OneRen Six Monthly Monitoring Report
Renfrewshire Council · 6 December 2023
Back to Leadership Board — 6 December 2023 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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___________________________________________________________________ To: Leadership Board On: 6th December 2023 ___________________________________________________________________ Report by: Chief Executive ___________________________________________________________________ Heading: OneRen - Six Monthly Monitoring Report ___________________________________________________________________ 1. Summary 1.1 On 26th April 2023, the Leadership Board approved OneRen’s annual business plan priorities and the arrangements in place to monitor the delivery of the plan. Core aspects of the monitoring arrangements for OneRen are the quarterly monitoring meetings with OneRen chaired by the Head of Policy and Partnerships and the six-monthly progress reports submitted to the Leadership Board. 1.2 The Head of Policy and Partnerships is the Council officer nominated to monitor OneRen and along with the Head of Finance is also an observer at OneRen’s Board meetings. 1.3 This report aims to provide the Leadership Board with an update on the performance of OneRen for the first two quarters of the current financial year 2023/24. It provides a summary of the context in which the organisation is operating. It highlights the ways in which OneRen has been progressing the activities outlined in the current business plan. 1.4 OneRen is making progress against its business plan objectives for 2023/24 despite the challenges of inflationary cost pressures and the cost-of-living impact for local communities. This report builds on the success of 2022/2023, where total OneRen customer engagements, including digital, increased from 2.9 million in 2021/22 to 3.9 million in the last financial year – with in-person attendances increasing from 1 million to just over 1.56 million visits over the same period.
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1.5 Section six of this report contains a table with the national performance indicator data for cultural and leisure services and includes indicators on digital engagement. ___________________________________________________________________ 2. Recommendations 2.1 It is recommended that the Leadership Board: • Notes the progress being made by OneRen in the delivery of its Business Plan for 2023/24. ___________________________________________________________________ 3. Background 3.1 The Services Agreement with OneRen forms the basis of the funding arrangement with the charity and sets out the terms for OneRen to deliver cultural, leisure and sport services within Renfrewshire. This specification: • relates to the management of the cultural, leisure and sports services and facilities operated by OneRen within the council area; and • sets out expected standards, specifications, procedures and other requirements to be followed by OneRen in the provision of cultural, leisure and sport services. 3.2 One of the terms in the Services Agreement is for the development of an annual Business Plan. OneRen’s Business Plan for 2023/24 was approved by the Leadership Board in April 2023. OneRen’s Business Plan is closely aligned to the strategic priorities set out in the Council’s Plan and the Community Partnership Plan. In this way, OneRen ensures that it supports the regional priorities as set out by its major stakeholders. 3.3 The quarterly monitoring reports submitted to the Council via the Monitoring Officer provide a review of OneRen’s financial, operational and customer related performance, thereby demonstrating how the services delivered by OneRen contributes to Council Plan priorities. Its performance information is reviewed whilst taking account of the post- pandemic and cost of living context within which the charity is operating. It is acknowledged the post-pandemic recovery period includes factors which continue to impact on the charity’s operating model, including OneRen’s support of the region’s mass vaccination programme. 3.4 In preparing the business plan for 2023-2024, OneRen recognises the challenging economic environment in which the public sector is operating and identifies the activities and actions that will be undertaken
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to achieve its vision: everyone locally living lives that are healthy, happy and fulfilled. It is based on the charity’s mission to improve the community’s health and wellbeing by working in partnership to design and deliver a range of life-enhancing and accessible cultural, leisure and sporting opportunities that meet local needs and improve life chances across the population, and is framed around the four strategic objectives for: a healthy community; a sustainable local economy; a great place to live, play and visit; a high performing, sustainable charity. 3.5 When the business plan was approved in April 2023, it recognised key influential factors, particularly the economic environment in terms of managing significant inflationary cost pressures, extended post pandemic income recovery period and the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on our local communities, customers and employees; the major investment being made in Renfrewshire’s cultural venues - Paisley Town Hall, Paisley Learning and Cultural Hub and Paisley Art Centre due to re-open in 2023/24 and Paisley Museum in the following financial year. 3.6 Balancing increased community need with inflationary and budget pressures faced by all public sector organisations remains OneRen’s primary task. Exceptional energy costs added an estimated £1million of additional expenditure for the charity alongside rising supply costs and pay pressures. These costs are being actively managed by OneRen. OneRen also continues to support the Council and NHS in delivering the region’s ongoing mass vaccination programme through the provision of venues and staff. 3.7 In 2023/24, the charity’s Business Plan set out the following areas of focus: • Building health and wellbeing programmes across culture, leisure and sport services through effective pathways between programmes and services, creating a core social prescribing offer, focusing on the most socially isolated and inactive, in collaboration with partners. • Progressing the transformation programme by reviewing current operating models and organisational design to ensure culture, sport and leisure services play a meaningful, pivotal, yet sustainable, role supporting the health and wellbeing of local communities through the delivery of the strategic objectives. • Continually working to ensure delivery for Renfrewshire by looking for ways in which we can transform outcomes by being open to delivering services in new ways. • Continuing to transform the charity’s business model to be sustainable and high-performing by building on the initiative, drive and professional development of staff, and in partnership with the Council and other stakeholders, action the key recommendations from previous review work undertaken.
