Leisure and libraries staff set to be transferred to new trust

LIVE Argyll, the new leisure and libraries trust for Argyll and Bute, will see a general manager in post next month, with legal documents in place for a transfer of 264 members of staff by October 2.

In papers due to be discussed in Kilmory council chamber today (Thursday August 17), a management fee of between £1.7 million paid from October 1, and £3.5 million or slightly more paid in subsequent years by Argyll and Bute Council for leisure and library services, was due to be agreed.

Council papers say Kevin Anderson has been appointed to the position. The former senior financial manager within Argyll and Bute Council will manage a budget of £10 million per year.

The plan for the new company, limited by guarantee, was agreed by councillors in November 2016, and was granted charitable status by OSCR, the Scottish Charities Register.

The transfer was agreed in order to make a saving in terms of between £556,000 and £705,000 through non-domestic rates savings and VAT savings due to the charitable status of the trust. The council is set to save at least £540,000 per year due to the reduction.

A service level agreement between Argyll and Bute Council and Live Argyll will see administration services for the new trust provided by the local authority. An operating agreement between the two bodies will set out the management agreement between the trust and the council, and includes specific services to be delivered by the trust for the management fee paid by the council.

The management deal between Live Argyll and Argyll and Bute Council will last for 10 years.

The trust will manage libraries, leisure facilities, active schools, archives, halls, sports development, museums, community centres and community lets.

A shadow board is already in place to oversee the operation of the council’s leisure assets, including the Corran Halls and Oban Library, as well as other venues and leisure centres throughout Argyll, but not the social enterprise Atlantis Leisure which will continue to receive a grant from the council.

Live Argyll has already declared its directors with companies house. Registered directors of the trust are Mairi Coleman, an HR executive; Councillor Jim Anderson, a former council employee in the leisure sector; Charles Brodie, a retired banker; Mary Watt, an environmental health officer; Graham Hardie; and Councillor Jim Lynch, who is noted on the Companies House register as a civil servant.

The chairman of the multi-million-pound company is former Liberal Democrat councillor Andrew Nisbet, who is named on council papers, but not the Companies House register.

The registered address of the company is Lochgilphead Community Centre, which will also be one of the venues the group manages.

Council papers show the council has worked to keep the 264 staff members, who will be trans- fered from the local authority to the trust, on equitable terms and conditions.

This includes an ‘annual uplift to cover staff pay awards’, to be added to the baseline financial projections for the management fee in order to give staff ‘budgeted pay awards’.

The documents further state: ‘It is proposed that this financial arrangement is reviewed after a three-year period on the basis that the trust will be able to grow its revenue streams and over time the percentage of the trust expenditure represented by the management fee will reduce.’

Lawyers for the council, Brodies, have worked with Strathclyde Pension Fund to submit a formal request for the new trust to be given admitted body status in order that employees will have no change to their pension provision and full service protection.

Seven roadshows over the past year were held to ‘ensure all staff were fully consulted over the past six months’ and papers say that the ‘trade unions were also fully involved in the process’.