Quote:
Originally Posted by the funk
Funk;
Definately agree its badly run. Let me just quantify that I go on knowledge gained from speaking to people within the authority, things may not be 100% right.
I never think that 'free' is the way to go, people see no value to things that are free, it doesnt promote a sense of belonging or investment of time, whilst many kids may be swimming (and thus occupying themselves constructively) the number who will continue to do that if/when charges come back in will severly drop. Short termism is counter-productive.
If HBC has funded this scheme then I do hope that it continues year after year. I thought it was from the money the council got as a spearhead authority, but as I say I may be wrong.
The trust was created because it was felt it could deliver the best value of services at the time, so if it comes back to HBC control why will things be anything different?
shillaeigh;
When it was made over into the trust did the ownership of the buildings transfer to the trust or was it just the operating of the centres go into the trust and ownership still belong to the council and so the cost of maintaining the buildings and land still belong to the council?
Ian;
£15,000 spent on admin or swimming
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Ian first. It was a one off annual payment that was a guesstimate on previous years useage. Whether more or less went was not part of the deal. The Leisure Trust had recovered last years income plus a little more and had a heap of new kids and adults coming through the door.
Shilleaigh. Buildings were not part of the deal. The Council owns them. The Trust just ran services and borrowed money for infrastructure. The Council were the underwriters of the Trust because the Trust had no assets and was new company. I would argue - why should we allow people outside the Council to spend Rate Payers money - ? They are not accountable if it all goes wrong. They just go into liquidation and leave the Council with a surprise bill. It was all set up as a tax dodge as the only reason. The Trust is exempt from VAT and Non Domestic rates (Business rates). The Government if it believes in democracy (and all to often Blair didn't IMHO) need to legislate to stop quango's handling public money as a Tax Dodge's etc...
Funk;
Free is great for kids because it takes down barriers to access, they are all equal to a point, and it also cuts costs of collecting monies (pitches eg). As you say it is occupying kids time constructively. That's what the majority of people in Hyndburn want I believe. Lets give our kids as positive an experience as we can. That's what I believe.
Sometimes when people pay for things they think it acceptable to trash them 'because they have paid for them'. When things are free people sometimes can respect them more, and I have heard this comment many times, "they are already giving it for free, why wreck it?". It goes both ways and I often believe vandals are vandals whether they pay or they don't.
The Council is far from a spearhead authority. It is an exceptionally poor authority (housing crises, leisure services crises, town centre's struggling, no vision, moral corruption, £600,000 wasted on website etc..) but because it ticks all the bureaucracy boxes well it is about to graded as a 'good' authority. The £15,000 is directly out of residents pockets via Poll Tax/Rates
As for the future. That again is opinions. I opposed the Leisure Trust in the beginning. I thought it would struggle for a number of reasons. Leisure services getting more competitive. Tired buildings. Dispersed Leisure services. Small management team carrying heavy office costs. Personalities at the head of the Trust. They were just too small in the end and were paying for things twice (that the Council had been doing on a much bigger scale before). They didn't own the buildings, so the Council switched off to the infrastructure and the Trust couldn't or were not big enough to make strategic decisions.