Oldham Community Leisure

A Message from Lord Pickles and Lord Blunkett, followed by Oldham Community Leisure's best practice article

The ability to listen and learn from one another has always been vital in parliament, in business and in most aspects of daily life. But at this particular moment in time, as national and global events continue to reiterate, it is uncommonly crucial that we forge new channels of communication and reinforce existing ones. The following article from Oldham Community Leisure is an attempt to do just that. We would welcome your thoughts on this or any other Parliamentary Review article.

Rt Hon The Lord David Blunkett

Rt Hon The Lord Eric Pickles

oclactive.co.uk

THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW

Highlighting best practice

24 | OLDHAM COMMUNITY LEISURE

Oldham Community Leisure

Chief Executive and Chair

of Community Leisure UK,

Stuart Lockwood

New Oldham Leisure centre opened in 2016,

demonstrating investment from the council

Oldham is one of the most deprived areas in the UK and

has an average level of health that is below the national

average. Indeed, in its most deprived areas, the life

expectancy is roughly ten years lower than the national average.

Oldham Community Leisure is profoundly aware of this state

of affairs and has therefore sought to provide facilities and

programmes that meet this challenge. Emphasis is also placed

on those who face barriers to healthy lifestyles. Chief Executive

Stuart Lockwood tells

The Parliamentary Review

more.

Oldham’s problems and our solutions

Oldham Community Leisure (OCL) is a former council leisure service department,

set up as an industrial and provident society in 2002. Since then, the organisation

has raised participation levels and broadened the scope of services to include

community-based activities as well as health intervention programmes. Such

programmes include those relating to falls prevention and exercise referrals that

help rehabilitation for those with long-term health conditions. These could be

conditions such as diabetes or recoveries from major health events like strokes or

heart attacks.

At OCL, we invest heavily in staff training and believe in providing safe and

effective programmes as well as a welcoming environment for facility users

with long-term conditions and health needs. The majority of our gym staff have

fitness qualifications, enabling them to provide specialist advice on conditions

such as musculoskeletal pain and diabetes, as well as on stroke rehabilitation.

FACTS ABOUT

OLDHAM COMMUNITY LEISURE

»Chief Executive Officer:

Stuart Lockwood

»Founded in 2002

»Located in Oldham, Greater

Manchester

»Services: Facility and event

management, and health

improvement programmes

»No. of employees: 400

»OCL was successful in

attracting over £2 million of

external funding for both

capital projects and revenue

funding to subsidise health

improvement programmes in

its first ten-year term.

»oclactive.co.uk

Oldham Community

Leisure

25OLDHAM COMMUNITY LEISURE |

BEST PRACTICE REPRESENTATIVE 2019

Thisapproach means that those

customers who would otherwise feel

nervous about exercise can receive

support that enables them to improve

their lifestyle.

Oldham, like many northern towns,

has its health challenges. Physical

activity is a proven and cost-effective

means of prevention and treatment

for a large number of health problems,

as well as mental wellbeing and

social isolation. The trick is to find

something that people enjoy, which

can then be developed and maintained

as a daily routine. It also means that

people are far more likely to sustain

the motivation to exercise regularly

and improve their lifestyle over the

longterm.

Investing back into the

community

We have significantly improved our

focus on customer service and on

improving the variety of activities

we offer, both within leisure centres

and in the community. Like many

similar leisure trusts that are charitable

organisations, we reinvest 100 per

cent of all surpluses back into the

communities we serve.

Elements of our business, such as gym

membership subscriptions, largely

generate a profit, and this then helps

us provide subsidised activities for

harder-to-engage groups. For example,

Oldham Community Leisure provides

free adult swimming lessons for

non-swimmers at each of the pools it

manages on behalf of the council; we

want to get rid of barriers for those

wanting to take the first steps towards

a healthier lifestyle. Our strategic

mission is “A Community More Active,

More Often”, and we are increasingly

forming alliances and partnerships

with other organisations who help us

towards this goal.

The relationship with Oldham Council

is strong: the council prides itself on

co-operative values and recognises

the positive role played by third-

sector organisations in the town. They

invested over £23 million in improving

their leisure estate at the start of the

last contract with OCL. We’re working

together to review the terms of the

contract to better capture the positive

wider impact that OCL’s cross-subsidy

model is generating for the town in

tackling health and well-being issues

among those who need it the most. I

strongly believe that the trust model

is the best vehicle for tackling health

problems and inequalities through

encouraging healthier lifestyles.

Concerns of ours

I am also chair of Community Leisure

UK (formerly Sporta), a member-

led organisation that represents

social enterprises delivering health,

well-being and cultural services

throughout the UK. The charitable

trust model is, overall, the preferred

vehicle of English local authorities for

management of their services, with

45 per cent of contracts outsourced

to charitable enterprises (85 per cent

inScotland).

