Agenda and minutes

To be notified of the appointment of any Substitute Members

Pursuant to the Council’s Constitution, the appointment of the following substitute member was reported:

Councillor T Mulvenna for Councillor J Cruddas.

You are invited to declare any registerable and/or non-registerable interests in matters appearing on the agenda, and the nature of that interest.

You are also invited to disclose any dispensation in relation to any registerable and/or non-registerable interests that have been granted to you in respect of any matters appearing on the agenda.’

Please complete the Declarations of Interests card available at the meeting and return it to the Democratic Services Officer before leaving the meeting.

There were no declarations of interested reported.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 26 March 2019.

To confirmed that minutes of the meeting held on 26 March 2019.

To receive an overview of the Authority’s Culture and Leisure provision.

The Sub-committee received a presentation from the Senior Manager, Cultural Services and Senior Manager, Sport & Leisure, which provided an overview of the Authority’s culture and leisure provision including the scope of services, costs, and policy priorities.

The Authority’s culture and leisure provision accounted for over 3 million visits by members of the public over the course of a year.  This included visits to indoor and outdoor sports facility provision; involvement in the Active North Tyneside/Public Health programme; Sports development; engagement with libraries and Customer First Centres; visits to museums and St. Mary’s Lighthouse; and audience figures for Playhouse, Whitley Bay.  In addition, the wide range of events across the Authority’s summer and winter programmes engaged both residents and visitors, helping to sustain the tourism economy, which supported local businesses and helped to generate jobs in the Borough.

The impact of these services, which were for many the frontline public face of the Authority, helped shape the borough’s unique sense of place and made North Tyneside a great place to live, work and visit.

The Sport and Leisure team was responsible for managing a wide range of services including the Authority’s 5 leisure centres and pools; indoor sports facilities. outdoor leisure facilities - sports pitches, bowling greens, welfare and recreation grounds, mini-golf/foot-golf; Sports Development – including clubs, cycling development, holiday activities, sports coaching, school sports and street games. The Active North Tyneside/Public Health Teams’ provided programmes targeting inactivity, health and wellbeing, obesity and delivering preventive services focussing on better health outcomes for residents.

Policy priorities included maintaining a commercial focus; delivering a policy steer on Public Health and Social Care, Cycling and Support for the strategic approach to borough wide priorities.

Members were provided with service information relating to Posts (449); User visits (1.7 million); EASE cards (36,000); and Contours membership (9000), and with a financial breakdown of controllable expenditure of £7,670,797; controllable income of -£6,604339; and a net controllable budget, of £1,066,658.

The vast majority of expenditure was down to the running costs of leisure centres but that the income generated kept cost down without detriment.  There had been an increase in leisure centre users over the last 10years.  Running costs had been reduced, whereas income generation had increased, the increase was helped in part by growth in Contours membership. 

The Cultural Services team was responsible for managing the Authority’s 4 Customer First Centres, Branch Libraries (14), Community centres, Tourism and Events, Museums (19), Heritage and Arts. 

Members were provided with service information relating to Posts (150); Library visits (1,297,634); Library issues (565,165); Active Library users (30,492); The Playhouse attendances (80,445); the growing St Mary’s Lighthouse visits (80,686); Visits to Segedunum and Stephenson Railway Museum (88,920); Visit North Tyneside Active users (49,546); and Events programme attendances (202,200); with a financial breakdown of controllable expenditure of £8,386,730; controllable income of -£2,897,619; and a net controllable budget of £5,489,111.

Policy priorities included Culture Health and Wellbeing; Events sponsorship; Tourism promotion; Cultural investment – St Mary’s Lighthouse, Segedunum, public art; and North  ...  view the full minutes text for item C&L4/19

To receive an update on the Tour of Britain 2019 cycle event and preparations for activities in North Tyneside.

The Sub-Committee received a report introducing the 2019 Tour of Britain 2019 cycle event and the preparations for activities in North Tyneside. 

Mr Gary Campbell, Head of Delivery, North of Tyne Combined Authority (NTCA), and

Mr Nigel Walsh, Event Director, Northumberland County Council, presented an overview of Stage three of the 2019 OVO Energy Tour of Britain cycle event including an assessment of the likely impact upon and benefits for North Tyneside.  

The Tour of Britain event was the UK’s largest professional cycle race, televised in 166 countries and broadcasted live on the ITV network.  The tour would take place between the 7 and 14 September 2019, a total of eight stages over eight days.  The race consisted of 120 cyclists and an entourage of 120 vehicles.

On Monday, 9 September, Stage three of the 2019 Tour of Britain was to be hosted by NTCA and would link Northumberland, North Tyneside and Newcastle Upon Tyne.  The world’s top riders and teams contesting a 114-mile route starting from the centre of Berwick-upon-Tweed, would head through Ford, Wooler, Whitley Bay, Tynemouth, North Shields and Wallsend before finishing in Newcastle city centre.

A Multi Agency Steering Group, under the auspices of Culture Creative, who had organised Tour of Britain events in 2015 and 2017, was meeting every two weeks and involved representatives from Northumberland, North Tyneside and Newcastle local authorities, as well as the emergency services and transport providers. 

Governance arrangements were in place to cover Operations and Traffic Management, Race Management, Community Engagement, Health and Wellbeing Legacy and Marketing and Communications.  A Joint Authority Safety Advisory Group had been established.  A North Tyneside Steering Group, chaired through Cultural Services, had also been established to co-ordinate activities in the borough. 

A pack had been delivered to schools across all three Council areas to encourage engagement and ensure massive public participation when the race passes through local communities.  In total 38 schools from North Tyneside, from over 120 responses across the NTCA area had expressed an interest in being involved.  Schools would be provided with safe standing places to view the race; a full race timetable; and guaranteed parking for schools requiring minibus or coach parking to participate.

There was also an opportunity for schools to engage in a day with the Tour of Britain, an activity day on the route at a location away from school.  In North Tyneside activities which were part of the Summer of Cycling would also promote the Tour of Britain 2019.

Following its success in 2018, the Tour organisers were holding a Land Art competition, which would cover the whole route from Glasgow to Manchester, to find the best piece of land art.  Community groups, schools, businesses and land owners across the route would be encouraged to take part. In North Tyneside there had already been over 3000 responses.

In terms of the stage 3 event timetable, the race was scheduled to leave Berwick at 11:00 and arrive into Whitley Bay from Seaton Sluice at 15:05.  It would  ...  view the full minutes text for item C&L5/19

To invite the Sub-committee to determine its work programme for the 2019/20 Municipal Year.

Members considered the report which set out possible topics for inclusion in the Sub-Committee’s Work Programme for 2019-20.

A draft work programme has been formulated in consultation with the Chair and Deputy Chair of the sub-committee. This was attached as Appendix A to the report and was based on outstanding scrutiny exercises carried over from 2018/19 and topics identified by the Chair, Deputy Chair and senior Officers.

To ensure that the work programme was effective it was suggested that when evaluating

topics for inclusion in the work programme the following criteria should be considered:

•           Is it timely?

•           Will it duplicate any other work ongoing within the Council or the North East Combined Authority scrutiny work programme?

•           Will it add value/contribute to policy development?

The sub-committee had the option of establishing sub-groups (of around 4/5 members) to carry out in-depth investigations.  The sub-groups operated in a more informal way and could consult with a wide range of witnesses in various settings, often over a shorter period.  When dealing with a specific topic, this focused way of working was often more productive than trying to achieve the same in a formal committee setting. 

The Chair invited Members to forward any further topics for the Work Programme to the Democratic Services Officer.    

It was agreed that the sub-committee’s Work Programme 2019-20 be approved.