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Welcome from the Chair
On behalf of the trustees, I am delighted to present East Renfrewshire
Culture and Leisure Trust’s first annual report.
The Trust went live on July 2, 2015, as East Renfrewshire Council
became the 26th of Scotland’s 32 local authorities to start delivering
their sports, leisure and culture services through a charitable trust.
This first annual report is for the year ended March 31, 2016, an
action-packed period for our new trust, perhaps appropriately for
an organisation managing so many activities. We operate four sports centres with gyms,
fitness suites and swimming pools; 10 libraries; 18 community centres and sports pavilions;
a 330-seat theatre; and a range of sports, arts, heritage and cultural services. This report
will also detail how we manage programmes and activities including the Active Schools
programme for East Renfrewshire, funded by sportscotland; the school holidays’ activity
programme, and a wide range of arts, sports, library and heritage services.
The proper establishment of the Trust dominated our work in the first part of 2015 as we
endeavoured to build the strongest foundations for future success. We established the
legal framework and governance of the charity; enlisted an excellent team of nonexecutive directors bringing a range of skills and experience to the board; recruited
a talented and experienced chief executive, passionate about delivering the best
possible services to the people of East Renfrewshire; and began to define and shape
our aims, ethos and working practices. Following many months of preparatory work, the
formal launch of the Trust was an exciting and important milestone but only signalled
the start of more hard work.
A primary aim of transferring culture and leisure services to a charitable trust is to deliver
savings in non-domestic rates and VAT. For East Renfrewshire Council, these savings amount
to £500,000 each year and, over the next three years, the creation of the trust will save the
council £1.3million. The financial benefits in challenging times are clear but our priority is to
maintain, and wherever possible, improve the sports, leisure and culture services provided
to the people of East Renfrewshire. We are satisfied that we have made excellent progress
in identifying savings while maintaining and improving our services.
The financial imperatives facing all local authorities, and the charitable trusts providing
their services, are clearly challenging but we have endeavoured to remain focused on
our core responsibility – helping and inspiring people in East Renfrewshire to become
actively involved in sport, arts and culture. In partnership with the Council, we believe
the quality of our services has been maintained and, often, improved during what has
been a period of flux as the Trust found its feet.
Attendances at both leisure centres and libraries hit a five-year high reached, thanks
in part to investment in award-winning facilities such as the Foundry, which opened
in May 2016, and the strong partnerships between the Trust, The Council, the local