A trend to trust? The rise of new leisure trusts in the UK

Abstract

As a non-mandatory public service, leisure faces an uncertain future as it competes for scarce local government resources. Around half of British mainland local authorities still provide the majority of municipal leisure services directly. However, since the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) in 1989, a wider range of organizations has become involved in the delivery of these services than at any time in their history. 'Best value' (BV), the successor to CCT, has turned up the heat on this trend by forcing local authorities to review the form of service delivery. In the current environment, one of the available options which has generated considerable interest is that of 'new leisure trusts'. In this article we look in depth at the reasons why the trend toward trusts has gathered pace in the last decade, the claims made for trusts' structural and managerial advantages, and their potential for synergy, or 'collaborative advantage' (Huxham, 1995).