Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to support district councils (1) to provide, and (2) to protect, leisure services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The funding available to support local authorities with leisure provision depends on whether they receive revenue or subsidise their provision and whether they provide it in-house or externally. Leisure facilities may also be eligible for wider government support for businesses. The amount any council receives will depend on their individual circumstances.

If an authority has budgeted to receive income from its leisure centres (whether in-house or externalised) and has irrecoverable transactional income losses which were budgeted for in 2020-21, they may claim support for these losses through the Sales, Fees and Charges Income Compensation Scheme (which refunds 75% of eligible income loss beyond a 5% threshold). The scheme was recently extended into the first three months of 2021-22.

If an authority subsidises its leisure provision (whether in-house or externalised), they may wish to use part of their allocation of the £4.6 billion of unringfenced funding MHCLG has provided to support councils to meet additional costs as a result of the pandemic to offset these costs, of which Shire District Councils have received £318 million in 2020/2021. Recognising the impacts of COVID-19 on local authorities will continue beyond this financial year, the Department announced £1.55 billion of support for additional costs at the 2020 Spending Review, of which Shire District Councils have been allocated over £102 million. Allocations for this £1.55 billion of support were published on 17 December 2020 and payments are planned to be made in April 2021.

If an external provider delivers leisure services, they may have been eligible for Sport England’s National Leisure Recovery Fund (NLRF) to support operators during the current national restrictions, support the reopening and recovery of the public leisure sector and prevent further closures of outsourced leisure trusts and operators. Applications to the fund have now closed and the results will be known by late February.