Longwell Green Active Lifestyle Centre has received a prestigious award from Sport England’s National Benchmarking Service (NBS), a scheme which allows local authorities to compare the performance of their sports and leisure centres with that of equivalent facilities elsewhere in the country.
The centre was one of just four top-scoring facilities to receive an award in the Efficiency category at this year’s NBS Awards, presented at the Quest & NBS Conference in Kenilworth in February.
NBS enables local authorities to compare the performance of their sport and leisure facilities with national benchmarks across a number of key performance indicators (KPIs), and to use this information to improve their service delivery.
It is delivered on behalf of Sport England by Leisure-net Solutions in partnership with the Sport Industry Research Centre (SIRC) at Sheffield Hallam University. Participating centres can opt for one of three services: the Effectiveness Report, focusing on access and customer satisfaction; the Efficiency Report, focusing on utilisation and finance, or the Full NBS Report, which combines the two.
The centres that won NBS Efficiency awards had more utilisation and finance KPIs in the top quartile than any of the other facilities that took part in NBS last year. Examples of utilisation KPIs include the number of people visiting weekly and the percentage of the catchment population visiting weekly. Finance KPIs range from direct and secondary income per visit to staff cost as a percentage of annual income and energy cost per square metre.
Mark Crutchley, Chief Executive of Circadian Trust, the not-for-profit organisation which manages and operates the Centre, said:
“We’re committed to providing our customers – and the people of South Gloucestershire - with access to first-class facilities and the customer service to match, so we’re absolutely delighted to receive this award. To be recognised as a top-scoring centre in the Efficiency category of NBS is a fantastic achievement and is testament to the hard work and dedication of our whole team.”
Mike Hill, NBS director, said:
“Longwell Green Active Lifestyle Centre has demonstrated that it is one of the best performers in the country, based on our independent analysis and benchmarking. It has shown excellent performance can be achieved in tough financial times.”
Longwell Green Active Lifestyle Centre is one of five lifestyle Centres and a dual-use Sports Centre operated across South Gloucestershire by the not for profit organisation Circadian Trust.
To find out more about the Centre, please visit: https://activecentres.org/centres/longwell-green/