Transcript

Newman. Good morning, it's 10.03am on the 18th of June 2024. My name is Councillor Murray Turner and I'm the Chairman of the Culture and Leisure Overview and Scr comforting committee and I'll be chairing this meeting today. My Vice Chairman is Councillor Barry Dobson. We're not expecting fire alarm to sound today if the alarm does go off, please leave the building by this nearest exit. And the Assembly Point is on the green in front of some Peter's Hill surgery. Please can you ensure that your mobile phones are switched off or turned to silent for the duration of the meeting? Please also be aware that the meeting is being recorded and being live streamed via public eye on the Council's website. And also, can you ensure your microphones are turned off when speaking after speaking? I'd like to welcome all Councillors, officers and the public who are joining our meeting, today and members of the press, will now begin to work our way through today's agenda. So, I haven't seen any public speakers coming forward. So, item one, public speaking, there isn't anybody. Do we have any apologies for absence, please, Chair? Thank you, Chair. I have had apologies from Councillor James Denistan, so Councillor Tim Harrison is substituting, and Councillor Garret Knight, Councillor Graham Gille is substituting. We also had apologies from Caron Whittfield who would normally be in attendance. Thanks, Chairman. Thank you. Are there any disclosures of interest from any members? Has anyone hold anything that they need to tell us about before the meeting? Okay, thank you. Yes, Jones is just going to add something on. Thank you, Chairman. It's just so advised, we've obviously got some board members of Leisure SK in the room. I'm aware there's, I think, three items on the agenda that turn the team to Leisure SK. My advice would be that for the two items specifically on Leisure SK, that the board members remain in the Chamber, what, during public session, would be allowed to answer any questions the committee might have of them. And I think that extends to private session if members are minded to go into private as well. The board members would need to be here to answer any questions. Following that, if members want to debate about the Leisure SK items, then I'd probably advise that the board members leave at that point, but just so that they are able to remain to answer any questions the committee may have of them. There's also an item on the agenda about an appointment of a working group. Graham may advise differently, but I think my advice on that group, because you're either agreeing or not agreeing to having a working group on Leisure SK, I'm not sure it'd be appropriate to have the board members in at that stage. I don't know whether Graham has got anything else to add, but that will be my advice. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you very much, James. Is it a point of order? Just looking at item 9, the play area strategy. I'm also a board member and trustee of the DICE OF Park Action Group, but I don't think it should affect my involvement in that conversation. Thank you. Thanks very much for that, Graham. Okay. Moving on, the minutes from the last meeting. Now, can we - those members that were present, and I know there's been some uptown in the committee since then, are we okay to approve the minutes from the last meeting? Can we have a seconder for that, please? Thank you, Matt. All those in favour? And those minutes are duly passed. Sorry, what's the wrong one against the minutes? Are there any abstentions? Okay. Moving on then, updates on the previous meeting. Are there any updates from the previous meeting? Thank you, Chairman. Just to say there's one action from the previous meeting around the Cultural Strategy update. The action status in there, I've got to be discussed with committee members. I suspect this is because the proposed tour dates are in July. I don't know whether it's easy with that action, but I get Aimee or myself or a member of the team to get members on the committee to confirm which date they prefer to go on. I think that is the only action from the previous meeting. Also, I'm not sure with those dates there, you've got one date on the second of July, which is prior to the election. That might not affect your attendance, but, as I say, we're democratic services are happy to confirm dates with members and which one you prefer to go on. Thank you. Thank you very much for that, Jones. So, we'll do that then. We'll get the offices to contact us and see when we can go and visit the venues. Item 6. Are there any announcements or updates from Leader of the Council, Cabinet members or the Head of Page service? And thank you, Paul. And also, there has been a question submitted to the meeting prior to the meeting via email from Carif Knight, and Paul Stokes is going to answer that question as well in his briefing. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Councillor and I had requested an update on where we were in terms of the markets following the update that Council Morgan gave us following a survey she carried out previously on behalf of Grantham Charter Trustees. We didn't actually receive anything from born or Stanford in terms of the markets, but obviously there was a substantial focus on Grantham in terms of the performance. There was a proposal previously to set up a working group, but I think it was actually Councillor Gillard who suggested that a lot of work had gone on via Councillor Harrison and why do we need another working group? But in terms of the report that we received from Councillor Morgan, there was a whole raft of potential suggestions from those members of the public and that had responded. We have actually instigated some of those suggestions. Some of them were due to be instigated anyway, but others have come forward. They were potentially, I don't know, about 50 or 60 suggestions. So clearly, you can't just go ahead with all of those. The idea is obviously the market has been condensed and maybe Councillor Harrison would like to add to this. But the market has been condensed whilst the marketplace works have been taken place, and there has actually been substantial uptake of the stalls from crafters and others. And the market in its condensed form has been well attended and quite successful in my opinion. I go every week as do others. So the plan is that probably in September will come with an updated review of the markets. Thanks very much Councillor Stokes. Are there any further updates from members of the cabinet? Thank you Chair. Just further to what Councillor Stokes has said, there is quite a large upturn in football in the marketplace at the moment by design or by default moving certain stalls to the south end of the market has captured the highest football in the town down Wobby Street. Around to the next shopping centre area. It's moving two food stalls down to that, and the south end of the market has brought a lot of new football into the market. People who didn't even know those stalls were there and they're progressing down the market. As Councillor Stokes said the work I've done on bringing the crafters into the market has worked really well. They come once on the first Saturday of the month. The farmers market comes on the second Saturday of the month. We're looking at bringing antiques in on the third Saturday of the month and a will food market on the fourth Saturday of the month. We've already had different food stalls attending, Spanish ones, Eastern ones and Indian ones attending. Doing street food in there, that's all taken off well. The work that's been done providing entertainment, street entertainment in the market to counteract the roadworks that's going on has also helped engaging with the kids. So there's lots of positives there at the moment. We started a three week course of music entertainment in the market on the conduit cafe last week. Slightly interrupted by the rainfall, but hopefully the second one this week will be a lot better. So it's all looking good in the market at the moment. Councillor BAILEY. Thank you, Chairman. Congratulations on the appointment. Just a question that I'll ask kind of sensitively. Normally at the start of the meeting we'd get an update from, I guess, sort of ak thank you. If you have a question, you know, there's lots of questions for you today. Obviously, Karen Whitfield has also sent her apologies for the meeting, so I'm just conscious that we actually miss the two fundamental key officer positions for this Cultural and Measure Committee today. I don't know if the chief executive has any updates that she could possibly share, but it's just an observation that, you know, we seem to be missing kind of two of the key officers for today's meeting. Thank you. Councillor interjecting. Karen, are you able to answer that? Thank you, Chairman. I'm sure our members more appreciate that our officers are allowed leave. One member of staff is on leave and one member of staff is absent at the moment. But please be reassured, Chairman, that myself and also the team needs it for leisure parks and open spaces. And the longest title in the council is here to hopefully answer any questions that need to be taken today. Thank you very much. Are there any further things to say on that point? No? Okay. Brilliant. We'll move on to item seven, which is the Grantham High Street Heritage Action Zone completion report, which I believe is going to be introduced by Clare Saunders. Thank you, Mr Chairman. I'd like to present this report to the committee today on the closure of the Grantham High Street Heritage Action Zone program. The program, which was funded by Historic England and South Student District Council took place over four years, beginning in May 2020 and completing on 31 March 2024. The report outlines in some detail the successes, challenges, and lessons learnt through the delivery of the program and the additional associated cultural program, which was funded by Historic England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, which ran from 2021 to March 2024. Although much by the detail is provided in the report and the appendices of the report, I would like to draw the committee's attention to the following key points. Over its four years of delivery, the program successfully delivered shopfront and building regeneration projects to seven properties within the town centre, and an addition supported significant restoration works to Westgate Hall, which has allowed the ongoing repair and restoration of the building and its future use as a restaurant from its previous long-term vacant state. Over the four years, the total grant secured from Historic England was £672,000, which was matched by 284,000 from SKDC. Over that time, we also leveraged over £300,000 of private sector match from people participating in the grant scheme, which was over three times the projected value at the time of the bid, as putting forward the bid in 2019. In addition, further £370,000 of additional value was leveraged through the scheme, which includes the ongoing contributions to the FITOW and works at Westgate Hall, as well as further private sector investment into shopfronts in the town centre and other commercial properties, securing £18,600 in funding to SportGrants the Museum and £10,000 from the Woodland Trust to support feasibility into street-greening in the town centre. In addition, we carried out a program of community engagement of consultation and the cultural program, which included several large-scale artwork installations as well as costumed tours, smaller-scale art projects and the creation of long-standing arts facilities in the town centre. The involvement in the scheme led to grants from being nominated and becoming a finalist for two major awards, the Academy of Urbanism's Great Town and Small City Award, and Visa's Rising Star High Street Award. There were, of course, challenges across the delivery of the program. A lot was tied into, of course, the inflation that was seen across those four years, which significantly impacted the capital program, but which we were able to mitigate due to renegotiation of some of the grant terms with historic England. Historic England also required us to spend the full allocation of our grant funding within financial years. We weren't able to move funding from one year to another, which unfortunately meant that when capital programs did hit across unforeseen circumstances, which are almost always seen when it comes to working with historic buildings, there's always something that unexpected that you can expect to happen. It meant that in some instances, we weren't able to draw down the full grant in a particular financial year, and we had to reallocate funding from future years, but nonetheless, we did successfully deliver the program as planned. One of the key lessons learned through the scheme was around how we structured those shopfront grants. When we moved into this scheme, we built very much on the work that had been delivered under a previous shopfront scheme and wanted to keep the grant program operating in a very similar way, in that it was an open application, people could come forward for applications at any time. However, on reflection, given the uncertainty that many of our private sector partners felt coming forward with increasing inflation, I feel that in future, we get the opportunity to do that again, a way to possibly mitigate this uncertainty and to make sure that there isn't an advantage to being first to