Argyll’s MSP, Jim Mather, has arranged to meet members of the Board of the Mid Argyll Swimming Pool (formally the Mid Argyll Community Enterprise Ltd – or MACEL) at the Pool at Lochgilphead on Friday. On the agenda are discussions on the present threat to the Pool’s future and on ways of taking matters forward.

At the same time Jamie McGrigor MSP has written again to Sally Loudon, the Council’s CEO, asking for the facts on the amounts paid by the Council to each of the Argyll Swimming Pools towards swimming lessons for young people. We too have asked the Council for this information.

McGrigor’s letter opens up the possibilty of some political game playing at Council level. He says: ‘While I understand the points that he (Malcom MacFadyen – Head of Community Regeneration to whom Mrs Loudon passed Jamie McGrigor’s first letter rather than reply to it herself) makes concerning the present government’s restrictions on council budgets, I think the
swimming opportunities for people and children who live in Argyll & Bute should be looked at on a wider level’.

Ownership of the Pool

During his visit to Mid Argyll on Friday, Mr Mather will also be going to Argyll & Bute Council’s HQ at Kilmory to meet senior council officials. Whatever the position on Government funding in these times, the Council does not ‘own’ the Mid Argyll Pool – in fact or at a level of felt responsibility

The difficulty it faces it that the community unwaveringly either believes that the pool is already Council owned – or is committed to the view that it should be. Like it or not, the Council cannot win hearts and minds on this, nor, indeed, should it.

There is some reason in the popular view. If this Pool had not existed, it is unimaginable that the Council would not, before now, have had to respond to pressure to provide a pool for a wide area with no feasibly close alternative facility. Operating costs are operating costs and these would have had to be borne – but at least there is a Pool available which was not built with public money.

The Council’s attitude to the Pool is probably mired in parochial politics. The Pool was built by community fund raising over a period when the Council insisted it could not afford to build and run another pool in Argyll. Who knows what triumphalism and what recoil from celebration existed in various quarters at the time. But parochialism thrives on remembered hurts and distant scores.

Centrally, the facility was and remains a community company. It is on this fact that the Council rests its defence of its conduct.

For Argyll has had a statement from the Council on its position which we are publishing as a separate item with our own commentary.

The Council’s decision – is there anything left to discuss?

The Minister is walking into a situation which has seen Malcolm MacFadyen, ironically entitled ‘Head of Community Regeneration’, write to Stephen Whiston, Chair of the Board of MACEL, saying – without any supporting evidence accounting for the decision: ‘I regret the Council is not in a position to accede to MACEL’s request for additional financial support’.

And that, effectively, is that.

Yes, Mr MacFadyen offers to pay the final instalment of the existing revenue grant to the Pool – called a Service Level Agreement (SLA) – in December, brought forward from January, to allow the Board to address an immediate deficit, part of its legacy. But where does that leave the Pool from 1st January onwards?

Yes, Mr MacFadyen offers to continue the support-in-kind the Council has been providing – which is welcomed with open appreciation by the current Board. This covers technical and professional guidance and advice on reducing costs. This is no more than fiddling while Rome burns. What use is ‘guidance’ to a facility unable to carry on?

Equally ridiculously, the Head of Community Regeneration offers the assistance of the Council’s Funding Officer, Arlene Cullem, who is to be asked to liase with MACEL in the hope that she will be able to identify sources of alternative funding.

The whole of Argyll needs Arlene Cullem and she does her best to respond to it – voluntary organisations, community initiatives – from across the entire territory, mainland and islands. Even to imagine that this one member of staff can take on even more and in emergency circumstances, suggests that Mr Macfadyen is prepared to expand his brief to Head of Human Regeneration.

The Board’s response

In a reply sent to the Council’s CEO, Sally Loudon, which is actually painful to read, Stephen Whiston, Chair of the MACEL Board, lists the breathtaking amount of work already done by this voluntary Board – which came newly to the assistance of the failed and bankrupt facility only in the Spring of this year.

He lists too the operational actions planned as a result of researches undertaken.

And he identifies the core – of many- missing elements in MacFadyen’s insultingly dismissive communication. He rightly says that this letter provides:

• no examination of the relevance of the issues and findings in MACEL’s detailed report to the Council;
• no detail as to whether the Council views all or part of the Board’s conclusions as valid;
• no explanation of the decision making process and how this was reached;
• no indication as to a mechanism or process for the Board to appeal this decision.

He refers to ‘the apparent finality’ of MacFadyen’s letter and notes that the Council’s position is effectively forcing the Pool into closure anyway because its lack of support undermines confidence that it is a continuing business. Organisation interested in supporting it cannot commit funds in such an uncertain context. He asks Mrs Loudon: ‘Would you  buy an annual membership for the Pool just  now?’

Disturbingly, he makes it clear that he has sought to meet Mrs Loudon and that she has refused such a meeting, possibly more than once. It should be remembered that Council officials at any level exist and are paid to serve us and that it is our money that pays them.

For the Council CEO – and for any Council staff – to refuse to meet  a group of people who are clearly responsible, capable and hard working and who have achieved, voluntarily and selflessly, considerable success in laying the foundations for a sustainable community facility, is utterly unacceptable. We condemn it without equivocation.

The Board has simply asked for time and support to prove that it’s hard considered plans can deliver an economically viable community facility.

