Hampshire County Council

Executive Member - Recreation and Heritage Item 5

26 May 2005

Revenue Support to Southampton Outdoor Centres

Report of the Director of Recreation and Heritage

Contact: Stuart Nundy, ext. 5015 e-mail: [email protected]

1. Introduction

1.1 In 1997 Southampton City achieved Unitary Authority status, and separated from Hampshire County Council. As a consequence the two outdoor centres in the city, at Woodmill and Floating Bridge Road , left the Hampshire Outdoor Service and became Southampton City Council's own responsibility. At that time an agreement for five years was set up whereby county schools still had some access to the two centres, initially free of charge and then, as Southampton and the County Council reviewed the running costs of the centres, at an increasing charge to schools.

1.2 In 2002 the Recreation and Heritage Department came to an agreement with Southampton City Council that capped the direct fee to schools at £3.00 per student per session and this has been unchanged for three years. Given the unit cost in 2002 of £11.00 per student per session and the funding available to us at that time, we were able to `buy' 7250 sessions for county schools, with the result that the Recreation and Heritage Department provides a subsidy of £8.00 per student (72% of the total unit cost - total, £58,000)

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2. Current situation

2.1 The fee to schools has been unchanged now for three years. During that time, the unit cost of delivering outdoor education at the Southampton centres has risen from the 2002 figure of £11.00 per student per session to a figure of approximately £14.00 for 2005/06. The centres have absorbed most of these costs themselves over the intervening years. These increased costs are a mixture of staffing and equipment inflation over the past three years, additional costs being incurred by the centres because of more stringent Risk Management and monitoring systems and the costs imposed by changes to employment law and conditions of service for all staff.

2.2 Given that schools have already booked for summer courses, for the time being the fees charged to county schools will remain at £3.00 per session until the end of August. Recreation and Heritage will cover the additional costs directly for that period.

2.3 From September, Recreation and Heritage will be able to maintain its support to schools to a point where we can cover £10.00 of the full sessional unit cost (71% of the total cost). This means that the direct fee to schools from September will increase to £4.00 per student per session (29% of the total cost) for all schools using the centres in order to cover the current unit cost.

2.4 It is proposed that before April 2006, a full review be carried out of the costs and benefits that accrue to the County Council from the current agreement with respect to the outdoor centres in both Southampton and Portsmouth, to be reported to members in early 2006. Decisions on funding, post 2006, will be taken on the basis of decisions arising out of that report.

3. Corporate issues.

3.1 The issues discussed in this report are related to Corporate Aims One (Maximising life opportunities, by ensuring we safeguard access to outdoor activity provision for Hampshire's school children in the Southampton area) , Three (Achieving economic prosperity, by ensuring we help to maintain sustainable outdoor activity provision for Hampshire schools in the Southampton area) and Five (Improving Services, by ensuring we continually adapt to changing needs across the whole community).

3.2 The financial effect of this report will be to bring the Recreation and Heritage subsidy to Southampton's Outdoor Centres back in line with the 70%/30% County/School funding formula established in 2002. Currently, Recreation and Heritage are paying, in the short term, closer to 85% of the total unit cost.

3.3 There are no Legal or Personnel implications.

3.4 Where the recommended increase in fees may lead to some difficulty for certain groups of young people, this will be dealt with by opening the current Hampshire Outdoor Centres support fund, administered by the Outdoor Activities Officer, to schools using the Southampton Outdoor Centres. This fund offers financial support of up to 30% of the costs of attending specific outdoor centres, directly to schools, to help with individual cases of hardship.

Recommendation

i. That direct charges to county schools using the Southampton Outdoor Centres should increase from £3.00 to £4.00 per student per session with effect from 1 September 2005.

ii. That the Support Fund be opened to students from county schools using the Centres.

iii. That a report on the relationship between the County Council and the outdoor centres run by both Southampton and Portsmouth City Councils be prepared for early 2006, to inform decisions to be made from April 2006.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

N.B. the list excludes:

1. Published works.

2. Documents that disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

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