Scottish Borders Council agrees way forward for struggling trust

A council has taken back control of some services from the sports, leisure and cultural trust which currently runs them on its behalf.

Live Borders has faced a string of “financial challenges” which has prompted the move by Scottish Borders Council (SBC).

A series of options has been examined including taking all services back under local authority control.

However, the council has decided to only take back its active schools and sports development programmes at present.

The current trust was established in 2003 as the Borders Sports and Leisure Trust with services expanded over the years.

It has experienced significant issues since the Covid pandemic in 2020 and 2021.

SBC supported Live Borders through that period by paying it a full management fee despite services not being delivered.

It allowed the trust to build up “significant financial reserves” but they have now been used up.

A report to the council said that income has not returned to pre-Covid levels while also facing rising costs and pay pressures.

That has led to the local authority providing additional funding over and above its management fee in order to bail out the trust.

It has forecast a further funding shortfall in 2024/25 which has prompted the council to look at a series of options for the way forward.

They included taking all services back under local authority control.

The full council was not advised to go down that route as the loss of rates relief on its sports and leisure facilities alone would be about £780,000.

Instead, it was told that there would be merit in taking back the active schools and sports development services which have no buildings associated with them.

A further report will be brought back later in the year to look at cultural and community services.

That includes the likes of libraries, museums and visitor attractions including The Great Tapestry of Scotland centre and Jim Clark Museum.