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• Effectively partnering with the Council on the cultural infrastructure programme and Future Paisley, enhancing Renfrewshire’s key attractions and cultural programme for local residents whilst placing them on a national and international stage to encourage direct and indirect benefit to communities through the provision of ambitious new services and related inward investment. ___________________________________________________________________ 4. Six-month Progress Report 4.1 OneRen continues to provide much-valued services right across Renfrewshire, all designed to ensure that everyone living locally can enjoy lives that are healthy, happy, and fulfilled. OneRen teams are engaged in activities to improve the physical and mental health of the people of Renfrewshire and beyond. 4.2 This report builds on key achievements during 2022/2023, where total OneRen customer engagements, including digital, increased from 2.9 million in 2021/22 to 3.9 million in the last financial year – with in- person attendances increasing from 1 million to just over 1.56 million visits over the same period. 4.3 At the mid-year review point, despite the challenges of inflationary cost pressures and cost of living pressures, OneRen continues to make progress against its business plan objectives for 2023/24. 4.4 The charity is reporting a small deficit of £226, after adjustment for restricted funds. Expenditure controls and vacancy management processes remain in operation to manage the financial position. However, operating conditions remain difficult, with economic conditions expected to remain challenging for the remainder of the year. 4.5 Leisure memberships have grown since restrictions lifted and are now around 86% of pre-pandemic levels. OneRen is focusing on membership retention and on developing the membership offer, reviewing membership packages and targeting marketing activities to increase income over the remainder of the year. 4.6 The leisure cafes are behind financial targets and OneRen is looking to balance this position with income from new vending options. 4.7 A gap in qualified swimming instructors impacted on swim lesson income in quarter one. Attracting and retaining swimming instructors has been challenging this year and training sessions took place in quarter two to increase the number of instructors available to deliver the swim programme in the peak autumn/winter period.
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4.8 Outdoor sports activities, particularly pitch hires, are performing better than initially expected and this additional income is helping to offset under-recoveries in income in other services. Community hall let income has increased from last year but remains in a net deficit position. 4.9 With the cost-of-living crisis, regular review and discussion of outstanding customer balances takes place with the Council team which manages this service on the charity’s behalf. Proactive measures are also taken directly by OneRen, in terms of contract arrangements and regular discussion with key partners to monitor payment of invoices. 5. Key achievements 5.1 Health and wellbeing targeted programmes 5.1.1 Health & Wellbeing Hub - The development of a Health & Wellbeing Hub within the Lagoon has been initiated. This reflects the need some of our partners have identified to improve access to their services and where OneRen believe there is a robust fit with its strategic objectives. It continues to build effective referral routes to its health and wellbeing service and promote all opportunities for social prescribing through culture, leisure, or sport, in collaboration with partners. 5.1.2 Within the pilot phase OneRen has been exploring options to develop more ways to access physical activity services for those with no previous experience; and to provide a tailored range of health and wellbeing programmes for older people, people with a disability and identified excluded groups with health improvement needs. 5.1.3 OneRen’s health and wellbeing team are helping to shape the future model of the Live Active Referral scheme across NHSGGC. With increases in referrals across the board area, particularly following the pandemic, it was recognised a change to the 12-month physical activity programme was required. The team has been instrumental in the delivery of a more client-centred pilot which is hoped will be as equally positive for staff as it is for those referred. This builds on the success of 2022/23, where OneRen Vitality classes saw 5,699 attendances – up from 4,332 the previous year. 5.1.4 Wellbeing in the park - Over 450 people attended the event which coincided with Mental Health Awareness Week, aimed to promote self- management and empowerment, with health and wellbeing resources available from various partner organisations. On the day there were activities by Active Schools, health walks, face painting, silent discos and guest acts.