apply, which was seen in this situation, that rather than having a wholly open scheme, we would do things as rounds of funding, which would allow projects to be more effectively compared against each other in terms of their advantages for the town centre, rather than essentially operating on a first-come-first basis for the grant. As I said, it's much more sensitive to each other as presented in the report on the appendices and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you very much that, Clair. Having read the report in depth, it's very detailed and really well-written, and I saw that the main downside of the whole scheme was the inflexibility of being up as transfer grants from year to year, which I think you brought up to three times at different points during the report. Are there any questions from the...? Councillor MARSON. Thank you, Jen. I thought it was quite an interesting report actually. I was just wondering, could you clarify whether future high streets fund and the heritage zone sort of merged within this report, because the appendix seems to be full of things referring to the public realm and how the project fell flat due to the conduit-laying issue and such. It's not really mentioned in the main report. I'm just wondering if you could clarify, wherever the two mixed. Yeah, certainly. The two programs, because they were both funded by government departments, we had to be very clear in separation in terms of what was funded. So we had to make sure that we weren't at any point cross-funding various elements. So although the two programs were designed to be quite closely aligned so that they would support one another, they were very distinct in their operation. So in that way, although obviously when we put the bid in for this, we were aware of what was likely to come forward in the future high street fund. This bid did in fact go in first, so this was submitted December 2019. The future high street fund bid was submitted early 2020. So we were kind of having to anticipate what might be in that bid, so there were elements within the future within, sorry, the high street heritage action zone that when that were kind of in almost as placeholders and when we then secured the future high street funding later on, the following year, we had to do kind of quick re-evaluation as to where it was most appropriate for certain elements of what to fall and where there was the greater benefit. But in some instances that did allow, for example, originally there was some funding included within the high street heritage action zone bid for public realm works because the future high street fund was going to do that far more extensively. We were able to renegotiate with Historic England and use that funding to support a much larger regeneration program at Westgate Hall. So it was making sure that there was that separation between the two and that it was a very clear cut separation for the purposes of the Treasury, who wouldn't allow us to double fund, but trying to make sure that the work was still supporting rather than in competition with each other. Thank you sir. So just reading some of this sort of final report in the way it was the way where we are now, I'm just wondering what is the current vision for this project because obviously this refers to the marketplace. We were at one point going to the shut conduit lane and actually built, I presume some kind of property to block that road up creating a proper zone in that area for events and such like. And as we know we've actually gone ahead with kind of half of that project and I'm just wondering where we are now as far as the vision goes. Yeah this seems to be a conclusion, and I'm just wondering where we are. If I could perhaps answer that, so the purpose of this report is really to summarise what's gone on with the past scheme. This isn't a preparation for the future scheme. Our duty in this instance is to vote that we note the report. Thank you for doing it. But that is an interesting question, perhaps we could bring it to the agenda for a future meeting. Yes, it's just obviously we're spending 1.8 million pound on refurbing the marketplace at the moment, and it's just really a case of why, I'm just intrigued, but if you're going to come back to that later in another time, time in, that's fine. Yes, Councillor Harrison. We're not spending 4.4 million on the marketplace. Yeah, there's two projects going there, all that money's not being spent on the marketplace. Okay, I think for the purposes of this item, we'd note in clairsons as this report rather than going into a big debate about what we do in future and the marketplace. But thank you very much for your question, Councillor Martin. So can I propose that we, all those in favour of accepting the report, raise their hands, please. All those against, and any abstentions. So that's carried, thank you. The next item on the agenda is the core put plan 20 to 23 key performance indicators, end of plan, and 20 to 24, end of year called for report, and this has been presented by Councillor Noles. Thank you, Chair. This report outlines SGADC's performance against the corporate plan from 2020 to 2023. The key performance indicators and the key performance indicators for quarter four of 2023 and 24. And it presents a summary of overall performance of the whole lifestyle of life's cycle of the corporate plan that has just been finished. There are two parts of the report, a retrospective loop back over the past four years now that we've reached the end of the corporate plan and the quarter four report for the new plan. The corporate plan for 2020 to 2023 listed seven actions that fell within the remit of this committee. These actions set the Council's agenda for the life of the plan. The first round of performance reporting in 2021 introduced a series of criteria for what a successful delivery would look like. The criterion has been used as the measure to judge the Council's overall performance over the years. SKD fully achieved five of the seven stated actions reported to this committee. Performance against five actions are presented for KECQ23/24. Four of the actions are graded as green. These are the actions which are on or above target, as planned. One of the actions is rated amber. These actions which are currently below the plan target. And none of the actions at the moment are rated red. So there's nothing that is significantly below the plan target. A new KPI suite to reflect the new corporate plan was approved by this committee in March 2024. And this is the first report and they'll be reported again in quarter three of 2024/25. Thank you, Chair. Thanks very much for that, Councillor L medium. Do we have any questions on the report? Councillor baylee. Thank you, Chair. I think most people also, when you see reports like this, gravitate to the amber, not the green. Obviously on the amber one, this is about markets. I guess we've been talking about that a fair amount already today. I just wanted to really understand kind of what caused these, I mean, we're thinking about, you know, and I'll be addressing it. I know we kind of talked earlier on about, we're going to come back in September. Obviously, that should have been, I think the market report should have been in today's agenda, but it was kind of moved out. I think there's a danger here that, you know, without that market strategy, this could turn red, because we're not kind of addressing what is working and what's not working, obviously, with the market. So I think it's just a point to say that I know we've kind of, you know, missed the belt in actually discussing what we can actually do to support the market in that regard. Thanks very much for that question. I think that we've got such a full agenda with such large reports that we would have done the markets a disservice if we've had them on here as well. So we were risking four hour, five hour meeting if we want to put everything on the agenda every meeting. So I think it's a very valid question. I'm sure that these issues are being looked at by our offices at all times, and they will come back to us a bit later on in the year. But I do appreciate your question. If you've got a further question, cancel the daily. Just on that point, I think you're absolutely right. It is a full agenda and we know why it's a full agenda because of Leisure SK. Obviously, if we, another item later on about separating Leisure SK. But is, you know, what you said about the market, you know, we've had to push markets because we couldn't get into the agenda because of Leisure SK stuff. So I think it is more of a point we'll discuss later about kind of why we should be splitting into a working group for Leisure SK. Thank you. Thank you for your question. I believe Richard was. It's just actually set in the factual position. The reason the market is not on the agenda stage because the independent market review that we've commissioned was not received in time to be prepared for this meeting. That was the reason for it not being on this agenda. Complete outside of the Council's control, I'm afraid. Thank you, Richard. Are there any further questions on Councillor Noisier's report? Oh. Councillor Baxter. Thank you. I was just going to come back on the, on page 81 that you're talking about, Councillor Bailie, which is, we're talking about the old KPIs on the old corporate plan. That's what that refers to, isn't it? And the measure of markets becoming cost neutral. I think that's been removed from the corporate plan KPIs because it's not particularly where we want to get. I don't think we are in the next four years. I don't think we are going to get to the point where the markets are cost neutral. I think they are something that we do need to recognise is a, is a loss leader to creating football within the Town Centre. And as Councillor Harrison has said, we're getting better at it, but if, if our purpose, if our goal with the markets is to make them cost neutral, there is an easy way to do that. Just don't have markets. That's not what we want to do. We want to have markets, which we accept. Sometimes we're going to make some money, often they're going to lose some money, but they are going to bring people into towns and they are going to celebrate our . We all know that they're 800 years old and they're part of our historic cultural offering and so on. So that's why we're not looking at this any more after today. I don't think. Thanks. I think it's important just to note on markets as well as that was a KPI in the previous report. I know you heavily support local businesses and a lot of small businesses start on market stores and then expand into shops and things like that. So we'd be, we'd be badly not doing the duty of the people of this area if we didn't support markets. And then in the hope that in future we grow more businesses for local area. Right, so slightly digress there. Can we have a vote? Or are there any further questions? Sorry. Caron Bradford. Thank you, chairman. I think it would be remissivirs. I mean, we're looking back three years here and it's a very comprehensive report that the committee has in front of them today. I think it would be remissivirs to not actually celebrate some of the fantastic achievements that have happened over the street last three to four years. You know, the arts service has been fully reviewed. We're back and above football into our arts centres, and we've had previously. We've got a new physical and sports activity strategy. We've driven football into our markets. You know, there's been a hell of a lot of things that we should be here celebrating and not just looking at the things which are, shall we say, in the more difficult part making a positive a surplus return on our markets. The markets play an amazing need for our football driving into our town centres and we mustn't just forget about the income return on the markets, about how important the market is for that town centre. But if you actually look at all the work that's actually gone into what to establish in what's happened over those last three to four years, it's been immense. You know, and I'm proud as a Chief Executive of what's been achieved by with members support over the sports and leisure services and cultural services over this last four years. I think that just also needs to be recognised, Chairman. Very much so. Thank you, Karen. Anyone else comments in? I propose that we accept the report, all those in favour? Is that unanimous, Chair? Thank you for that. So we're going to move on to the play area strategy, which is Item 9 on the agenda and Michael Chester and Paul Stokes are presenting this, I believe. Paul first and then perhaps, Michael. