community, and our funders, partners and supporters. However, a huge amount of credit must go to our staff who have delivered incredible results, as well as managing a smooth transition of our activities into the Trust. I would like to pay tribute to the staff and their passion and dedication on behalf of myself and my fellow trustees.
Our sports development programmes built on the successes of 2014 and even grew by five per cent, which was a tremendous result. This was even more of an achievement coming, as it did, after 2014, the year of the Commonwealth Games, when sport and participation had a hugely increased profile, funding and impetus. We were also delighted that attendances were up over 13 per cent in our sports venues, year on year, and over eight per cent up on the previous record year in 2011 / 12.
Meanwhile, in our libraries, we attracted more over 1 million visitors, in person and on-line, for the first time. Our active library users are now almost one third of the East Renfrewshire population and almost 80 % of adults rated the services as Excellent or Good.( Satisfaction amongst our young users was 99.1 %.) These are remarkable achievement and our staff have been fundamental to that success. Their hard work and dedication was recognised with a prestigious Edge Award, a national award recognising particularly excellent service and previously awarded to large municipal authorities such as Manchester and Glasgow. The rise in attendances and national recognition underline our determination for our library service to be seen as a national benchmark for excellence.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank our partners and supporters, especially our principal partner East Renfrewshire Council. In a relatively short period of time, the trust and council have forged a robust and constructive partnership and are developing an ambitious shared vision for sport, leisure and culture services in East Renfrewshire. The Council’ s intention to invest to support and improve facilities is welcome and, coupled with the Trust’ s determination to provide first-class services, will only benefit the people of East Renfrewshire.
Building budgets for the first year of a new organisation was always going to present a special challenge. The task was made even harder because there were so many variables, making forecasting even more of a challenge as we brought services together from different parts of the council, many of them after reorganisation and restructuring. Given that initial period of flux, our income was marginally, but perhaps unsurprisingly, lower than forecast – albeit by less than one per cent. This was, however, more than offset by launch funding provided by the Council in anticipation of these factors and our focus on, and efficient management of costs.
After a challenging but exhilarating first year, we are satisfied the Trust has been built on strong foundations and is capable of continuing our mission to become the bestperforming leisure trust in Scotland. The trustees are confident that we have in place the managers, staff, talent and determination to pursue the ambitious programme of modernisation, digitisation, and continuous improvement needed to achieve that goal.
The Trust moves into our second year with renewed confidence in our ability to improve the quality of our activities, enhance the experience of our customers, and build on the impressive growth in services delivered in our inaugural year.
Jim Wilson ERCL Chairman