have some form of leisure card but most have a low take up, averaging 10,600. That is about 5% of the population or at best one in six of the poor population. The average in 2003-04 was 8,000 for sport-only cards and 13,500 for those with commercial services. The situation has not changed much compared with the first year these figures were collected in 2000-01. The take up rate averaged 10,000, the average for sport-only cards was 6,800 and for those with commercial services the average figure was 14,000. It should be noted that the number of authorities with some form of leisure card was lower at 63%*.
2. Extension beyond sport is still slow, card schemes including arts provision only make up 36% and those involving commercial services 31%, almost identical to the first time these figures were complied by CIPFA four years ago*.
3. There are only a few 'front-runners': Greenwich with 128,500 cardholders, Nottingham with 106,300 and Windsor and Maidenhead with 101,000 leading the way.
4. Re-launches with better marketing and swipe/smart card technology are becoming more common. Leicester's old Passport reached 31,000 people (one in ten citizens) at its peak, lost 10,000 in the first year after the marketing post was cut and had declined to some 12,000, and after its 2002 re-branding and re-launch now has 47,000 members, one in six of the population
5. The new technology, management information systems and good marketing provide three huge potential benefits:

• Much better information about the activity choices of customers, allowing expensive field research to be focussed on changes, testing new services and on non-users. Linked to the ODPM index of local deprivation and postcodes, this can allow marketing at street block scale, but few authorities give it the priority staff or training.
• A marketing database of tens of thousands of citizens, of great value to commercial partners in the Cards, but also of great value for the image of the authority in communicating with its residents
• The potential to be the spearhead in e-government - allowing local polls and referenda, complaints and comments, and bill paying electronically.

Thus leisure cards are a pale version of what they could be as a tool for marketing quality of life services (especially if linked to primary health care), or a social marketing tool for public services and welfare benefits especially for those who most need them. Despite their poor performance to date, they have rarely been mentioned or criticised in Audit Commission Best Value reviews as ineffective in meeting objectives. The lessons of social marketing are to take a leaf out of commercial operators' books- look at the efforts and success in the membership of David Lloyd clubs, or of Sainsburys/Debenhams/BP/Barclaycard in getting 50% of the 22m UK households signed up to their Nectar loyalty card.

Verdict: local authorities can do (much) better.

References

Audit Commission (1999) The price is right London: Audit Commission
* CIPFA Charges for Leisure Services Statistics 2003/04
Collins, M.F (2003) Sport and social exclusion London: Routledge
Collins, M. F. and Kennett, C. R. (1998) Leisure poverty and social exclusion: the growing role of leisure cards Local Governance 24.2, 131-42

© Mike Collins

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