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. I am pleased to present this report and a committee in draft strategy to the committee which sets out the Council's key priorities and management of its 38 play areas across the district. The Council's corporate plan encourages physical activity to support healthy lifestyles and reduce health inequalities. Underpinning this ambition is the Council's key priorities of connecting communities and being an effective Council. Therefore, this strategy is pivotal in ensuring that the Council's play areas are of a high play value and provide opportunities for improved health and well-being conditions. I welcome the development of this much-needed strategy which has come at a time when the Council is facing additional financial pressures and the costs associated with maintaining our play areas is ever increasing. The strategy will allow the Council to prioritise those play areas which require capital investment and allow the Council to continue working with external stakeholders to identify funding opportunities. In recognising the work undertaken to develop this draft play area strategy for South Court Stephen, it is recommended that members of the Court are in a leisure overview committee to give views and comments on the draft play area strategy and considers any amendment for inclusion. It recommends the draft play area strategy to cabinet for approval and requests that an action plan be developed and presented to a future culture and leisure overview committee if the strategy is approved by a cabinet. Thank you. Thank you very much. Do you want to talk Michael or just want to answer questions? I'm happy to just answer questions if they are already. Thank you. Would anybody like to ask any questions? Councillor MARXING. Thank you, Chair. Right, basically, it's interesting to note in this report, it refers to transferring play areas to third parties who are able to access external funding. My first question is what is this funding and do we know if it's adequate enough to create play areas which are of top quality for our residents? Richard whilst? Yeah, I mean just in that particular space, that was some really good success. I mean, many staying through it from Councillor Lydon and we've really had a positive engagement with Denham and Paris Council who are happy to accept the transfer of a play area because they know they can access funding in this Councillor Frankly cart such as rent funding, lottery funding, community funding, UK shared prosperity funding. There's a whole wealth of different avenues of funding streams available to all the parties that the Council frankly has not got access to. And there's been a success of going to be off waiting Councillor Stokes' area as well, we're in conversations with Deepins, Paris Council or the transfer of some play areas in that part of the district as well. So there's been some real traction in this area and it is kind of knows the best body to deliver play in particular parts of our district as the report alludes to. We've got a significant portfolio of play equipment some of which is coming to end of life, some of which is only available due to funding that's already been put in place. And frankly, there's a real pressure on the Council to maintain it at the levels in which it needs to, to comply with health and safety and other requirements. So I think what the report is trying to do is give a factual position but also say let's not close our eyes to the odds of the possible of where play is best located in the area and whose best place to deliver that play be it the Council directly or through other means. Thank you. Thank you Richard. Do you have a further question Councillor into that? Thank you. So what are the 38 play areas we've got? There's no real information about the size of football you know, how often they use, what the actual requirement from us would be to maintain them. I was just wondering if it's possible to have a bit of breakdown and some kind of levels of costs. You know, something to give us something to actually go on with this. There's also things like, you know, there's no mention at all maybe closing a play area and moving what moving it. Are they actually, you know, it's a lack of detail basically. It would be useful to know more about, and I presume, is that what will come in the next part. Well, I'd just like to say before we go on to Richard that I don't believe there was a play area strategy for SKDC before this was drawn up. So I'm glad that we can address all these issues at that time. At this time. Richard, have you got something to say? It's basically exactly the point that Councillor Marching's alluding to. And I think, again, if you look in my comments and elsewhere in the report. Sorry? Yes. Can I go on once? So what the report is actually saying that we need to gather all this data. We've actually got a contractor in place at the moment called Compan who are going out and assessing the equipment. And they're also within that inspection given as a visibility and profile of the life expectancy of the equipment itself when it becomes in the life, when it needs to replace in, when we need to invest in different pieces of equipment in those locations. But exactly as well, the needs analysis of those locations, the demographic of those particular parts of the district, to see whether our play equipment is strategically located in the right locations going forward. So I think, as has been mentioned, what we need to do is gather the data and bring it back with an action plan so the committee can debate and prioritise where our attention should be spent. The report also confirms there's a hundred thousand pounds that's been allocated to this part of the Council's finance portfolio. And again, the committee will need to guide us as to where's the best place to invest that, that's some of money going forward. Thank you. Should you want to come back on what Richard said? Is this a further question on the same point, Councillor Martin? Okay, and then I've got Councillor Baker, Councillor Ledermann, but I'm aware that Michael might have answered some of the other part of your previous question. Do you want to answer that first? Just repeat your last question a bit of it. The one I've just asked you. Particularly the 38 areas and how we can identify how big they are and things like that. Yeah, it's just really getting more detail, so we can understand where we're coming from. I mean you have things like footfall, how many kids are actually using these players. I know one of the play areas, I've got any children in it, ever. It's just left. At some point do we talk about closing some, moving them. Do we have any kind of idea of distances between play parks to say that ones that you saw that ones are not, et cetera. So it's really getting the policy in place, so we can really sort of make sure all the money goes where it needs to go. Thank you, Councillor Martin. Thank you, Chairman. So within this strategy there is a table of where all the players are located and there's an appendix with a map across the districts where they are, so we can see where about some relation to each other they are. I think the action plan that will be developed on the back of this will really guide and steer how we invest in those play areas as well and help making those decisions and then work with planning moving forward on any player developments as part of housing developments and look at contributions for that as well, so it will become a guide in principle document with the planning team as well. Thank you, Michael. There's a few waiting. You've already had three last-shot, Councillor Martin. Councillor Bailie, please. Thank you, Chair. Just look at the report. The one thing that I couldn't find is real focus on accessibility to people with additional needs. When we look at the future design principles, there's not much in there about how is going to be accessible for all of our residents across the district. In terms of the report, I would like to involve maybe the inclusion and diversity to actually really understand kind of what impacts our strategy might have on those parts of our residents that are often forgotten about, but when it comes to kind of parks and kind of play areas, I think it's a real key area that we need to get right, so when we look at the report, I think there should be a section in there about how we're going to make everything accessible to everybody. Thank you for that, Councillor Bailie. We'll surely note that unless you'd like to say something. Within the report, it does mention that wide-range user groups can make it more specific in that and I know for recent investment that we've done such as Gotta Be Hill felt we did stipulate in there about inclusive equipment as part of the tender specification, so it is noted that I can make an amendment. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I mean Richard is already commented that at the moment we're going through the process at Dent and Parrish Council. We were in a small play area which was put in, I believe in about 1972. Now, there's been no investment in that play area since then. As memory serves me, I mean I can see the play area from my lounge window and I've been there for 30 years and I think we've had two or three swing seats replaced, but one of the piece of equipment scaled has just been removed. Hence why we've got holes in the ground and areas where ground about is used to be, which used to be the thing in the 70s, which believe me, were dangerous as hell, but hey, hey. But obviously we've gone down the route because at the time when we asked about investment in the play area, we were told that there was about 20 of a play area's worse than ours, so heaven forbid all theirs are like. And with a hundred thousand pounds to spend each year, we're probably 25 years away from any improvements to play area. So we're going down the route of the Acid Transfer and I'm using the word Acid as a liberal term because we've asked the Acid to be cleared, and which SKR doing at the cost of four and a half thousand, but we're still having to contribute 1500 pounds towards it, which has been a bit of a bitter pill to take when there's been no investment in our village play area ever since it was installed. Now Denton is a small parish, we are now growing with more and more families moving in, so we are getting more and more children. The play area's situated about less than a hundred yards away from the village school. The school's only a small Victorian-style school with an old tarmac play around area and a lot of the kids come to Denton because their grandparents live in Denton. So even though we probably haven't got a vast amount of children play area age in the village living, we do have the grandchildren of people who do live there, so you know, it is heartbreaking when you sit there and when you notice that that half is three in the afternoon, you've got 20, 30 kids trying to play on then what you would call it, a bit of metal sticking out the ground, which is an excuse for a climbing frame, so hence why we're looking at the funding. But since we first thought of this project and taken it on as a parish council, our original quote was a fully action play area with sensory items because we've already got children in the village who need to use sensory items, autistic, SCN children. And we need to make sure it is fully accessible for everybody to use at all levels, plus we want a community hub with tables and chairs, a safe environment where children can play with their parents for well-being and peace of mind in general, like I say, mental health. You know, our original quotes were 40, 50,000 pounds and now obviously after COVID, well the waste stuff's gone at the moment for the same area now, we're looking at having to fund or trying to find funding for 70 to 90,000. But I think we need to push as many opportunities as we can, and I was pleased to hear what Richard said about there are more parishes looking at taking the offer up, but I do feel, I'm finishing, I do feel that 100,000 pounds, what we have as a maintenance budget, would be better off saying to these parishes, here's 5,000, 10,000 pounds if you want to take it on as like a match funding offer for you to go and find funding from over departments, because we have a slightly handled up if even if we've got 5,000 pounds as well, we'll have a couple of questions and I think we'll get a bit out of that. I hope we'll do it. Thank you. Thank you very much, Colonel Ledenham. I am going to come over to Councillor Baxter and Councillor Fellows in a moment, but I believe that Richard wanted to say something else. I just wanted it to be clear because Council Leden referred to it as a maintenance budget, that's not a maintenance budget, that's an investment budget for replacement of equipment. There are other maintenance budgets within the revenue budgets to ensure that it is not a maintenance budget, so the requirements that are invested in this portfolio, the additional 100,000 was something that the Cabinet recommended to Council which is about investment and replacement maintenance is dealt with elsewhere. