Latest on Mid Argyll Swimming Pool
published this on 10:53 am, Thursday, 3rd December, 2009Business| Community News| Local Government| Sporting Activities| Tourism activities | Comments (rss) | Respond | Ping |
(Updated again 15.00 3rd December) This article supplies new information and insights and covers a note on Argyll’s MSP, Jim Mather’s meetings with Mid Argyll Board members and with members of Argyll and Bute Council; a reply to Jamie McGrigor MSP from the Council’s CEO, Sally Loudon; the results of our own information gathering from the Council; and additional requests for information which we have now put to the Council.
New material: Two pieces of information have been added since initial publication of this article – at 15.00 today (3rd December). These appear in two places below:
- the first at the foot of the section on our first set of questions to the Council and its response;
- the second at the foot of the article.
Jim Mather’s meetings in Lochgilphead last Friday
Mr Mather says: ‘We had a very useful meeting on Friday with Jenny Davies and Bob McIwraith of the MACEL board and agreed that I would host a meeting of the board, staff, user groups and all the potential allies and stakeholder who could and should help. (This will be on Friday 11th December in Lochgilphead Community Centre.)
‘Meanwhile at an earlier meeting with the Council I saw their determination to help steer the situation to a more solid footing. They have involved ABSEN, HIE and expertise from the leisure centres in Oban and Bowmore and are planning a pan-Highland leisure centre summit in February next year.
‘ I am keen to see our session produce some practical steps and commitment that will help in the short term and take the strain off the board, the staff and their patrons’.
Our response to that was to note the prioritising of the typical bureaucratic self-aggrandisement over the need for action. The urgent issue is the stable future of the Mid Argyll pool. A plan to run a ‘pan-Highland summit’ is fiddling expensively while Rome burns.
Letter from Argyll & Bute Council CEO to Jamie McGrigor MSP
‘Thank you for your e-mail of 21 November relating to the Mid Argyll Swimming Pool.
‘The Council fully appreciates the benefits and opportunities that arise from the presence of the Mid Argyll Swimming Pool. While we have outlined the arrangement for the provision of primary swimming at the facility, secondary swimming is an issue for prioritisation within the PE curriculum.
‘With respect to the Council’s own swimming pools, I can confirm that the operating subsidy for each was as follows within the last financial year:
- Dunoon – £414,801
- Helensburgh – £374,752
- Rothesay – £248,577
- Campbeltown – £552,640
‘However it is not possible to draw comparisons between pools because of the differing nature and extent of the facilities and also in the case of the Council pools and the Mid Argyll Swimming Pool, the nature of the operational model. In the case of the latter, the pool is a community business for which the Council has never had an operational responsibility. Notwithstanding this, in recognition of the benefits that the pool brings to the area, the Council has supported its operation through the provision of grant funding over many years.
‘I have specifically noted your suggestion that MACEL may benefit from the community investment fund from windfarms in Argyll & Bute and have asked the appropriate officer to investigate this matter further. This investigation will also be tied up with the ongoing support that the company is receiving from the Council’s Funding Officer who has been asked to try to identify potential sources of alternative funding in the short term. Your additional questions regarding the community fund are also being followed up so I will arrange for an appropriate response as soon as possible.
‘Please be assured that the Council will do all that is possible to support MACEL in their effort to trade out of their current financial difficulties.’
Our response to this is t welcome the provision of some current figures on Council support for polls in Argyll. It is also to note the continuing evasiveness on comparabilties. While directly comparable statistics may not be readily available, they will not be difficult to distil and the series of questions (below)that we put to the Council will help to establish a sound basis for an overall picture of the situation.
Opening questions and answers between For Argyll and Argyll and Bute Council
We asked for information on the exact status of each pool in Argyll; on the subsidies paid to each by the Council, either as operating subsidies or as Service Level Agreements SLAs); and on amonts paid to each pool in respect of swimming lessons for Primary School pupis.
Our reason for asking this last question is that the COnciul makes continual and excliusive reference to an amount of £13,118 it has paid to the Mid Argyll pool for swimmig lessons for Primary School cbildren. This is continually advanced alongside reference to the comparatively small SLA grant it pays to the pool – which has never been explained – so it would seem to be cited in an attempt to mask what is known to be an indefenibly modest support.
It is inconceivable that Mid Argyll is the only pool which the Council pays for Primary School swimming lessons – hence our question, the amounts paid for the same service to other Argyll pools. Note that in the reply quoted below, fro the Council’s Press Office, such information was not given.
‘I received your enquiry requesting specifics of the funding we provide to each swimming pool in Argyll and Bute.
‘Before I give you the basic figures I must stress, again, that any attempt to compare figures between pools will be misleading at best, irresponsible at worst. As I have said several times, it is not possible to compare Mid Argyll Swimming Pool with any other in this area for all sorts of reasons including differing operating models, scale and facilities provided. I would therefore ask that you do not use these figures as basis for trying to show that the Mid Argyll Pool is being in some way unfairly treated.
‘The Council owns and operates the pools in Helensburgh, Dunoon, Campbeltown and Rothesay. It also owns the pool in Oban, although the running of it is contracted out to Atlantis Leisure.
‘The Council also supports the operation of the Mid Argyll Swimming Pool and the MacTaggart Leisure Pool on Islay. These pools are owned by Community Enterprise companies, and we support them with grant funding payable through a service level agreement.
