Published: Monday, 8th July 2024
New opportunities beckon for Alive West Norfolk (AWN) venues as a council report recommends that its management is transferred back to the council.
This positive step for Alive, which has been operating as a company for the past five years, will help it to attract the capital investment necessary for it to continue to improve its facilities.
Cllr Simon Ring, the council’s cabinet member for business and culture, said:
“This proposal offers a positive and proactive opportunity for the council and Alive West Norfolk to invest in the health and wellbeing of our communities – which is one of the key aims of our corporate strategy. The council will now have a single focus on developing new plans to renew its leisure facilities.
“This is part of a whole suite of work, which includes planning for West Norfolk to become a ‘Marmot Place’ and the council creating a range of health, social and employment opportunities for residents to benefit from.”
In 2019 the management of council leisure and arts facilities transferred from the council and Alive West Norfolk was set us a Local Authority Controlled Company (LACC). This was agreed as part of the council’s ‘best value’ approach to providing services, which aims to achieve the best balance between meeting the needs of residents and the cost of providing services.
As a LACC, it was hoped there were opportunities for AWN to grow, for example by bidding for contracts outside the borough. However, a number of factors arising since then have made this extremely challenging to achieve, including the lasting impact on usage caused by COVID, rises in the cost of living and a recent ruling on VAT which means the services will benefit financially by being run by the council.
The council periodically reviews services to ensure they continue to provide best value. In its review of the management model for AWN the changes that have affected AWN were considered and a number of options for the future were assessed. This assessment demonstrated that the model now offering the best outcomes was to bring Alive West Norfolk back into the council. This has the potential for a number of benefits, including reducing costs and improving opportunities to secure capital investment.
A further benefit of the proposal is that there will be no adverse impact on employees, who are already on council terms and conditions; no one will lose their job as a result of the move and their contracts will be transferred to the council.
The report will be considered by the council’s E&C Panel on 16 July, then the council’s cabinet will make a decision on the report on 30 July.