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification, Richard. Comment on that, Mr Chair. The 100,000 pounds, looking at the prices we are looking at now for equipment replacement is not going to go very far. It's a start, isn't it, so I agree with you, but thank you very much for your time, Councillor Baxter, please. Thank you. I hope I'm not going to wax lyrical, but you have stirred my soul with this talk. This is a play area strategy based on the play areas which are currently managed by South Coast Evening District Council. It is not a play strategy. Listening to some conversation, and particularly from Councillor Martin, it makes a good argument for a broader play strategy. We are not delivering these things in isolation. There are plenty of other people who provide play equipment, particularly parish councils. So on the field, known as Jubilee Park, that Mr. Wiles refers to, there is some SKDC maintained play equipment on there. There is also some play equipment which is managed by the parish council. And there are also children playing on fields who are not using play equipment. When I was walking through Deepenson James on Sunday morning, during a major international football tournament season, there was not a single child running around kicking a ball on the field, and I think that's not a deep problem. That's not a South Coast Evening problem, but I think it is a problem for their health, fitness and potentially the championship hopes of this country. That children are not running around either chasing a ball or chasing each other. And there is a problem with children knowing how to play. So our play strategy, or a play area strategy, should be aimed at encouraging children out. Please don't allow officers or were still councillors to decide where the best play equipment is, and who should be using it and where it should be. We must make sure we ask child managers, parents and obviously children of all ages where the best play area is and what equipment should be put out. Otherwise, you will do what a parish council close to me did on one occasion where they said, Well, we want play equipment, but we want it to be maintenance-free and safe. So they ended up with a bar that my six-year-old could reach up on and functional, but absolutely no fun. Part of the point of play is taking risk. So we need a play area strategy, and this is it, or this is heading in the right direction, subject to the comments that you have made, but we also need a play strategy. When we go back to our cars, if we have parked them in one street car park, sometimes when you go back to your car, there are kids skating up and down using the ramps that we have provided in one street car park. And some people might think, Oh, what on earth are they doing skating there? The answer to that question is, where are they supposed to skate, and what are we as councilors doing, either at parish, county, district level. What are we doing to find somewhere safe for those kids to mess about, which is what kids at that age should be doing in a safe and controlled manner? Thank you, councillor Baxter. Councillor Fellows. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for allowing me to speak. Welcome to both you and your vice chair. And best of luck, I was going to say something about welcome to the bare pit, but I better not because I get into trouble for saying that. So I apologise for saying it at the minute. I've said it. On the play strategy, I welcome this totally and following councillor Baxter's remarks, and also I was very reminded by councillor Lindham's reports. It is so important and so much we need to move forward. I would just like to ask the committee to consider going forwards that our play areas we do look after are maintained and cleaned. The biggest issue we have with one big play area in Borne is that it is not tidy than cleaned. So children are going to play in an area that could have broken glass bottles and goodness knows what. So part of having them is we need to make sure that the ones we are meant to manage are maintained on a regular basis and made safe. Thank you very much for that councillor Fellows. councillor Dule. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of points. Firstly to add to councillor Bailey's comments about disabled access and things. At the DICE of Park Action Group we were incredibly proud that we installed through in partnership with Wren, the first play equipment that was disabled child friendly and could be used by a range of abilities. So I think that does exist. I think we need to understand, I know from feedback from parents across the district that turned DICE at park into a destination and people travelled to it because it was certainly I don't know about the south of the district but in the north of the district at the time when we installed that it was the only park in the north of the district that had disabled children friendly play equipment. So yeah I think you're absolutely right. We need to have a greater understanding of that. Secondly moving on to that point I mean I know that this is probably a question for councillor Stokes. councillor Stokes and I attended the opening meeting of the Granth and Green spaces open forum which was a meeting you know the Friends of Arnold Field Park, the DICE at Park Action Group, the Friends of Queen Elizabeth Park, the Friends of Wyndham Park the Friends of all the various different part groups that attempt to get them all together. That was a room where there were several dozen people an enormous amount of energy and literally decades, decades of background of working with our park and experience there. So my question is what involvement does that decades and decades of experience of our parks and volunteers. What involvement have they had in this strategy? Surely they must have been front and centre in terms of developing this because they know more than we do, they know more than we do so I mean as I say councillor Stokes was there at that meeting so I'd like to understand what all of those dozens and dozens of people have had involved into this park in this strategy. Thank you. Do you want to answer that Michael Chester or is that you councillors? Thank you Chairman I mean I wasn't at the Green Spaces Forum so I'm not aware of the discussions. I mean we haven't specifically consulted with the relevant Friends groups for the parks in developing this strategy but moving forward for any developments within those areas we would consult with the groups as we did with the Wyndham Park senior player that was done in 2022 I believe. It was so the will be engagement and should local groups such as the Friends group be able to attract funding would definitely work in partnership and I'm happy to have conversations with them to move that sort of investment forward. Thank you for the answer. Councillor Stokes? Yeah just to add to Michael's comments the Councillor to the... this particular play area strategy has obviously been in development for some time. The Green Spaces Forum which we attended is actually struggling a little bit to find its way forward. A lot of people who attended the first night have dropped off and have expressed more of a will to work in their particular groups. I can understand both if I'm really honest. So there wasn't really the opportunity in preparing this particular play area strategy to engage the Green Spaces Forum for Grantham and I think the consultation that Michael has done as far as he could at that stage in bringing the draft forward. If you've had one Goeba we'll let you have another one. So Bailey. Thank you. I don't realise we had one question limit but it's like just looking at the process for play area investment I think it's table four in there. Obviously I was speaking to the officers around the little blue train that appeared in Wyndham Park because I and my son, I've spent many a year playing on the red fire engine which is actually a favourite of many families in Grantham and then one day we went down there and the little red fire engine had disappeared replaced by a tiny little blue train and I was quite surprised at this. I did actually actually speak to the officers and I was amazed at the price to what Council Edmond was saying. The price of these equipment was astronomical. Obviously I would have preferred to have repaired the existing fire engine but I think it was twice as expensive to repair it then buy that blue little little train and I think maybe looking at step separate in terms of contact play equipment suppliers we need to explore other suppliers. There are lots of play equipment suppliers around there. Obviously some are reputable some maybe aren't so but I think we might be a bit more agile. We only have a set amount of budget. Maybe we can be more agile in this strategy in terms of spending our money more wisely exploring other equipment suppliers. I don't know how many suppliers are on the list. I don't know if Michael can share that. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Bailey. As I said earlier, I think that this is starting point so we've got a strategy now and it's a very valid point to raise. Outside the meeting meeting we had a previous discussion where we were considering alternative blue sky thinking about what we do with our leisure areas. So perhaps it can definitely come back to this committee and we can further develop our play area strategy. I don't think Michael Chester and the team have done some great work on this and I can't say that they need to answer lots of minutiae on it. But thank you for your point, Councillor George. Just for the recommendations. Yeah, play equipment is very expensive. It's always very expensive and I think that I've been having been through two projects where we've installed play equipment. Yeah, it's just expensive. But returning to recommendations, as I said, we've not had a play area strategy before, so you're right to point that out, Chairman. So I think that this is a step forward. I think on the Grantham Green area spaces, yes, that was a first meeting where they attempt to bring together dozens of groups. I think it's probably fair to say that some of those groups were better organised than others, which is why the Grantham Green area spaces is struggling. Not struggling, but it's working through the challenges of working with volunteer groups, some of which have been established for 30 years and some of which have been established for 30 days. So I think that's normal. What I would say on the recommendations is I think we should definitely add a recommendation that this strategy goes to those various groups. And some of them will provide good feedback and some of them won't. I think we just need to recognise that from dealing with volunteer groups. But I do think that some of the volunteer groups are incredibly well organised, incredibly well, they're multi-generational in terms of how long they've been around. And I think it's dangerous to cut out the volunteers that have been so involved for so long, in many years, just in this part of the district. I'm sure they exist in Stanford, Deepings and other parts of the district as well. But I do think this ought to go to those guys for consultation as well. Thank you. Thanks very much for your point. As Michael Chester pointed out, moving on, he will be seeking consultation with other groups. I'm aware that we've still got quite a bit of business. So I think we should move to wrap this up and, oh, cancel this note. I think it would be good if we could just tape that a little bit. I think it would be the right thing to bring this strategy to cabinet. And I wouldn't want to hold it up while we're doing a further consultation. But I think what we could do is share it with such as the D matt art park group individually and any comments quickly brought forward. But I think if we hold things back, we're going to move the strategy from September to December or whatever. And I'd rather, this is such a good thing to bring forward. I'd rather try and get this play area strategy to cabinet in September. I think that we vote on accepting the strategy as it is at the moment and then seek to amend it later because otherwise we haven't got strategy and we're kicking a can down the road. Councillor L Alaska. Just going back on Councillors' point, I think it ought to be shared with all the parishes, all the people on this list of the 38. You know, they're the ones that know the full state of their play areas and what's needed in their areas. I think that we all need an input from our own board. I wholeheartedly agree with you. But in order to get the strategy going, we need to vote to accept it now and then seek to go outside and develop relations with the other parish councils. Oh no. So we can move on from here, can't we, Councillor? Thank you. I'm going to propose that we vote to accept this report. Can I have a proposal? I can't. Councillor interjecting. I can't. I'd just say, Chairman, the recommendations in the report as printed so you're reviewing and commenting on the strategy and if there's no further debate then I'd also agree. I'd suggest you've done that. The second recommendation is to recommend to cabinet. So it's not just about accepting the report. It's about whether in the printed recommendations, whether you're going to recommend that report as printed to the cabinet or whether you're going to amend it. If you're not then unless you're going to change those recommendations that printed or move something different, you'd be recommending it to cabinet rather than just accepting it. Thanks for correcting me on that, James. Yeah, I'll propose that we, I can't, you propose it. Yeah, I'll propose it. Okay, all those in favour of? All those against and any abstentions? Thank you very much. Anybody else? Item 10 on the agenda is leisurely limited progress on actions requested by cabinet and this is being presented by Councillor Stokes. Oh, it's being put. Yes, James is just going to speak on this. Thank you, Chairman. Just quickly, the progress on actions requested by cabinet, the three of the appendices are private, but I think the initial copy that went out, the cover report was actually published in private when it should be in public. That's since been corrected. So as I understand it, unless someone tells me otherwise, the cover report is public. Following that, if there's any discussions on the private appendices, that's when you may look to exclude public and press, but the report itself is public and obviously you've got board members from Leisure SK in the room, if, as I said earlier, if there are any questions for them. