Pool plan

belly flops 
rather than makes a splash

When we used the word questionable in connection with the Moulder training pool deal the other day, we didn’t realise how close we were to the truth.
As regular readers will know, Boston Borough Council’s seven member cabinet has done a deal with the Witham Schools Federation and Boston Amateur Swimming Club to re-open the training pool under a five year agreement.
Members approved spending £195,000 from the council’s reserves, with £150,000 being paid back over five years from the two other partners, and the outstanding balance of £45,000 funded from the capital reserve. The idea is that with increased use of ther pool, the scheme will be self funding and so cost-neutral.
However, not all the councillors are happy with the idea.
Whilst Boston District Independent councillors (the former BBI) have welcomed the plan, they have also expressed reservations - and along with Labour councillors, have requested that the decision is called in – in other words looked at again.
The deal was rubber-stamped by the cabinet in a secret session, and the BDI insists that its call is non-political, but has been made “to protect the council tax payers of the borough from another disastrous PRSA-type situation arising.”
To paraphrase Lady Bracknell: "To bodge one sports deal may be regarded as a misfortune. To bodge two would look like carelessness."
The BDI adds: “It is regrettable that the full details of the budgets and business plans of the parties concerned have not been made available for scrutiny by councillors.”
The pool re-opened on Monday – something which in normal circumstances, would have been postponed pending the call-in meeting on 19th September – but doubtless to avoid some oeuf sur le visage, Council leader Peter Bedford took the unusual step of bending the rules and letting the opening go ahead.
He has assured councillors that income will not be put at risk, and that there are no plans for any capital spending before the meeting.
Perhaps not surprisingly, in the run up to the meeting on the 19th, some worrying answers are emerging to preliminary questions posed by the BDA's deputy leader Richard Austin.
One key point is that there is no business plan from the schools federation and swimming club to show how the costs of more than £130,000 a year will be met.
By way of an answer, Phil Drury, Boston’s Strategic Director and Deputy Chief Executive, says the £100,000 revenue cost, which incorporates savings through the planned/implemented carbon reduction measures, has been achieved through a combination of income from the partnership; increased swimming capacity in the leisure pool;  savings through revised Boston Borough Council staffing arrangements, and more teaching hours in the training pool provided through the partnership.
That’s a business plan, is it?
Another point raised is that there doesn't seem to be any incentive for the swimming club or the schools federation to continue their support  - as the council has to underwrite the operation. “In view of past debacles at the PRSA with sports clubs and schools authorities, this is unacceptable,” says Councillor  Austin.
The response?
The asset belongs to the council, and is therefore its responsibility.
“However the Partnership is putting the majority of the staffing resource into the Training Pool programme delivery, it is paying an increased hire … and is also contributing to the capital pot - totalling £150K over a five-year period. Due to the sums involved the incentive for this venture to succeed is as important to the Partnership as it is to Boston Borough Council.”
Yes, of course we all want it to work – but will that make it happen?
In response to concerns that there is no evidence to support the projected increase in general swims and swimming lessons, comes the answer that the projections are based on increased leisure pool capacity/availability should a proportion of the current programmes be moved to the training pool – and that evidence will only become available once the revised programme is fully operational.
It goes on like this for a while.
Serious questions are being asked – but  in many cases are being answered  in an aspirational and optimistic - rather than a positive and realistic - way.
We think that the concern to avoid a son-of-PRSA is well placed, and hope that the meeting later this month gets some real answers.

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