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5.1.5 Bothy Projects (Arts Team) - On October 9th OneRen in partnership with CIRCLE Recovery Hub celebrated the official opening of Turner’s Bothy (A room of our own). This exciting multipurpose space is an arts and crafts activities break-out space for people in recovery at CIRCLE. The whole project was co-designed by CIRCLE service users and volunteers in conjunction with artists Meadhbh Corrigan and Rosa Gally. The theme of the project funded by Renfrewshire HSCP and Future Paisley was to create an outdoor space for recovery. 5.2 Sport and Leisure 5.2.1 Paisley 10k - Almost 3,500 people took part in this year’s Paisley 10k and Fun Run, a new record for the popular event. The Paisley 10k is Scotland’s third largest road race. The 10k attracted 2,143 participants with 1,302 signed up for the fun run: a total of 3,445 runners, an increase of 1,000 on last year’s numbers. 5.2.2 This year's event, sponsored by Kilbarchan Amateur Athletics Club, took place on Sunday 20th August. The 10K Road Race is suitable for runners of all levels from novices to experienced club and international runners. For families, friends and youngsters, there is the shorter Fun Run that takes in some of Paisley Town Centre's most famous landmarks. 5.2.3 Activity Camps - Our Spring and Summer activity camps recorded more than 6,000 attendances of children and young people enjoying a range of physical activities. These included multi-activity classes at Park Mains High School and the On-X leisure centre including fun activities such as basketball, dodgeball, athletics and rounders, as well as dedicated football, dance and movement and outdoor sessions, which included kayaking, rock climbing and scrambling. There were also a number of ASN sessions across both camps. 5.2.4 OneRen have been working with St Mirren Charity Foundation at Ferguslie for their summer football camps which have been running every week day throughout the summer. This complemented OneRen’s own summer camp programme that saw more than 4,000 attendances throughout the programme across multi-sport, football, disability, dance & movement and outdoor activities. 5.2.5 OneRen outdoor pitches also played host to Renfrewshire Council’s refugee football tournament in July, welcoming new citizens to Scotland through the power of sport. OneRen teams also supported the delivery of the Mòd Shinty and Football tournaments at KGV Renfrew in October.
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5.2.6 Learn to Swim - OneRen’s leisure team have helped 1,739 children in Primary 6 to learn to swim over the last few months. The programme was delivered for 51 schools, with lessons taking place on weekday mornings in two-hour sessions. Funding from Renfrewshire Council has also been made available to support under-5s swimming. From 1 September, one parent or guardian can access the pool free of charge when accompanying each under-5-year-old during Renfrewshire school term time. 5.3 Cultural Infrastructure and Programme 5.3.1 Newly refurbished Paisley Town Hall -. Working with our partners, the ‘new’ town hall re-opened successfully in recent weeks with many planned performances by acts like Belle and Sebastian and Omo sold out within hours of going on sale. Paisley Opera delivered two opening performances of Macbeth in early October. 5.3.2 Royal National Mòd - Scotland's premier celebration of Gaelic language and culture, the Mòd returned to Paisley in 2023. This is the second time Paisley has hosted the Mòd building on the success of the 2013 festival, which at the time was one of the best attended in the event's history. The festival ran from 13 - 21 October 2023 and featured a range of competitive disciplines including: Gaelic song, poetry, literature, drama, instrumental, Highland dancing and sport. 19 events were held and 4,832 tickets were sold throughout the week. 5.3.3 Paisley Central Library - OneRen teams have been supporting the conclusion of works and transfer of the central library to the Paisley Learning and Cultural Hub now located on the High Street in a former, empty retail unit. The temporary library which was based in a portacabin within the Lagoon car park closed on 22 September to allow the staff to make the move to their new home in the High Street. Across four floors, the facility will create one of Scotland’s best public libraries. ___________________________________________________________________ 6. Performance Monitoring 6.1 OneRen currently reports on approximately 70 operational performance indicators to meet the terms of the services agreement; five of which are reported nationally on behalf of the Council through the Local Government Benchmarking Framework. 6.2 Performance reports are presented quarterly to OneRen’s Board and provided to the Council’s monitoring officer to report on business plan progress. OneRen also participates in the Chief Executive’s six- monthly performance review process to ensure that elected members can monitor the progress of business plan priorities.