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councillor Stokes. Thank you, Chairman. At a meeting of this committee held on the 9th of January this year, the members present moved a motion of no confidence in Leisure SK Ltd. As a result of their meeting in January, cabinet set a series of tasks to be undertaken to provide assurance on the performance of Leisure SK Ltd. and to include bringing forward the timescale to assess alternative management options. The report before you today provides an update on each of the tasks set by cabinet and a high-level analysis of alternate management options. As detailed within the report, the contract with Leisure SK has been extended for the maximum period allowed, and a new arrangement will be required to be in place for the 1st of January, 2026. There is a commitment to provide a further report to this committee, providing detailed information on the results of the Leisure Management options appraisal once this work is completed. The recommendations within the report are that the Culture and Laurier Overview & Scrutaly Committee notes the progress made on the actions agreed by cabinet on 18 January 2024 and requests any further information that is required at this stage and agrees to receive a further report providing detailed information on the results of the Leisure Management options appraisal at a future meeting. Thank you. Thank you very much. Do we have any questions? Anyone have any questions? Thank you. I wish if I could to make a statement about the Leisure. I was appointed to the board a few weeks ago, not many weeks ago. I have attended one board meeting and met with other board members on occasion since then, I would like to make a statement which will affect your later discussion. I will make it clear that I am here as a member of the Esuke Leisure board and not as a Councillor. I will make that clear whenever I come here, and I will leave the meeting when you have your private discussions later in the agenda so that I will not be here for that discussion. I will make a statement under this agenda item which is a board report so I believe it is appropriate to do so. I may take a few minutes with this. I hope you will bear with me because I believe it is important and I will get on with it as quickly as I can. Is that okay? Thanks very much. Thank you. Everybody knows there have been problems with Esuke Leisure. We came and were particularly when it needed funding very quickly in order to meet a cash flow problem a few months ago and at that time there was a lot of action taken. But I honestly believe that we have problems for Esuke Leisure which are much more fundamental and much more deeply rooted. Everybody knows how would we get more people in, how to maintain the equipment that is there in a very old building. We have got three very old buildings. One of which we still do not own. It is owned by LinkedIn County as was deepings so we have got a difficult situation that the new board has been put into. The real problems are more fundamental. First of all in terms of what do we expect from it? The shareholders are the members, 56 of you. You are the members and you are the shareholders for this company and so ultimately you are responsible for making sure it is delivering what is meant to deliver. But how many of us have ever thought exactly what its objectives are? Are there any objectives to make a profit out of the three centres we now have not four? Is that our objective to make a profit? Is our objective to provide as much leisure facility as it is possible within the three centres at a reasonable cost, at an affordable cost so it serves as many of our constituencies as it possibly can because those two objectives would be incompatible. We want it to build a business with new or fresh facilities in which becomes a high quality facility in three or high quality facilities or maybe two or maybe one or whatever. But high quality facilities for leisure in our area because that is a different objective. So there are three or four potential objectives some of which will be incompatible with one another. And I have never heard a discussion at Cabinet or anywhere else that really sets that out. There was a document when it was first done. It was done very quickly of course, SK Leisure because of COVID and because of the need to do something very quickly. But since then there has not been a I think a vision of what it is meant to do. We vault on a budget every year and the budget says we think it will cost us this. But have we ever looked at the value? What value do SKDC place on leisure facilities in a wider sense? Because their culture as well as leisure facilities as SK Leisure and we have never had that discussion. I believe that discussion needs to be quite quick and then we have a very very clear set of parameters and objectives for the SK Leisure Board to chase after and to accommodate. So I think those are the... Could I just, uh, pose you there for a moment. Grant has got a point of information. Councillor GRUNGS. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry, Phil. And apologies to interrupt. Actually, we're not shareholders. We're guarantors. It's a company limited by guarantee. There are no shareholders. Um, it's we're guarantors of this company. Um, and there's the... There are no shareholders. So, so the, the, the definition of responsibilities is broader, as you say, than it would be if we were shareholders. We're actually guarantors. Apologies for interrupt. But I think that is an important distinction actually. Sorry. Thank you. Sorry if I got the term eligible wrong. Um, the core board, the company was created by the full council and the council is responsible for it. I'm happy with that. Yeah? Yeah. Okay. Sorry about if I misled you there. But what is the value we place on? Is it 10 bobs, 10 pound, 10,000, 10 million? Uh, I think that needs to be part of this discussion. And then we create the parameters, the new parameters for the new board and the, the companies it stands of what is expected from them and then broad basically give them some stability to go and get, to achieve those. Um, the, look at the, the structure. I was appointed in my absence without my specific, um, agreement to join, to a board at a meeting of the governance. So, governance and last meeting, last full meeting, I introduced a change in the constitution which gave the governance the opportunity to sack me as well, because they didn't have that in the past, but now they've got the right to sack me as well as to appoint me. Uh, so they might sack me in my absence. I don't know. You never know these things. I need an assistant to play with the buttons. I've always needed that in any of my comments. So, um, the board has changed so many times. It's been like a revolving circus act in the last few years. Uh, and eventually we got down to two, uh, when the biggest problems were rising, two directors. One, a newly appointed chair, who's Debbie, and the second one, Debbie Monkhouse, who is a non-executive. And we were down to two directors, which is the minimum required for the company to exist and to, to operate. With, only, if we got down to one, the company would be non-operational and not functional. So, there's been changes there. I've already said that without governance or involvement with appointee, appointing and sacking directors, we get this committee that has now taken a great interest in SK Leisure as it's entitled to do, uh, and has a, one talented meeting, and a later proposal, later in this meeting, to say, We'll have another separate committee just to look after SK Leisure. Which frankly appears to me to be, uh, nonsensical, but I'll leave that to this committee when they, when they choose to debate it. On top of that, uh, when I attended my first board meeting, it became clear that SK Leisure staff have, uh, a large contingent at the board meeting. I've never been to a board meeting in my life where the board has been out numbered by advisors and onlookers and, and other people being there. Never been to a board meeting like that. In fact, at board meetings at senior level, uh, the owner of the business, who's the, uh, the owner of the, the whole group, used to write to ask permission to come to the board if he wanted to say something to the board, because he looked on the board of them and I was a part of as being sacrosanct. But here we have more, hang, not hangers on, wrong term, stupid term. Uh, there are more other people than there are board members at our board meetings. Uh, and we had to separate the board meeting into two in order so the board could get together. There are five of us now. Um, on top of that, we have a situation where, uh, there are reports, go to the executive and to the executive briefing committee, uh, about SK Leisure. We've had a situation where the leader, I believe on behalf of the executive have, some part of the executive, now writes to the board to say what they can do, what they can't do, very specifically, and what they should be doing, whatever else, and asking for more and more information. You've... I don't know. We just got more information than, uh, I don't know, how do I do that? Uh, after a bit, uh, can we have a training program, on pressing buttons, please? Um, so, uh, we've got more and more information. You've never seen it, it's 150, 70, 80, 90 pages of information available to this committee today. We're reporting back to the briefing, uh, the executive briefing, and now we've got the leader writing to the chairman of SK Leisure saying you can do this, you can't do that, and we want the report more on this, that, and whatever. Now, this, what it does need, more on an anything else, is stability and patience. Um, it is a new board. The most imp... three new appointees were Patsy, myself, and Paul. And the most important of these, sorry Patsy, is Paul, because now it's got its own financial management director. In other words, it's got its own finance director, which will do two things. It will make sure that the finance numbers are given to us regularly, timely, and accurately. And that wasn't allegedly always happening in the past. Uh, that was something that was apparently not quite that... that in the past. The other thing he can agree, which is much more important, is management accountancy leading. Every company's finance director leads on management accounting, and he will look after cash flow and things of that nature, which was in a separate pot before, and wasn't a key concern of anybody. No, it's the key concern of a board member. And having met him a couple of times, and having heard him say his piece, he's just like me. When he's an SCA Ledger, I will not be representing, or reporting back, as less-scale-ledger, to this body. I will be a board member of SCA Ledger, and he will be the same. So when he's there, he'll be an SCA Ledger, and doing what is best for them, and best for that as a company. Uh, we've got a new Chairman, uh, dot, he's been there a few months, but Debbie, and I've every confidence in Paul in doing what he says he's going to do, and I was in his meetings, and specifically to build a team. To give us leadership and build a team. I'll put it on a, on a note somewhere. We'll take a team of five, because we're five board members, and we'll challenge the world, uh, and our, uh, put in brackets, SCAD as well. So, you know, we will get a team together now, with a new team with a new board. Pat, C&I, will offer, um, our experience, various experiences of management, uh, and trying to help that board take on its responsibilities to understand what is required of it, and to meet those responsibilities. Not over the next 12 months, but beyond that as well. So the new board will, will meet and will, uh, uh, uh, meet the needs of, of the board. But it needs patience, it needs, uh, patience, it needs, um, excuse me, it needs, uh, clear parameters to which, which to work with. It needs structural clarity of who we're going to report to and who's going to take those reports. And we don't need all those bodies micromanaging the business, because if other bodies here of any description are going to micromanage the business, count me out. I'm not being a member of the board as is overruled and out managed by a lot of bodies at various stages. Of course, the relationships that we've got to understand, and with relationships we've got to do, and we understand that the company's financed by SKDC, we're not that silly that we don't think there's no close, uh, relationship. But we don't want to be micromanaged by the thing. Thank you, uh, Councillor, um, no. Are we coming to the end of the statement? On the last two, three lines. Um, so we need your patience, we need your confidence, we need your support, and we need to be left to do the job that the independent board should be doing. Uh, thanks for your time, and I'm sorry to attend with so much time. That's okay, thank you very much for your, uh, summation of the current circumstances of SKA leisure. Councillor Bax, did you have a question? Uh, no, it wasn't a question and it's not my job here to question. Um, I just kind of... It's quite clear that we haven't conferred very much before we've come into the meeting, but just put some context in it. Uh, as for Lidie, yes, I... You're on, darling. Ah, I'm back on, um... I was saying, um, yes, I'm not going to apologise for writing to the, the board of the Council's wholly owned management company as the leader, because we had been in difficult, a difficult situation, and we continue