‘For 2009/10 we provided the following operating support:
- Dunoon – £414,801
- Helensburgh – £374,752
- Campbeltown – £552,640
- Rothesay – £248,577.
As we directly operate these pools, these were our running costs.
For this year, we will be paying Atlantis £359,933 net; and for the two community owned pools our grants will be as follows:
- MacTaggart £70,766 net
- Mid Argyll £48,394
As you know, Mid Argyll pool was paid £13,118 for the delivery of Primary School swimming lessons, in advance, for the school session August 09-June 10.
‘The request for equivalent figures for all pools across Argyll and Bute is problematic as – once again – we would not be comparing like with like in several different respects. Some schools, for instance, might pay a leisure centre a certain amount of money which would cover school swimming and other PE-related activities. In addition, quite obviously, some areas will have a greater school population that others, so their school swimming spend – if it could be isolated – would be likely to be higher. Unless the schools in that area have different priorities, and spend their allocations for PE-related activities in other ways. Etc etc. The bottom line is that it would take a considerable amount of officer time and effort to try to tease these figures out, and at the end of the day the sums (if indeed it even proved possible to pinpoint them at all) would provide information which is no more suitable for comparing than the overall figures are.’
We note that the figure paid to Atlantic is given Net, meaning that, as it stands, it is not comparable with the other figures which. since they are not aid to be Net, must be assumed to be Gross amounts.
Our response to this first stage of information is best shown below in the follow-up questions we have now put to the Council and are awaiting the information.
UPDATE 15,00 3rd December: In relation to the figure quoted by the Council as its current grant to the Mid Argyll pool of £48,394, it is our understanding that, up to 1993, the annual operating cost of the old 8 metre pool in Adrishaig was £45,000.
Follow-up questions from For Argyll to Argyll and Bute Council
We have sent the following set of follow-up questions to the Council via the Press Office. Note that Question 8 was sent separately as a supplementary.
‘We’re teasing out the information and, although there will be complexities, they cannot be that difficult to pin back to get a better picture.
‘Once the facts are assembled there will be legitimate bases for comparisons.
‘The straightforward procedural questions below, which should be immediately answerable, will clarify a great deal very simply.
- What is the basis of calculation which produces the varying amounts the Council pays as an operating subsidy – first – to the pools it owns itself?
- What is the basis of calculation which produces the varying amounts the Council pays as SLAs to each of the two community-owned pools (McTaggart and Mid Argyll)?
- Is there an amount paid to the McTaggart for Primary School swimming lessons and if so, what is it?
- Is there an additional amount – above the operating subsidy – paid to each of the Council-owned pools for Primary School swimming lessons – and if so what are these amounts?
- What is the basis of calculation on which payment is made by the Council in respect of Primary School swimming lessons to both council-owned and community-owned pools?
- Are the figures quoted as operating subsidies for each of the Council-owned pools given for the pools alone? (I’m thinking say, of Campbeltown where the pool is part of a larger complex.)
- What is the relationship between the bases of calculation for the payment to Atlantis for running the Council-owned pool in Oban and the operating subsidies for the ‘in-house’ running of the council-owned pools?
- Does the operating subsidy for Council-owned pools include any of the following – and if so, to what level:
- maintance of pool and plant?
- maintenance of buildings?
If the operating subsidies do not cover these matters, how are they paid for and what has been spent on them in the case of each Council-owned pool in each of in the past 5 years?
‘Looking forward to hearing from you.’
It is inconceivable that the formulaic basis for calculating what is paid annually to which Council-owned pool – and to which community-owned pool – does not exist, That alone will provide a basis for sound comparisons, This is not, as they say, an issue of neurosurgical complexity.
We will report on the information – a matter of genuine public interest for a local authority to answer – when we get it.
UPDATE 15,00 3rd December: We have been informed by the Council’s Press Office that all of our questions above are to be dealt with under Freedom of Information legislation. This is not how we framed our request but we will, of course, be happy to get the necessary information via any legitimate route open to us.
We note that information acquired through Freedom of Information provision is not quick to arrive – although there is a set deadline of which we are aware.
Let’s make one thing clear. We are not autopilot critics of the Council and we have been openly delighted by the signs of its growing self-confidence and willingness to be more pro-active.
No one – not the media and not, more importantly, the Council itself, has any credibility if obvious wrongs are ignored or defended.
No individual and no organisation can avoid making mistakes. What matters is what happens when mistakes have been made or, as in this case, an apparently inequitable situation has developed over a period of years through a series of ad hoc responses to events.
It is important to avoid the development of a mindset that, in such circumstances, digs in to defend rather than sits down to address the situation.
It is that mindset we are witnessing in the stand-off over the Mid Argyll Swimming Pool. For that reason, we are doing what we can to find a stable basis for understanding the nature of the picture that exists today in swimming pool provision across Argyll. Without this, there is no demonstrably equitable structure within which to decide on the place of the Mid Argyll pool.
We have no interest at all in the blame culture, only in seeing a collaborative move towards an appropriate and sustainable future for an important community resource.
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December 15th, 2009 at 1:14 am
[...] Facts and figures can be found in our previous articles – and no one should anticipate that logic will provide the key to understanding them. [...]