Last January (2024) North Herts Council entered a ten-year partnership with Sport and Leisure Management (SLM) trading under the brand name Everyone Active to run the District's leisure facilities.

This week the Council's Cabinet agreed in principle to enter into an Agency Agreement with SLM for the operation of the District's leisure facilities - subject to agreeing detailed contract variations, which would minimise any risks of the arrangement to the Council.

Why is this happening?

In March 2023, HMRC announced a significant change to VAT where local authorities directly provide leisure services.

Several leisure providers (including Everyone Active) are now considering how the change could also improve the VAT position where the leisure services are provided by them, on behalf of Councils.

In a statement from North Herts the Council explained that "in September 2024, SLM (Everyone Active) sent a proposal to North Herts Council for consideration regarding the creation of an Agency Model, whereby they would act as our agent for delivering leisure services. As the contract variations have not yet been agreed, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage, however we can reassure customers that they won't see any significant changes to how the leisure centres operate".

"Ultimately, the reason for considering this is to provide financial benefit to the residents of the Council as a whole, by making savings on our valued leisure services".