Though new members are joining

year-on-year, the sector is seeing

some shrinkage from consolidation as

Health intervention

programme,

demonstrating the

breadth of services

delivered by OCL

I strongly believe

that the trust

model is the

best vehicle for

tackling health

problems and

inequalities

“

THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW

Highlighting best practice

26 | OLDHAM COMMUNITY LEISURE

well as a number of trusts losing their

contracts to large private operators

who use a wholly owned charitable

subsidiary. Community Leisure UK

boasts a membership of 115 social

enterprises, with a combined turnover

of £1.5 billion, a workforce of over

67,000 and a customer base of 233

million visits per annum.

Many councils under financial

pressures are procuring contracts with

heavy weightings on price, and this

“race to the bottom” is a significant

threat to the sector. I am strongly

convinced that the genuine charitable

trust is the best vehicle to deliver on

wider outcomes as part of the value

added to a leisure management

contract. The cross-subsidy is key to

supporting programmes and activities

that would otherwise be viewed as

unsustainable if viewed purely on a

commercial basis.

We aim to generate a modest surplus

as part of our model, but every penny

is reinvested in programmes that

maximise opportunities towards the

strategic aim of “A Community More

Active, More Often”. Last year, we

donated £2,000 towards the set-up

costs of Junior Parkrun in Oldham,

which starts and finishes alongside one

of the sites managed by OCL. Such

funding is a smart investment, pointing

to the success already achieved in

getting Oldham children active in

the town. Around 40 runners per

week are now taking part, and this

number is growing each week, with an

average of 15 volunteers ensuring the

enjoyment and safety of participants.

If a private contractor had been

managing the service, those surpluses

would instead have been taken as

profit for shareholders.

Every penny is

reinvested in

programmes

that maximise

opportunities

towards the

strategic aim of

‘A Community

More Active,

More Often’

“

Junior Parkrun

demonstrating wider

benefits of cross-subsidy

model by Trust

oclactive.co.uk

This article was sponsored by Oldham Community Leisure. The Parliamentary Review is wholly funded by the representatives who write for it. The publication in which this article originally appeared contained the following foreword from The Rt Hon Theresa May MP.

The Rt Hon Theresa May MP's Foreword For The Parliamentary Review

By The Rt Hon Theresa May MP

This foreword from the then Prime Minister appeared in the 2018/19 Parliamentary Review.

British politics provides ample material for analysis in the pages of The Parliamentary Review. For Her Majesty’s Government, our task in the year ahead is clear: to achieve the best Brexit deal for Britain and to carry on our work to build a more prosperous and united country – one that truly works for everyone.

The right Brexit deal will not be sufficient on its own to secure a more prosperous future for Britain. We also need to ensure that our economy is ready for what tomorrow will bring. Our Modern Industrial Strategy is our plan to do that. It means Government stepping up to secure the foundations of our productivity: providing an education system that delivers the skills our economy needs, improving school standards and transforming technical education; delivering infrastructure for growth; ensuring people have the homes they need in the places they want to live. It is all about taking action for the long-term that will pay dividends in the future.

But it also goes beyond that. Government, the private sector and academia working together as strategic partners achieve far more than we could separately. That is why we have set an ambitious goal of lifting UK public and private research and development investment to 2.4 per cent of GDP by 2027. It is why we are developing four Grand Challenges, the big drivers of social and economic change in the world today: harnessing artificial intelligence and the data revolution; leading in changes to the future of mobility; meeting the challenges of our ageing society; and driving ahead the revolution in clean growth. By focusing our efforts on making the most of these areas of enormous potential, we can develop new exports, grow new industries and create more good jobs in every part of our country.

Years of hard work and sacrifice from the British people have got our deficit down by over three quarters. We are building on this success by taking a balanced approach to public spending. We are continuing to deal with our debts, so that our economy can remain strong and we can protect people’s jobs, and at the same time we are investing in vital public services, like our NHS. We have set out plans to increase NHS funding annually by an average by 3.4 percent in real terms: that is £394 million a week more. In return, the NHS will produce a ten-year plan, led by doctors and nurses, to eliminate waste and improve patient care.

I believe that Britain can look to the future with confidence. We are leaving the EU and setting a new course for prosperity as a global trading nation. We have a Modern Industrial Strategy that is strengthening the foundations of our economy and helping us to seize the opportunities of the future. We are investing in the public services we all rely on and helping them to grow and improve. Building on our country’s great strengths – our world-class universities and researchers, our excellent services sector, our cutting edge manufacturers, our vibrant creative industries, our dedicated public servants – we can look towards a new decade that is ripe with possibility. The government I lead is doing all it can to make that brighter future a reality for everyone in our country.

British politics provides ample material for analysis in the pages of The Parliamentary Review

The Rt Hon Theresa May MP
Prime Minister