Mr Whiston reminds Mrs Loudon that, in terms of a Best Value Review of facilities which the Council intends to conduct in 2010 – and these are our words, not his more subtle ones, the Mid Argyll Pool is already best value because it receives significantly lower financial support from the Council than the other Argyll pools.

The Council makes great play of the fact that, in addition to the Service Level Agreement through which it grants the Pool around £48,000 per annum, it has also paid it over £13,000 for swimming lessons for primary school children. This is a fatuous claim. Does it not also pay the other Argyll Pools for swimming lessons for children?

This money is paid to the Mid Argyll Pool to fulfill the Council’s duty of provision to young people across Argyll, not as a favour to the Pool.

So where now?

We have thought a lot about how to deal with reporting and commenting on this impasse.

In the end it’s easy.

This is an abusive, bullying situation and it has to stop.

Here we have a group of people who have put community interest before their own, who have worked far beyond what any board can expect to have to do. (Because of a bizarre and inherited staffing situation, the new Board is not in a position to employ the much needed Manager for the Pool – so, as we have reported before, this Board has actually been running the pool itself.)

Here we have a group of people who have knocked seven bells out of the mess they inherited when they all came newly to their positions in the crisis that befell the Pool in March when the Bank stopped its cheques.

This Board has investigated, researched, visited, learned, accounted, managed, planned and reported – for nothing except dismissal from public servants.

This Board was not responsible for the collapse of the Pool’s viability as a going operation in March of this year. Nor were they responsible for the lack of management, financial and marketing expertise that underwrote that collapse.

Yet, irrationally, at a gut level, this is held against them. We hear criticisms levelled against them which are wholly illegitimate and which relate to the period before they stepped in, on behalf of their community to try to save a valued local resource.

Additionally their performance is nuanced as less than capable because, although they have worked to produce figures with some credibility, they have not yet provided full three year financial planning. These are volunteers with other lives to lead – yet they are working virtually full time in their own time, for nothing, to run the daily operation and campaign for the survival of the Pool.

Where could they possibly yet – in the midst of all they have had to do – have found the time to prepare a detailed three year financial and business plan? But, in contemporary parlance, they are dissed for having ‘failed’. This is what is abusive and bullying.

So we’re saying to the Board

Following Mr MacFadyen’s final letter, Mrs Loudon’s ongoing refusal to meet the Board and the Council’s unwillingness to accept what Mr Whiston reminds them are their responsbilities too – and they are, the Board should now walk away.

You cannot keep managing the Pool as you have had to do. You cannot additionally start seeking alternative funding, which is a very time consuming business.

Forget the petition which over 600 people have signed. Forget the planned public demonstration of support at Lochgilphead’s Front Green on 19th December.

Just walk away.

You have done more than anyone had the right to expect in working to save this community asset – and you have done it well. Our Council has not shown you and your achievements the respect they deserve. You should not have had to plead as you are doing.

The MacFadyen letter, in every syllable, assumes you will carry on. Why should you?

This facility should long have been adopted and funded on a par with other Argyll  pools. If – as there is – there is a shortage of funding now, that is the Council’s problem to resolve because it did not act in time to bring this facility into balance with others, as it should have done.

Let the pool be boarded up. The failure is not yours. Let the community do without it. If they want it they will make their will felt. You  have lives to lead. There is a time to say ‘Enough.’ and this is it. Do not be persuaded otherwise – by anyone. Just go.

We and the community applaud you but we do not want to see you buckle under this abusive and exploitive situation.

Jim Mather’s position

Jim Mather says: ‘I am acutely aware of the problems currently faced by the Mid Argyll Pool and I have been pressing for a long-term robust solution to its finances.

‘This is a vital facility for local people and its present situation is a matter for serious concern.

‘That is why I want to see all the organisations that benefit from the existence of the pool come together in common cause and play their part in maintaining this key local asset.

‘Local people, the Lochgilphead Medical Practice and the Mid Argyll Community Hospital & Integrated Care Centre have made compelling cases for the retention of the pool. Their stance reinforces my feeling that the search for support and assistance has to be widespread and involve everyone who could and should help.

‘The immediate crisis in funding is the short term priority; however the bigger issue is making sure that the pool has a safe and secure long-term future’.

This is a sentiment which will chime with the Board of the Pool. This is what they have worked for since they stepped in to save the ailing Pool in March this year. Public facilities, whoever owns and operates them, cannot, with any stability, be run on a wing and a prayer from one inadequate short term agreement to the next.

But it’s far too late now and it’s time for these people to save themselves and the dignity they have earned.

And actually, let’s have that demonstration after all. Let’s have a day and a time when they will publicly walk away – and let’s all get ourselves to the Pool and clap them out. We cannot save the Pool but we can say ‘Thank you’ to those who tried.

Note: The buck does not stop with the Council CEO. Hierarchically, the appointed Sally Loudon is responsible to the elected Dick Walsh, Leader of the Council and a capable and authoritative one.

Related Posts

• Meeting of minds on Mid Argyll Swimming Pool (3)
• Save Our Pool: the day Mid Argyll became a community (17)
• Join the Demo of the year for Mid Argyll Swimming Pool (4)
• Mike Mackenzie on the Mid Argyll Pool situation (11)
• Latest on Mid Argyll Swimming Pool (1)

---

The Latest News from ForArgyll delivered via email, weekly or daily. You know it makes sense!

---

Comments (rss) | Respond | Ping | | Print This Post