West Lothian Council has contingency plans for West Lothian Leisure if a newly-agreed rescue plan fails.
Chief executive, Graham Hope, told Tory councillor Chris Horne the council had three options – none of which were expected to be used.
West Lothian Leisure (WLL), which runs swimming pools and sports centres, has faced hardship since 2016 when increased private sector leisure facilities began to dent a successful record.
The council has just agreed a financial re-profiling deal with the trust to help meet redundancy costs. Hours have already been reduced across the service.
At a recent meeting of the council’s Risk and Governance committee the WLL finanical picture still scored a red light as a high risk.
Councillor Horne said: “We are heartened that West Lothian Leisure is moving in the right direction but the issue here is risk. It still sits at high risk here so what does that mean for us?
Donald Forrest, head of finance said: “We would expect that risk to be reducing and we are hopeful that the risk can be re-scored during the year.”
He added: “West Lothian Leisure did operate for a number of years without financial problems. They now have what appears to be a robust plan in place. That risk will continue to come down. There are always contingencies in place.”
“What’s our view should they not deliver?” asked Councillor Horne.
Mr Hope said: “I would support what the Head of Finance has said, but there are options were there to be a failure. Firstly the board itself is not synonymous with the organisation . It would be up to the council to appoint a new board. A second option would be to appoint a third party organisation to take on the activities and the third option would be for these activities to revert tot he council.
“We are not looking at any of these at the moment and don’t expect to.”