to be in a difficult situation financially with SKDC, and so there are, there are different ways of, of communicating with the board. One is to have a face-to-face conversation, which is, um, obviously a, a good system, but also there are some things that need to be put down in writing. Um, the... I'm really pleased that the Councillor Noells has more confidence in the new board, but we must remember that until earlier this year, we did not have. In fact, in December, this committee had no confidence in the SK board, so I think I would be out of place if I wasn't communicating by all means necessary with the board. Having spoken to Councillor Allen and Councillor NOLS and others about the forward-looking board, I share Councillor NOLS' confidence in the new board, and I think their integrity and independence and determination gives me some confidence that they're going to turn the ship around, but we are still surrounded by icebergs potentially, not to stretch the metaphor. And so the letters that I've sent to the Chair of Leisure SK are about issues, such as, is she confident that they have the money to recruit the staff that they have? Is she confident that energy, which is one of the biggest costs, is being managed properly? I think they are legitimate questions. It is quite within the right of the board to say, to write to me and say, Well, frankly, that's an operational matter and keep your nose out. That's fine, but I'll carry on asking questions, and they'll carry on giving me answers. I hope I haven't overspoken. Thank you very much, Councillor Paxton. It's a week to have a close meeting to do questions. I think with this item, item 10 and item 12, you've got board members in the room. I think this is an update and actions requested by Cabinet, and I think the committee then if you're going to go with the printed recommendations, you're going to be asking for a further report, or not as the case may be. I think if you've got any questions related to this report to board members, now would be the time to ask them, and then if you need to debate following that, then we'd probably be asking those members to leave for you to deliberate after that. I would suggest that if you've got any questions for Debbie or Matt Paul or any of the board members that you probably want to ask them now whilst they're in the room. Let's do that then. So, any questions for the board members of S.K. Lella? Thank you, Chair. I guess obviously I've got lots of reports going on all over the place. So, hopefully, I don't think it's on paper on this machine at least. I found the leisure S.K. financial regulation. The first time that I've certainly seen this document, and I've seen there, I pick out the — it's called the five-year business case, and I don't think that I've ever seen a five-year business case for leisure S.K. I've seen, basically, a one-year, two-year business case, which I think the committee kind of voted down. I haven't seen a revised version of that come back to the committee, and I certainly haven't seen something as long as five years in terms of that kind of overall, kind of, strategy of leisure S.K. So, I don't know if that does exist, and I understand leisure, kind of, there I say, five-fiting to try and get things back under control. So maybe this is going to be kind of a come up later stage, but I therefore want to understand kind of that longer term, kind of vision, I guess, touching on what obviously board member obviously mentioned in terms of that longer term strategy around leisure and leisure S.K. Would you like to answer that, David, or Matt? Just thank you for the question, Council. So, leisure S.K. does have a business plan. Obviously, we only do have a contract until December next year, so that five-year plan, obviously, the plan is now only for the next year and a half. Rather than five years. As a board of directors, we agree the business plan, so that has been agreed as board of directors, that obviously, they're looking at that strategy came of the company. So, there is one in place, yeah. I have a quick question. In terms of the future set up of the company, now you have greater confidence in the way that those rest pays run. Surely, there must be some thought towards extending it beyond that, indeed, to replace the current set up with the council as a duty to legally start looking at who might replace any such set up now, because it takes so long to get one of these things in place. So, is that something that you are considering? That's a Council question rather than a leisure S.K. question. Obviously, you've got to have some options in front of you, for you to consider. But I believe the options, and looking at the future of the leisure service, is a Council decision. Councillor BAY. Yeah, just to follow on your point, obviously, the five-year business case, obviously, if we are trying to decide here, what is the direction of travel for leisure at S.K. and we've, in the report, it talks about insourcing, future contracts, agency, external models. Obviously, there's four options on the table, but if I'm reading one, you know, looking externally, it's going to take 16 months, so it says in the report. Obviously, I'm looking at the timeframe and going, you know, we're now in June. Our next meeting is until September. That's less than 16 months before the contract expires. So, time's definitely kind of against us going to those external providers and getting something in place before December 25. So, I think that I certainly would like for us to explore extending the contract, I would like to understand what is that five-year business plan, because I don't want to kind of get to a point of, I understand the contract expires then, but there is an option here to extend it for another three, five years, but if we don't know what leisure as K's plans are, then how can we ever make that decision? So, I, one, would like to ask leisure as K to provide that future-looking business case, so we can understand if that is a viable option for this council to take. Michael Chester. I just want to clarify that the current contract with leisure as K cannot be extended further. Last, first, December 2025, the council would have to look to enter into a new contract arrangement with them, and it detail within the reports, given the four different options which are being looked at. There are a bit, the hope is in September to bring to the committee the results, that option is appraisal to move forward, but it is a significant procurement exercise should. The council wish to go out to full tender on the open market. We have done some initial soft-market testing. We have put to go for a full procurement exercise, and it is roughly about 16 months to do that, which will tie as roughly, and without timeline anyway. Thank you. Any further questions for members of the board? Councillor BAYLEE. Thank you. In the reports, obviously, it does highlight 153,000 overspend for 2324, and I know that the Cabinet has seen a mitigation plan to some degree, but I guess from my perspective, and for this culture and leisure overview scrutiny committee, I just want to understand more around how I assume we have carried this debt into this financial year. So is that something that the chairman and the board is confident of being able to cover somehow? Obviously, 150,000 pounds is a big chunk of money to start a year off with in the red. So just to understand kind of what the plans are, if you can share them as much as you can with us. Just to start on that, the figure that we're talking about, we didn't include in the performance of Leisure SK, board report that was in our exempt appendices. I'm happy to cover that off when we talk about the performance and we talk about the end of year, but just to say, this isn't my report, the deficit position, the company aware in that position, we've not asked the council to cover that. So I would say it will come up later in the report and there's a whole lot of explanation around the deficit, but if we can come onto that and we can go in an exempt session for that term and that will be appreciated. Thank you, Debbie. Can't answer the backstop? Thank you. Just coming back on an earlier point about how is it to be managed in the future. I don't think it's a secret that would necessitate removing the directors from this meeting, but we are looking at all options for the future management of our Leisure provision across the district, of which there are four main contenders. One is to bring the whole Legis Division in-house. One is to send the whole Legis Service out into the wider market. The third one is to retain Leisure SK in its current form, and fourth one is to retain Leisure SK in an adapted form. And we're currently doing a homework on the costs and benefits of each one, and that will arrive at a later date. Obviously, that won't be something that we discuss with the Board of Leisure SK. Thank you, Councillor Baxter. Any further questions? You don't need to move to Ex sleep, public and press, if you wanted to discuss the information in the private appendices, obviously for that you'd still require the Board to be here, but if if committee are moving into moving a recommendation, I'd probably suggest that the Board members leave at this stage, because for item 11 as well, which is the working group, I'm not sure it'd be appropriate for them to be here for either, so we then bring them back for item 12 when you're discussing the update from Leisure SK. I don't know whether that's a way forward for each other. Yes, that sounds perfect, James. So, if you might mind removing yourselves temporarily. [silence] [silence] Chair for Clarity, we are not in a private session now, are we? We've just removed our actors. [silence] Apologies for the delay, we just have something to add and think about. Sorry about that. We all listening? So, there's two recommendations as part of this item. The first one is to note the report and the second one is to agree or not or make perhaps ask questions on that as to whether we require a further report. So, we could take the first item first. Do we, Karen? Thank you Chairman, sorry, I just had to pop out then. I know we're in private session now, but I think we're not in private session. Sorry, I thought we'd moved into a private session. Okay, I'll just temper what I was going to say then. I think it's really important that as an authority of very clear, I thought we'd be able to clarify that Lesher S.K. was established. It has a board of directors. It has articles. It has a clear specification about what it's providing. We've had an exceedingly good team supporting this board over the last number of years providing financial reports, Michael himself does the administration for this board. Now, if the now board of this organization, this company that you are all guarantors of, do not want that support, that is fine. We come with, draw that report, report, that service. The leader has written to the board for a number of reasons. Then the main reason is, is the concern over our cash flow for the year. There is a budget and we want to ensure that the board stays within that budget because if it doesn't, then, of course, there's guarantors of that company. That then demand comes back onto this local authority. That is why we have requested mitigation plan. It is covered in the report. We did get a mitigation plan. It wasn't to what we wanted and we've asked for a further drafting of that mitigation plan. So, for some of the comments, it was very uncomfortable for me to sit here and listen to some of those comments that were being said there, especially with all the support members have given to this board and offices myself. Previous deputy 151, Michael goes to every meeting. I know the cabinet member to build those relationships with that board has gone to a number of the meetings. And we do want to, together, we do want to see leisure SK. Flourish until the time that we take that decision that we need to either see a different delivery model or an extension of that contract. So, I think it's really important, as this committee understands that we are trying to work hand-in-glove with leisure SK and we have been from the beginning. Thank you Chairman. Thanks very much for that, Cara. Councillor Stokes. Yeah, I totally underpin what the Chief Executive has said there. And I think it's great that there's a new found passion within the board because that has, to a certain extent, been missing. But not many companies are in the nice position of if they're suddenly in difficulty being out of turn to us and say we need some money. And I think as part of what their way of going forward is one thing saying we want to commit the council from our proceedings. But actually, if all of a sudden they need some money, they would come to us. So I think it's perfectly within our rights to sit and be present and not feel unwelcome. I totally agree with you. But obviously this committee is a reflection of the whole committee and the whole council. I wasn't expecting that long statement. I must admit, so we are where we are. In a way it's good that the new board are emboldened to try and move things on. But thanks for your response to it, Councillor Stokes. Sorry. Let's go back to where we were. We vote in. Can we have a proposal to note this is part 1 of item 10, the report? Thank you, Councillor Harerson. Can we have a seconder for that, please? Thank you. So we vote in to accept that we are noting the report. All those in favour? Any against? Any