Leisure, Culture and Heritage Review 

Why does the Council have a budget deficit?

The services that the Council provides are funded from:

• the Council Tax it charges (though the District Council does not get all of the money from your Council Tax bill some of this goes to Staffordshire County Council, the Police & Fire Services and your local town/parish council if you have one in your area)
• fees & charges for the services it provides eg car parking
• money from the Government (some of this is one off grants for specific services)

Since 2008 the Government has reduced the level of direct funding to local Councils and encouraged them to raise income locally.

A sustained period of austerity, followed by covid and then the inflationary crisis has put significant pressure on the Council’s finances. The current forecast budget deficit for 2025/26 is £1.3m.

We are currently waiting to hear what money we are going to get from the Government for our 2025/26 budget.  Depending on the financial settlement we receive our budget gap may be less than £1.3m or it may be more.  We are expecting to hear just before Christmas.
 

What has the Council done to save money?

The Council has been pro-active in delivering savings:

• we’ve shared back office services with Stafford Borough Council since 2011 (saving approximately £500k each year);
• outsourced our leisure services in 2012 (saving approximately £500k - this includes a saving on the Council’s back office services);
• extended the sharing of back services with Stafford Borough Council from April 2023 (estimated savings to be made £600k);
• stopped some discretionary services; reduced the level of both statutory and discretionary services and made efficiency savings.
   

Why a review of Leisure, Heritage and Cultural Services?

The Council has looked at all of it services over the last 10 years and the Leisure contract is the last significant area of spend to be reviewed.

The current spend on Leisure, Culture and Heritage services accounts for circa 15% of the Council’s net budget.  This is much higher than many Councils of a similar size.

The contract with Inspiring Healthy Lifestyles was let in 2012 and has largely been unchanged since that time.

The leisure, culture and heritage service was severely impacted by the pandemic and has suffered from significant increases in energy prices, high inflation and a cost-of-living crisis.
 

What has the review looked at?

The Council appointed SLC, a specialist consultancy, in June 2024 to provide an independent review of the leisure, culture and heritage contract.

At the same time, the Council also appointed CBRE who are specialists in commercial property services, to carry out stock condition surveys on the buildings owned by the Council and leased to IHL.  This stock condition information has been fed into the review being carried out by SLC and helped to inform the options to make the contract sustainable going forward.

SLC have worked with IHL to understand the cost and performance of each of the facilities that they manage. Coupled with SLC’s extensive knowledge of the market, this has enabled the Council to understand which services could operate with minimal or zero subsidy and become more sustainable.
 

What were the findings of the review?

Chase Leisure Centre, Rugeley Leisure Centre, 5s Pavilion and Cannock Golf Course all have the potential to increase the income they generate and/or reduce their overheads.  This would mean that the subsidy for these services could be reduced or withdrawn.

The Prince of Wales Theatre and the Museum of Cannock Chase do not have the same potential to reduce their level of subsidy.

It isn’t possible to increase the seating capacity at the theatre to generate more income within its current footprint, it is expensive to maintain and needs significant money to be spent on it to continue to operate.

• Details of running costs for the Prince of Wales Theatre
• Details of the condition survey for the theatre

There is very limited potential to generate income at the museum and the condition of the building is not helpful in preserving the collections.

• Details of running costs for the Museum of Cannock Chase
• Details of the condition survey for the museum

This is why the Council needs to consider closing these two sites and looking at other options as to how we can deliver the services differently.
 

Why isn’t the theatre going to be refurbished as part of the town centre scheme?

As the town centre project has progressed through to detailed designs stages it has been determined that the original LUF scheme, including the new cultural hub, is no longer viable due to a number of factors including inflationary pressures on building costs.

When it became clear that the original proposals for the Cultural Hub would not be proceeding, work was carried out with IHL to scope what works could be done to the theatre to make it a more sustainable and attractive offer going forward. Unfortunately, the cost of this redevelopment was significantly more than the budget available.
 

Why can’t we use the £20m LUF money from the government to keep the theatre open?

The LUF money can only be spent on capital (building) works and not on revenue costs (day to day running expenses).
 

How can we get involved?

You can take part in the consultation survey that the Council is running.  We want to hear what is important to you about the service and how we might be able to run it differently. The survey closes on 2nd January.
 

When will a decision be made?

The Cabinet will consider the feedback from the consultation in more depth at it’s meeting on 30 January when it will decide what to include in the budget to be recommended to Council.  Council will meet on 12 February to make a final decision on whether the Museum and Theatre will close.

The Responsible Council Scrutiny Committee will also consider the findings of the consultation at its meeting on 27 January and will feed any comments they have into the Cabinet meeting.

Depending on what options come forward from the consultation, it may take time after the Council meeting to cost these options in full and determine which ones are viable.