What's new?

Collaboration has expanded between Sport England and APSE – data collection is now even easier

Since 2022, APSE have been working with Sport England to reduce data input times for benchmarking leisure centres and provide a level of synergy between the APSE and Sport England Moving Communities data systems.

We have now strengthened this collaboration for 2024 to now include financial data in addition to participation, facility usage, and facility management data.  To expedite the process for APSE performance networks members, we have created an agreement which allows you to authorise Moving Communities to release this leisure centre data directly to APSE, therefore eliminating the need to input this data in the annual data collection templates.

Emma Bernstein, Strategic Projects Lead at Sport England, said: “The collaboration with APSE is an important milestone in supporting a journey of performance monitoring and continuous improvement across the public leisure sector.  The work that we can do together will drive quality and increase confidence and we are thrilled that to work in partnership to minimise duplication across the sector.  It will help and support facilities to demonstrate the positive impact they have on their local communities.”

This collaboration has multiple benefits including:

• Minimising the duplication of data input at local authority level
• Ensuring that published data from different sources uses consistent information
• Reducing the amount of data validation needing to be undertaken by local authorities via APSE as thorough validation processes are already built in to the Moving Communities exercise
• Increasing the value of the Moving Communities exercise by making greater use of the data collected and submitted by local authorities

APSE members will have the opportunity to review the data which we receive from Moving Communities before it is published in the reports and APSE will send members a draft data output as part of the checking processes.

For any local authority who outsource their leisure service the relevant operator will need to sign the agreement for data release.

To find out more information on this collaboration or to find out how to get involved in benchmarking your leisure centres, please contact [email protected]

Changes to training

We have now pre recorded our PN induction and data completion introduction and this is available to view online via the members web portal, under the training pages.  This session is an introduction to both performance networks and how to download and navigate the data templates.  

We also offer 121 data support sessions, where an associate will meet via MS Teams and complete your data template with you, in real time.  To enquire about these sessions, please contact [email protected] 

Exciting developments in performance networks

Further developments in LAMS

In 2015 APSE introduced the Land Audit Management System (LAMS), which was developed by a group of authorities in Scotland. LAMS is a consistent quality audit approach, measuring the level of service delivery for grounds, streets and cemetery land.

What LAMS monitiors:

In 2018 APSE launched the LAMS App which is available to members of APSE performance networks and costs £600 per year per authority. There is no maximum on the number of users who can be registered for the App and the price is per authority as opposed to per user. Compared to paper-based systems, the App reduces the duration of inspections. It also automatically identifies location through GIS and requires photographic evidence to support the grading for validation purposes. The quality grading/scoring registered during the surveys is available as live data for the individual authority completing the audits. In addition to this APSE provide benchmarking reports on a bi-monthly and also quarterly basis.

The App has been further developed this year through the introduction of a self-randomiser which automatically allocates an inspection list of sites to inspectors. The randomiser also includes a map and direction details (Sat-Nav) for all planned inspections via the App.

We have undertaken a ‘pilot’ trial period with a number of member authorities participating in the field testing of the randomiser. The trial period ran from January to March 2020. During the trial period, the participating local authorities critiqued the application with a view to having a ‘ready to go’ product available for all interested authorities.

Building cleaning App

We are very excited to launch a brand new app for building cleaning inspections. This follows the huge success of the LAMS App.

This new app will include 4 different surveys:
• Educational establishments
• Leisure centres
• Offices
• Public conveniences

The cost is £600 per year per authority. There is no maximum on the amount of users who can be registered for the App and the price is per authority as opposed to per user. Compared to paper-based systems, the App will reduce the duration of inspections. The App automatically identifies location through GIS and requires photographic evidence to support the grading for validation purposes. It is user friendly so that you can train your new staff efficiently and it reduces the time it takes to submit inspections as this is through a click of a button.

The results from participating authorities can be benchmarked throughout the year, so that you can compare grading / cleanliness levels not only by authority, but by building and feature type thus becoming an invaluable management tool producing meaningful data. This can be used to prove value for money and to promote how effective your service is. Not only would this data be available ‘live’ via the cloud but also feed into the performance indicator reports and can contribute to the awards criteria.