Swansea Council is looking at a new and innovative way of running its network of community leisure centres across the city.
To give taxpayers in Swansea better value for money, the Council could soon make preparations to receive bids from outside organisations to run community leisure centres at Bishopston, Cefn Hengoed, Penlan, Penyrheol, Morriston and Pentrehafod.
Swansea Council’s Cabinet is being asked to back the bidding process and give consideration to the standards prospective bidders should reach to ensure the interests of community leisure centre staff and users are protected. These include opening hours, staffing levels, activity programmes, free school use and schemes that ensure access to leisure facilities for all.
This would help ensure community leisure centre staff and users are prioritised and that people would continue to get best value access to leisure facilities in their communities.
Cllr Graham Thomas, Cabinet Member for Culture, Tourism and Recreation, said: “Local Authorities are facing massive financial pressure as a result of reductions in funding from Central Government. This means that we need to find smarter and more cost effective ways of delivering services like leisure.
“At this stage we’re simply asking third parties to let us know how they could run our centres in the future. In Swansea the LC has been successfully run by a trust, while in neighbouring Neath Port Talbot leisure facilities are also run by a third party.
“Our priority will be to protect leisure centres users and staff. These are important services which improve the health and well being of our citizens and so we need to ensure that they continue to be accessible and affordable in future. We want to maintain popular schemes such as free school use, Passport to Leisure and free swimming initiatives and any bid that we receive from an outside organisation will have to meet the standards set by Cabinet.”
A report to Cabinet next week follows its agreement last year to allow consideration of potential options for the future delivery of leisure services.
Meetings with staff, unions, schools and school governors are being arranged and the public will be kept updated.
