Agenda item

To consider the report of the head of economy, leisure, and property. 

The Cabinet member for economy, leisure and property, Councillor Elaine Ware, attended the committee to answer questions and to assist in the discussion of this item. Also present were: Chris Webb, Facilities Development Officer; Kate Arnold, Leisure Manager, Dave Rolls Active Nation contract manager, David Johns Active Nation Regional Manager, John Bates National Business Development Manager DC Leisure. DC Leisure/Active Nation is the contractor responsible for the Vale of White Horse Leisure and Tennis Centre.

The chairman invited Councillor Dudley Hoddinott to ask his four questions on Dimension 2, customer satisfaction which is on page, 13, paragraph 18 of the agenda.

Question: Since every lost call is potentially a lost booking, how will the upgrade of the telephone system prevent lost calls, lost bookings and potentially lost income?

Question: At peak times can calls, if unanswered for a given time, be transferred to additional staff who do not normally answer telephone calls?

Question: How willing and “customer friendly” are any other staff to answer telephone calls at peak times?

Question: Has any trial been undertaken to see how well additional staff answer telephones at peak times?

Answer: There is a new online booking service which will assist in reducing the pressure on the telephone system. There will also be a new phone system in place from 11/12 September 2012 which will filter calls and divert them to the correct department. It will also be connected to a voicemail service and will notify the correct department by email.

The Scrutiny Committee considered the report of the head of economy, leisure and property and discussed it in detail, including asking questions directly of the cabinet member, council officers and representatives of DC Leisure/Active Nation. The responses were as follows:

• There has been improved data capture at the leisure centre, assisted by the issue of Active Nation cards. There has also been development of key activities and the combination has led to a significant improvement in attendance of total visits to the centre (12.1 percent). This compares favourably with other areas of the country. This is one of the better performing centres with people staying longer per visit as well as more visits.
• The new telephone system will provide statistics on all calls, both successful and failed which the current system does not do. It will also monitor the time between messages being left and being responded to.
• There have been a very small percentage of complaints during the year. Where there are complaints, the respondents feel that Active Nation staff have been exemplary in their follow up and resolution.
• Customer satisfaction with the centre has been “fair”. DC Leisure/Active Nation were pleased that the score had risen since last year, but were disappointed not to have received “good”. They will be working towards this in the coming year. Officers felt that “fair” was an appropriate reflection of customer feedback but also pointed out that the leisure centre provided a very wide range of activities and that it serviced a discerning customer base.
• Active Nation conducted interviews with 205 customers. The Scrutiny Committee felt that this was very low as a proportion of the 724,000 visits they received per year and asked Active Nation to consider incentivising a far larger response rate in the coming year.
• The Scrutiny Committee wanted to know about the re-branding of the leisure centre to ensure that the Vale of White Horse DC logo was as prominent as that of Active Nation. Vale of White Horse DC branding was used alongside that of Active Nation for the 10^th anniversary celebrations which took place earlier this year. The new dual branding will be in place from early September. As Active Nation do not keep large stocks of stationery, it will not take long for the dual branding to feed through.
• The Scrutiny Committee was concerned about how water consumption was being measured as, the more usage of the leisure centre increases, the more water consumption will increase. The committee would prefer water consumption to be measured on a per capita basis.
• The Scrutiny Committee wished to know what was planned with regard to expanding car parking at the leisure centre. There are current plans to increase car parking by 50 spaces but these are dependent on discussions with the Environment Agency, the parks team and the planning department. In the mean time, Active Nation is trying to manage use of the car park and schedule leisure centre activities to maximise the use of the car parking available.
• The Scrutiny Committee noted the overall assessment that DC Leisure’s performance during 2011/12 had increased to Good from Fair last year and commended the officers and contractors on this result.

RESOLVED

1.    To provide detailed minutes of this meeting in future years to assist with future discussions.

2.    To request the performance, projects and customer services team to look at a way of measuring water and other utility consumption at leisure centres which is based on a per capita model and does not penalise providers for increased usage of the facilities.

3.    To request DC Leisure/Active Nation to find improved ways of gathering customer feedback to ensure a greater level of feedback from customers, not just those who choose to complain.