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6.3 The main cultural and leisure performance indicators for OneRen are summarised in the table below: Performance indicator Q1 & 2 2020/21 Q1 & 2 2021/22 Q1 & 2 2022/23 Q1 & 2 2023/24 Change from 22/23 – 23-24 Number of attendances at indoor sports and leisure facilities excluding pools 20,097 187,338 345,763 372,756 7.8% Number of online attendances (digital fitness classes) in leisure services 6,842 3,886 1,375 286 -79.2% Number of attendances at pools 6,101 68,441 199,847 208,866 4.5% Number of attendances at outdoor facilities 10,130 58,258 75,903 79,932 5.3% Number of people engaged with Sport Services (online and offline) 66,052 36,656 21,302 23,962 12.5% Number of people engaged in Health and Wellbeing service 6,433 11,356 4,156 6,108 47.0% Number of RENTV views 16,935 34,505 1,893 359 -81.0% Number of visits to museums – 582,542 506,412 227,143 358,377 57.8%
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digital & social stats Number of visits and engagements with libraries (includes digital) 229,333 1,438,185 1,167,637 1,173,326 0.5% Number of books and e- book issues 41,372 119,460 199,283 251,857 26.4% Total activity and engagement 985,837 2,464,497 2,244,302 2,475,829 10.3% 6.4 Statistics • RENTV is no longer being used to share video content as OneRen now has a new YouTube channel. Going forwards it will share statistics from its YouTube channel instead of RENTV. • Although library engagement is reported here to have increased only by 0.5%, when we look at physical attendance only, there’s been an increase of 69% from Q1 and 2 2022-23 to Q1 and 2 23- 24. A drop in digital engagement has brought down the figure. • The increase in attendance at libraries can be partially attributed to the increased number of events being facilitated, which has increased by 71% • This increased engagement has resulted in more book issues, an increase of 33% for e-book issues and 21% for physical book issues. • The outdoor facilities team have been working hard to bring new business in to the sector, which has resulted in an increase in usage across our football pitches. • As time progresses, online fitness classes are becoming less popular again as people are able to attend in person instead. • The increase in indoor leisure attendances excluding pools is mainly driven by an increase in group exercise class attendances which has increased by 30% between the two periods. The sales team have been working on ensuring fitness class timetable meets demand for customers, any classes which have low attendance levels are swapped or moved to increase attendance. This increase in attendance has occurred with no increase in number of classes available. • Health and wellbeing engagement has seen 47% increase, Vitality classes are currently very popular and we now offer more health walks since recruiting two new walking coaches. In Q1 and 2 22-23 we delivered 44 walks, this year we delivered 139 walks in the first two quarters. Bringing walking attendance from 454 to 1005.
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6.5 Performance Context: 6.5.1 Over the last two years, OneRen’s operating model has adapted and shifted due to the pandemic, to meet the changing needs of Renfrewshire communities and this makes typical comparisons of annual performance indicators difficult from 20/21 onwards. 6.5.2 OneRen’s performance in 2023/24 reflects a greater focus on increasing physical attendance at its venues. The financial strategy recognises that the charity is not operating at identical capacity to pre- pandemic levels and this is reflected in some of the performance data reported. 6.5.3 The blending of digital and in-person services is also variable, with some service areas continuing to return to in-person attendance with a clear off-set against digital engagement, for example in leisure. For other service areas such as libraries, both forms of engagement remain strong. Changing work priorities continue to have an impact on OneRen’s performance data in some areas, for example, less digital engagement from the museums service as the service spends more time working on developing the new displays for Paisley Museum Reimagined. 6.5.4 Online engagement has changed how the service understands the delivery of services and this trend is expected to continue. The trends will continue to be considered and built into future business plan priorities. ___________________________________________________________________ Implications of the Report 1. Financial – as detailed in the report. 2. HR & Organisational Development – not applicable 3. Community/Council Planning – • Our Renfrewshire is thriving – Our services recruits and trains volunteers and creates a pathway into employment; • Our Renfrewshire is well – Our cultural, leisure and sport services and programmes help to maintain positive physical and mental health and well-being; • Our Renfrewshire is fair – our services and programmes are accessible to all our citizens; • Reshaping our place, our economy and our future – development and delivery of the cultural infrastructure investment programme supports the regeneration aspirations for the area;
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• Building strong, safe and resilient communities – Tackling inequality, ensuring opportunities for all – our services and activities are accessible to all our citizens; • Creating a sustainable Renfrewshire for all to enjoy –our programmes build sustainability through volunteer and community development; • Working together to improve outcomes – partnership working to deliver shared outcomes remains a key priority in our company strategy. 4. Legal – not applicable 5. Property/Assets – not applicable 6. Information Technology – not applicable 7. Equality & Human Rights (a) The Recommendations contained within this report have been assessed in relation to their impact on equalities and human rights. No negative impacts on equality groups or potential for infringement of individuals’ human rights have been identified arising from the recommendations contained in the report because for example it is for noting only. If required following implementation, the actual impact of the recommendations and the mitigating actions will be reviewed and monitored, and the results of the assessment will be published on the Council’s website. 8. Health & Safety – not applicable. 9. Procurement – not applicable. 10. Risk – not applicable. 11. Privacy Impact – not applicable. 12. Cosla Policy Position –not applicable. 13. Climate Risk – not applicable. ___________________________________________________________________ List of Background Papers (a) n/a ___________________________________________________________________ Author: Laura McIntyre, Head of Policy and Partnerships, Telephone: 0141 487 0242