It has been confirmed that EL has not been able to find an alternative service provider for crèche services.

Meantime Full Council (19/12) confirmed unanimous support for all parties to work together to ‘identify models to
allow crèche facilities to remain’ in the city’s leisure facilities.

Saveourcreche presented many suggestions to EL about alternative models (meeting on 19/1). All were rejected.

However since then a further much more radical model has emerged that we very much hope you will have
some success taking forward with EL on a trial basis. In summary:

The financial model used for crèches to date does not work for EL so we propose trial a far higher rate that includes
gym/swim/class access

Charge would be something like below for users with EL card ( assume adjusted rates as at present +/- 25% for Non
members /Concessions)

EL card plus: 1.5 hour session ( model should revert to 2x 1.5 hr sessions to maximise income
1 child £10
2 children £12

All income would be credited to crèche so it’s easy to see if they are breaking even or not.

Future income would be c£92k annually ( if c. 10,000 user visits maintained as happened since last 4 crèche closures &
assuming 80% of visits are ‘1 child’)

If EL costs were £115k this reduces any subsidy to £2.30 ( NB all 4 crèche supervisors feel it is not necessary to replace
vacating Coordinator role so £15k less cost)

Or the model could be flexed to reduce subsidy to zero ( e.g. close Drumbrae crèche & run other 3 on ‘best 4 days’
basis [ i.e. cut the crèche when only ‘Get Up & Go’ classes are on])

A trial of above risks very little cost (& could be put on place from 1 March – only needs a bit of till re-
programming) and has many benefits:

- Council achieved desired stated end result re. city-wide crèche services without changing proposed
budget allocation to EL
- EL save redundancy costs and c. 12 people keep their jobs
- EL keep c. £92k income annually PLUS:
- cafes keep customers (appreciate this is not direct EL income)
- all related drinks/snack machine revenue keeps going direct to EL
- all related product revenue ( e.g. swim goggles etc) keeps going direct to EL
- all related children’s class revenues ( e.g. baby & parent swimming purchased whilst 2nd child in
crèche ) keeps going direct to EL

We understand EL’s initial view may be ‘this takes revenue from other activities’ but it really doesn’t! In future
EL will not get that revenue at all because these users will not be able to be there.

So it’s an ‘easy’ c. £100k p.a. future income for EL v. ZERO future income if crèches completely
close. At no extra cost, it’s a ‘win–win’ for the Council, surely ?