Inquiry revelations lead to less secrecy

A viable business plan is essential before any future trust is considered by Arun District Council, members have decided.

The lack of such a document would make approval very unlikely, according to the list of 14 recommendations agreed by councillors in response to the setting up of Inspire Leisure.

The recommendations were put forward after an internal review by the council's audit committee of the problems which beset the launch of the trust to take over the council's leisure services.

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Cllr Dr James Walsh (Littlehampton Beach) described the investigation as '˜huge, far-reaching and lengthy'. He said it found that councillors and officers had exerted too little control of the process.

'What the inquiry seeks to do is to avoid a repeat of the mistakes which cost the council and tax payers considerable sums of money and led to at least a year's delay in the implementation of what we wanted. We should not go down that road again,' he stated.

Council leader Cllr Gill Brown (Aldwick East) said: 'I support the recommendations. Where lessons are to be learnt, we will learn them. We now need to move on.'

It was in 2004 that Arun District Council began to consider setting up a trust to run its leisure facilities such as the Arun Leisure Centre and Waterloo Square bowling green.

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The move to head control of the indoor and outdoor facilities was surrounded by controversy from the start and dragged on longer than intended.

The idea of getting a non-profit making trust to take over the service was to achieve savings in non-domestic rates and VAT. But hopes of getting the trust started on October 1, 2005, were stopped at the last minute.

This prompted further controversy, with most of the decisions taken in private, but the trust was formed on April 1, 2006, and celebrated a successful first year.

Arun paid Inspire Leisure about 1m to run the services on its behalf in that year. This support will decline yearly until 2010/11 when no subsidy should be required.