Dubbo councillors debate whether the pool management should go out for contract

The pools up for management include Dubbo Aquatic Leisure Centre, Wellington Aquatic Centre and Geurie Pool.

Cr Black "urged" his fellow councillors to vote against the motion because he believed putting the pools out to contract wouldn't actually save the council that much money.

"To say the pool runs at a loss, that's what it costs to provide a service," he said.

He compared the cost of the service to that of running Wellington Caves, library services, the local road network and cemeteries.

"We're not rushing to get rid of these off the council books and contract them out in the hope that they may cost less," he said.

"If we didn't have the pools, there would be an awful lot of trouble come summertime and there are a lot of people who can't afford their own pools."

Two weeks ago at the standing committee meeting, Cr Black voted against the motion, reasoning that the only real saving that the council could make would be from the cost of labour.

"All other utilities, chemicals, maintenance, cleaning, they are all fixed costs, there's nothing to be saved there at all," he said.

Thinking of the employees who currently receive a government wage, Cr Black said they would then fall under a federal award where the wage conditions are much lower than the NSW Government if the pools were to be contracted out.

"What can we as councillors do rather than just contract the employees jobs out and have them come back on less money?" he asked.

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Cr Black said he believed they were "rushing" to get a tender because of management changes at the pools.

"I'll reiterate, what we are going to see is the people who were working at the pool possibly getting their jobs back but for less money, doing the same job but being paid less," he said.

"I don't think that's a good place for council to be - we are employing locals but for less money."

Deputy mayor Richard Ivey was in favour of the motion, stating that one of the "fundamental" things that had gone wrong for council in the running of the pools was the falling revenue.

"I think if we can increase revenue by 10, 15 or 20 per cent then the bottom line goes up by a greater amount," he said.

Using Wellington Aquatic Centre as his example, Cr Ivey said when he first came to the area many years ago there was a water polo competition that would bring a number of people to the pool.

"This is the sort of thing which could be put at the pool, there just doesn't seem to be the incentive there to look at what we can do and how we can do it or be doing better," he said.

Cr Ivey did agree that employees would probably be employed for less but argued that it was because the current wage cost was too high.

"I mean, you've got people there who are being paid very good wages as lifesavers but we've had to cancel and turn kids away from learning to swim campaigns because those people don't have learn to swim tickets.

"Surely anyone that we employ in that pool should have a Learn to Swim accreditation so that they can actually teach kids and we don't have to turn them away."

Cr Ivey said it would be good to get expressions of interest from contractors to see what expertise they have and what they could bring to the table to try and increase revenue.

"If we don't get any good tenders, or any suitable people then we don't have to accept that and it can stay in house," he said.

Councillor Damien Mahon asked the council about the timing of getting management for the pool figured out, to which chief executive officer Murray Wood explained, "very quickly".

After testing the market, the council staff would have to create and bring forward a report so the council could decide whether they would keep the pools in house or go to tender for a contractor.

"If we do have to resort to running them in house, we would have to recruit a manager...we do have some vacancies," Mr Wood said.

"Even if we contract someone they would need to gear up ready for the season to open up in Dubbo in mid-September...this is not an accelerated process, but we have to act very promptly."

Cr Mahon said since this was only a request for proposal and not a binding decision being made he thought it would be erroneous of them not to go ahead and look at what's out there.

"That will then inform our position at the next decision making point," he said.

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