abstentions? Sorry, Councillor JIENCE. Were you in favour of that motion? No. Seconded. The second printed recommendation is to agree to receive a further report, providing detailed information on the results of the contract 03. So if members wanted to go with that printed recommendation, you could move in a second. Can we have a proposal for that, please? Thank you, Councillor Harerson. Yeah, seconded by Councillor J Oh, thank you. All in favour? That's unanimous. Thanks very much for that. So, we're now moving on to item 11. Overview and scrutiny, Leisure Working Group. And I think Paul Stokes is on this one again, please. Thanks, Chairman. I think we've somehow managed to merge one or two of the items together now, but we'll proceed. At the last meeting of the Culture Leisure Overview and Scootally Committee, held on the 26th of March, there was debate around establishing a working group to monitor the performance of Leisure SK. A draft terms of reference for a potential working group has been developed and provided a appendix 1 to the report. However, as detailed within the report, further consideration is required, including the membership of a working group and frequency of any meetings. The paper before you today recommends that all matters relate into Leisure And the main as part of the main committee meeting agenda. One of the reasons there is who's going to drop off? Why wouldn't members of this committee be interested in the way forward? So, Leisure at the Performance of Leisure SK is the important subject matter for the Culture Leisure Committee, particularly as we look to assess alternative management options and establish the way forward. Retaining the performance of Leisure SK as part of the main committee will allow all members to fully contribute to this important issue and will ensure that the debate and discussion remain in the public area. Should additional time be required to discuss Leisure SK, or other topics, the committee can request an extra meeting or vary the timings of scheduled meetings. The recommendation within the report is that the Culture Leisure Committee determine whether it is an alternative benefit, overview and scrutiny committee, agree that reports relating to the performance of Leisure SK continue to be considered at future Culture and Leisure overview meetings, rather than schedule additional working group meetings. Thanks very much for that. Any questions for Councillor Snokes? Karen? Thank you Chairman. I think it's just something to know, you can have as many of your meetings if you want to, and you can have single item agendas if you want to, and that may be a consideration of how this, if you didn't want the working group, a separate group, that this committee moves it forward. So, there's no reason why you couldn't have ten extra committees. James, James, James, James, no, no, no, not only nine, but have them as single item agendas. I think it's just specific that you get then the time to consider that information in detail, and certainly around the leisure options as well. That's going to be a critical decision for this Council. And you could just have a one single item agenda committee to give consideration to the way forward. Councillor Bailie? Yeah, I think it's clear to everybody that, you know, a leisurely security everyone has taken up a lot of our time, and we have to get this right, I'd rather have, personally, I'd rather have more meetings to discuss this properly without time pressure and without pushing other things off the agenda. So, I just want the Chief Executive, just kind of worry what the, how would those meetings kind of get arranged? Is this something that the chairman would just decide? What is the process for, let's just say we want to have a meeting in August about leisure SK? Is it for this, the members here to request it to the chairman? What does that look like to actually have that kind of happen? I'm not sure about the, whether we could host these meetings on a single issue outside of the Chamber, perhaps in the evening, so we had two or three hours to talk about it or something like that, then it formally comes to the Chamber, it's a single item. James? Karen, sorry. Thank you, Chairman. It's up to you when you want to debate this. So, if you wanted a ten o'clock at night meeting, that would be up to you with ten o'clock at night. I know, yeah, I've got a witching hour, too. But, you know, you could have them in the mornings, in the afternoons, you can have them as often as you want. If you wanted a meeting in August, you can have a meeting in August, that would be for you to confirm. But what you need to do is that the agenda item needs to be properly considered. So, the information needs to come forward at the appropriate time to what you want to do with the timetable of meetings. But that would be up to you as a committee to decide that as a framework to help you make those sensible recommendations to cabinet and to Council in the future around structures, around funding, and governance. Thank you very much, Councillor Thomson. Thank you, Chairman. Yeah, I'd like to see as all the members here on this OSC are then called to do these individual meetings. Otherwise, we're going to have another set of people talking about another load of things that we've all discussed already, and it just goes on and on and we don't get anywhere. So, if I might suggest that, you know, an ad hoc meeting with this OSC would be more beneficial to everyone concerned. Thanks, Chairman. Councillor Landon and then I'll say something. Yeah, I mean, I technically grew up at Councillor Technic. I think it would be, and we would bear it said, that I think we need to stay together as a committee and if we're quite happy to have one item agenda, I think that is the way forward. I don't look at it as micromanaging the board. I looked at it that, were there holding their hands through the process and making sure that we give them the support they need. We do need the pleasure centres to be a success, and I do take on board, you know, some of the points of, you know, we need to offer these services, but it would be nice to make sure that they do cover their costs, not necessarily make a profit, but then again, if you don't make a profit, you can't make the investment. But I suggest, and pull it forward, Barry said, we keep it to the same committee, but single item agendas, so we need the stress to discuss all this stuff. That's it, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Landon. It seems like we're coming to a consensus here, so I'd initially like to propose that we, we circulate some emails amongst ourselves and see, is it 16 months deadline before we have to, before the end of December 25, so we need to have everything in place before 16 months. Michael Chester, so. Yeah, roughly it'll take about 16 months should the Council decide they want to go out to the full open market and to procure a new leisure contract with an external operator. So I propose that we meet in early August in the evening to discuss that as a single item agenda meeting. Right, shall I look at that hat? I'm just trying to help, Councillor Chairman. So that's fine, whenever you'd like to meet, I think there's a number of things that the committee seemed to get frustrated or want information on. It's the appraisal around the new leisure options, which is one piece of work, and then there's also to ensure the sustainability of leisure SK up to December 2025. So I do think, I'm sure, officers can pull together a bit of an itemised process that you make for members to, to understand a framework, making sure that we could make the decision around 16 months leading for an options appraisal, if that's so what members want, and also that members may want to look in detail around the mitigation plan to ensure that the cash flow and the performance of leisure SK is where they would like to see it at, to make sure that this limits the liability and risk to the authority of non-performance. So I think there's probably two pieces of work unless I'm misunderstanding here. So there's the leisure options appraisal and there's the performance appraisal of leisure SK. And if that's the case then you, yeah, then you probably, you need to think about the timeline for the leisure options appraisal and bring that forward, but at the same time you might need a number of meetings to look at the performance and some of the difficulties that leisure SK are facing at the moment with financial performance. Councillor BANSELL. Just to say that you're welcome to have meetings, whatever, I'm just letting you know that I will not be available for the 1st half of August. I think that I'm not sure if executive is either, but we're confident that you'll have the, the deputy chief executive and the deputy leader. So crack on. James Swirlbaugh. Just to maybe to guide Councillors, the recommendation in the report, or the printed recommendation in the report, is that to agree that reports relate into the performance of leisure SK continue to be considered at future meetings. It sounds like you've come to a consensus on that. In your overview and scrutiny procedure rules, you do have provision to call meetings. The chairman, the vice chairman, Karen can call meetings as and when needed. I'm not entirely sure that you need to specify the recommendations that you want to meet at a certain date. We can sort that out outside of the meeting. I think you've already got the provision to do that is what I'm saying. I think we're going to do that. We're going to have a further meeting. Where are we on the agenda? Chairman, you need to agree then to recommendation 1 or propose it, second it, and take a vote on recommendation 1 and that's to not have the working group and to have the reports considered by the fall committee. Can we have a proposal for that please? Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Harrison. Thank you, Councillor Dobson. So can we vote? Unanimous, thank you. We'll just have a brief pause there while we refill our water, et cetera. Thank you. [ Pause ] [ Pause ] [ Pause ] [ Pause ] [ Pause ] [ Pause ] [ Pause ] [ Pause ] [ Pause ] Okay, can we move on then please? [ Pause ] I just wait for Debbie. [ Pause ] [ Pause ] All right, so next item on the agenda is the performance of Leisure SK. Open parenthesis projected the outcome of childcare 2324. Debbie, would you like to present this for us please? Thank you, Chairman. So the report before you is the end of year financial information and also the first year which is April's cash flow provided. The information that we have had before you obviously talks about deficit position of the company in the paragraph 1.7 just to clarify that deficit position. Obviously the company is bearing that overspend at this moment in time and we aren't requesting any additional management fee at this point in time either Chairman. Since we've obviously got the new Board of Directors in place, our first board meeting that we had was to talk about the deficit position and how we were at year end. And in 1.9 I just wanted to touch on some of the more positive areas that, you know, fitness income received was higher than our original budget. Swimming income received was higher than the original budget and we continued to perform strongly with Swimming. Other things such as indoor activities, we were very strong in that and that was due to room higher at the Mears and Born Electronics Centre. Utilities, there was a significant overspend at year end because of the cost of utilities. Originally budgeted I mean significantly overspends because of utilities and we are already seeing that those are coming down as a new financial year. Central costs and there was a overspend at year end and that was due to the recoverable VAT and the budgets for the GLAD Zone System which we've now since rectified in there included in the new budget. So just to note that obviously included in Appendix A and B is the financial information Chairman and if the members of the committee have got any questions obviously if we could go into closed session to discuss those. On a positive note around performance for March and April as well, we've had an increase in our fitness memberships and March and April membership sales were in line with our expectations. Just to say we've had our quest assessments as well all waiting for the results of those but we're expecting them to be good or very good. