CCEA Calls-in Decision

Cabinet Decision Called-In by CCEA Scrutiny Panel

Reading, 22 January 2009:  At the Corporate, Community and External Affairs (CCEA) Scrutiny Panel on 22 January the Conservatives, with Lib Dem support, voted to ‘call in’ a Cabinet decision regarding additional funding to the Academy Sport leisure centre in south Reading.  Labour members of the CCEA panel voted against the ‘call in’. This is the first time that the CCEA powers to ‘call in’ a Cabinet decision have been used since Labour lost control of the council.

After 21 months of the operation of Academy Sport (AS) the revised business plan shows that income is almost a third down on the original business plan and that the council was being asked to more than double the agreed management fee.  Cabinet had agreed to the additional funding but the only monitoring requested was that the Culture and Sport Scrutiny Panel monitor progress via the annual presentation.

Conservatives believe that AS offers a great facility to the residents of south Reading and that AS needs to improve the marketing of the facilities to local people.

Cllr Mike Townend said, “What concerned the Conservative members of CCEA was that the decision to agree to the additional funding was made without sufficient monitoring being put in place.  In my opinion, for the Cabinet to agree to more than doubling the council’s contribution to AS without rigorous monitoring is simply playing fast and loose with the tax payers money.  This is wrong at the best of times, let alone in the current economic climate.”

Cllr Townend continued, “We are asking for Cabinet to look at this again and to put in place a process via the Culture and Sport Scrutiny Panel that plans and implements a marketing plan with the objective of increasing the usage and income of AS, and regularly monitors progress against this plan.  The objective is to bring the council’s management fee contribution back down to the originally agreed figure within a specific time frame; again this needs to be agreed and monitored as part of the plan. 

It was also felt that a report was needed to provide Cabinet with further detail in order to understand why the current plan was so different to the original plan, thus leading to the need for additional funding from the council.”

Cllr Tom Stanway, chairman of the Culture and Sport Scrutiny Panel, said, “I trust that Cabinet will decide on a more stringent monitoring process regarding this additional funding requirement, and the Culture and Sport Scrutiny Panel will be delighted to work closely with Academy Sport to help them achieve a better outcome for the tax payer and for the users of the facilities.”

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