The brief

Located on the northeast boundary of Greater London, Havering is the second largest London Borough and has a population of approximately 230,000.

As a result of a formal Management Options Appraisal, the Council decided that if it is to continue meeting the expectations of residents and visitors it must develop a modern, best practice partnership for the management, operation and development of its three leisure centres.

• Central Park Sports Centre (A new centre opened in November 2004.
• Chafford Sports Complex (Dual Use multipurpose centre)
• Hornchurch Sport Centre (Large multipurpose centre)

Our Approach

Strategic Leisure used its well proven approach to managing procurement process to develop a suite of output and outcome documents utilising the TAES criteria as a base (Towards an Excellent Service) and achievement of specific Council objectives.

The procurement process and subsequent evaluation identified a preferred partner who met the Council’s financial and service objectives. This partner was identified following a robust evaluation using Strategic Leisure’s unique evaluation tool based on Economy, Effectiveness and Efficiency of each submission.

Project Outcomes

The result has realised significant benefits for the Council, in summary these are;

• A long-term sustainable solution for the leisure centre service for up to 15 years.
• An affordable revenue solution within the Councils allocated budget.
• A partner that shares the Council’s vision and Partnership commitment.
• Investment of up to £3m over ten years funded through prudential borrowing and released through savings in the operational revenue cost.
• A performance management framework based upon a balanced scorecard for the future measurement of the performance of the service.
• A significant transfer of risk from the Council to the new Partner.