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think there's a couple of questions that aren't directly related to the financial report. Are you able to stay and take those questions? Thank you. Did you have a question, Councillor Baker? Thanks, Councillor TANNA. Just in terms of advertising, we've brought this up many times at this OSC and just wondering what we're doing more in terms of advertising because even a few of us that follow SKDC religiously I guess on social media platforms still are not seeing stuff that is related to leisure SK so I just wondered what we're doing and whether we're going to plan on getting stuff actually into houses. Thank you. And just to further on that point raised by Councillor Baker, I don't know if you're aware but I live in quite a rural towards a taller ward and there's a large influx of newcomers into our area which is very welcome but I'm not sure any of them are even aware that there's a leisure centre in Grantham for example because they're not seeing a direct advertisement in the rural parishes of our leisure facilities across the district. So have you any plans for that for us please? Thank you, yeah, we work with an external marketing provider called Big Wave and they recommend a mix between digital and kind of physical advertising. So for example in January we leafed it dropped 10,000 homes in and around Grantham then in April we did the same for Born and Stanford and we have continuous work behind the scenes on social channels so online so it will target people that are going to be that we think are the right demographic to join. There's always more we could do so happy to look at other things and then obviously by the sounds of it we're not linking with the SKDC Comms team very well to get it pushed through their channels but you should find if you live in SKDC or if you're on social media I'd like to think you've seen some of those stuff. Council Harris and then we'll come back to Councillor Baker please. Councillor Baker sorry. I was just going to come back on that so my son was selected as one of the people that was going to be photographed in Stanford leisure centre to advertise it and as his mum who is obviously very keen to see those photos I haven't seen them so yeah there is absolutely something that you do need to be doing because it's not getting even to people that are actively looking for this. Matt. Yeah happy to look and have a conversation afterwards to get the details because we actually had professional photographs done last year and they used quite heavily so you'll see my face on the recruitment campaign. You see one of my colleagues Ryan's blown up on a big banner outside the centre so it's all been you so happy to talk about that afterwards because I'm not sure on the detail. Thank you for your answer. Councillor Harrison. Thank you Chair. Yeah it's always going to be a problem getting stuff out of social media for everybody you know things get moved to tops for feeds and bottoms for feeds and if you're not looking at a certain time you're quite liable to miss it but if we could ask whereas members it's our duty as well to put this out there so if we could ask that the leisure centres and all their media providers linking with us as well and taggers and things all forward as the information so that we can share it out to our demographics that see our posts as well you know. Let's all work on this together rather than portion the blame to one particular area you know there's lots of strings we can put on this bow to get the message out there. You're absolutely correct Councillor Harrison. We're not seeing this criticised here. We just want to increase the footfall in the leisure centre. So if you are able to send your target advertising to all members by blind copy we can start featuring them on our Councillor Harrison's case large Facebook followings. Councillors interjecting. Councillor dobsmann. Yes, just one thing and I can't remember. Do we advertise in the SK today? Yes, our magazine it goes out to all residents. So we have in the past but it's been a little while so we can look at that again. To be honest it's very tricky because we could quite easily go to Big Wave and they could say right to reach everybody you are looking at tens of thousands of pounds so we have to kind of manage our budget to fit what we can. So that's why we try to balance between Lee Flip Drop in Granth and for one campaign Born in Stamford for the net campaign etc. But yeah there are there are all these other things that we can do and SK today is one that we're happy to look at. SK goes out anyway so we do need to perhaps report of what facilities are there saying we have leisure centres in Stamford Grantham and Born. But what do they do? What do they provide? We've got Wave technology in Stamford I think isn't it? I'm not sure we've got it in Born but certainly in Grantham. So you know all these things are what there's a big push on health at the moment by government so we might sort of join in and do it as often even looking at the Lincoln show when it comes out it will be a good idea. Thanks, man. Councillor Baxter and then Councillor Harrison, thank you. Thank you. At risk of stating the bleep and obvious, the marketing is important and putting the word out on paper and social media is very well but there is absolutely no substitute for word of mouth and the best way to promote our leisure centres is for people to have a good experience of leisure centres with the pool the right temperature, the staff friendly and helpful facilities clean so that people go off and say that leisure centre is well managed and competitively priced. Thank you, Councillor Harrison. Just a quick one here. There is also that you can put out free on the Grantham together website any information they want about leisure centres. Matt has just made a note in that, thank you. Are there any further questions for the Board not related to the appendices? Oh no, that's why I'm asking. Thank you. No further, are there any questions related to the appendices which would mean that I have to exclude the Board again? Really sorry about this. Thanks very much for attendance. Councillors interjecting. Yes, James just wanted to ask. I would suggest that even if you want to discuss the financial appendices you can, but I would suggest that the Board members stay because if you've got any questions on the finances, they will be the people to answer them. I think following the questions on the private papers, if there are any, if there's any further debate to be had, that would be when you'd look to exclude the Board members specifically, but you'd probably want to move to exclude just the public and press at this stage. You do need the Board members for this bit. I apologise, could we exclude the public and press then please? Are there any here? We need to close the second. Yeah, can we have a proposal for that please? Thank you, Councillor Noon and a seconder. Thank you, Councillor Bailey. All those in favour? That's unanimous. Thank you. Back in the public session now, so did we exclude anybody from the room? No one left. End recordings on. Thank you. Item 13, the work programme for 24/25. Thank you. So, we've got the proposed items, but I think that we need to reach out a bit more to SK general public. So I'd like to, I don't know where we can add it, but bring in another item whereby we contact all the other leisure providers in SKDC and sports facility providers, and find out what they are up to and where we can have a more united strategy for leisure and sport and culture within SKDC, because everything that we do is very, it seems like it's joined up but it's all related to SKDC, but in reality, lots of private groups and individuals run many of the sports facilities which are beneficial to the people of South Carolina, so I'd like to add that somewhere into the work programme, that some sort of possibility, James. And just to say, Chairman, was this specifically related to Michael's play area strategy, or was this a new one on leisure strategy? So you want an information report on that topic? Yes. And that's fine. I'll probably defer to officers on that because obviously I wouldn't be involved in the content of that, but it might be, might be worth consulting with the officers as to specifically what you want and you might want to take that outside the meeting. I'm quite prepared to, but I'll just wear it and take up some space in our meeting agendas in the future. So can we meet up and discuss what we need to do, Karen? Thank you. Apart from that, looking at the work programme, everyone's happy with the other things that we've got to do. Councillor BAKER. Is this not where we could put in our additional meeting and then make sure that like, OK, SK has taken off the third September and put into an earlier one? Yes, exactly. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So we, so we need to do that. So we're going to meet, we're proposing that we'll circulate this via email that we're proposing to meet, potentially, on an evening in early August, to discuss leisure, SK. Which should free up some other space when we're busy agendas. And can I just confirm, that you want to meet on the performance of leisure, SK for 23-24, which you've had today, or the performance of leisure, SK in April, May and June, so the quarter at figures. Just so we are clear, so the board are aware that what information that they will need to provide for that meeting. Hopefully, that's not asking you too many questions. That's fine to ask those questions, because I don't want to be vague, we have to be quite exact on this, don't we? It's such an important topic that we need to have an additional meeting. Can I suggest that you deal with the first quarter reporting then, and then the mitigation plan, which is coming forward for that year for 24-25 as a starter for 10 at that meeting? That sounds like a great suggestion. Yeah? Any further comments? Any further comments on the work programme in general, and anything that anybody else would like to add to it, or suggest that it should be added to it? Councillor? Yeah, I notice that we do have it again on the 3rd of September when we update on the performance for leisure SK. Is there a possibility that in order to be ready, if we're going to keep that there in position with February 13, September, isn't going to be duplicated at all with this other meeting that we're going to have? We're proposing that we take it out of the 3rd September meeting and move it to the early August meeting instead. Councillor D sobson. CouncilloripA cTime. I'm not a Councillor. For my pay grade, that one, believe me. The performance of leisure SK, of course, is not just financial, and I think we also ought to, I think the committee also ought to be looking at the quality. They've got the quest reports due back in, so it would be a good one to receive the quest reports out. I'm assuming that the board have had a quest assessment for each of the facilities, so it would be interesting to understand what the quest reports say, and it may be also for their feedback reports that they do with their customers, their customer contact groups, so it might be a little bit more about the performance and the quality of the offer of leisure SK. If you are considering the financial performance of leisure SK at the beginning of August, which is, of course, the first quarter. Can we not constitutionally discuss that and just add that to the agenda for the August meeting? I think you probably may be wanting to do a deep dive into the quarter performance and maybe the mitigation plan that you've got on that meeting. I don't know if the board is able to bring the quest assessments forward around the quality at that point and any assessments and customer contact that they've had what customer surveys they've been doing to understand the quality matters. I think at the last meeting in March you received that six months update, including all those areas around performance. So, we can include again the performance and some of the mitigation and the information that we have, but the committee does receive six months, a wider performance of leisure SK already. So, we had it in March, is that minutes during September then? Immediately, do you report it then, or is it you get the figures up to September and then it's reported not over or what happened? It would come to your September meeting, but it would be financial information to as close as writing the report as we can include it. But, around the performance, we do already have that as a standard six-monthly agenda writing for this committee. Thank you very much. Councillors interjecting. We do need to leave that on to discuss a separate item about leisure SK in our September 3 meeting as well. Any further suggestions? Chairman, do you need the play strategy to come back around the action plan on the play strategy? Because if it's recommended from this committee to the Julia Is committee of Cabinet and then you're going to be doing some further consultation as being suggested, and an action plan on that committee, do you want that coming back in September as well? I think we've agreed to recommend the initial play strategy to Cabinet. Yes, so depends what comes out of their meeting with that item on their agenda, is what we then need to discuss about play areas. Yes, so we could approve it at Cabinet in July or discuss it at Cabinet in July, but then we've got the action plan that we could bring back to here in September, because part of the approval was to develop an action plan. Ok, thank you, and then we'll amend it from that point. I can't see any further hands raised. So we've agreed to decide what we're going to talk about in the Manch refuge meeting, but also the meeting after, and within the work program there's some further development to the meeting beyond that as well. So at any time feel free to email me with other suggestions for things that we need to bring to the work program, and I think we'll leave that there. We don't vote on work program, do we? No, we're not going to have any other business. I'd prefer to do it in the way by, if you have any other business, can you pre-submit questions to me before much in the way that Gareth Knight did and then we can get the appropriate officers or Cabinet members here to come and answer those questions? In exception or circumstances we may allow it in the future but I can't see any need for it at the moment. So I'd like to thank you all for coming and conclude this meeting. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]