Expressions of interest wanted for management of Dubbo, Wellington and Geurie pools

At the standing committee meeting on Thursday, April 13, the council voted in favour of calling for a request for a proposal about the contract management of the Dubbo Aquatic Centres, including Dubbo Aquatic Leisure Centres, Wellington Aquatic Centre and Geurie Pool.

The expressions of interest could be for a single facility, all three, or two of the three facilities.

The contract would be for a five year period starting on July 1, 2023 and finishing on June 30, 2028, with an option for an additional two 12 month extension.

Councillor Josh Black, who voted against the motion, said he would prefer to keep the management of the pools in house.

"We could end up with three separate contractors looking after three separate pools and that would create a lot of work for someone in council to administer all of those, or multiple people," he said.

"Imagine if two or three of those all went pear shaped, with different contractors, the cost to council there would be no saving at all.

"The cost to administer those contracts and get everything back on track would go through the roof and that's one of the major warnings from June last year that sticks with me."

Other causes for concern for the councillor were the lack of cost savings and administering of three different contracts.

"The major saving is going to be in staff wages, all the other costs are going to be the same - the chemicals, the upkeep," he said.

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"It still costs to administer that contract and it would cost even more if there were three separate contracts other than just one, but the costs will escalate massively if there are problems with those contracts.

"The costs out way any savings you may or may not get from contracting management rather then keeping it in house with local staff."

Deputy mayor Richard Ivey disagreed with his colleague and said it was important to give the new operator of the pool an incentive to increase the revenue.

"I think attendance at Wellington pool has dropped off because it's not a particularly attractive or pleasant place to go," he said.

"I think a good operator who could get in there and actually think about ways to attract groups to come in and use the pool a bit more, to make it a very terrific recreational place, not just to have a swim but to meet friends and have a barbecue.

"I think there's enormous opportunity for the use of the pool to be expanded and I think an external operator who has an incentive to do that is more likely to achieve it then if we leave it in house."

There will be provisions put in place for each of the facilities, and the fees and charges would be dependent on guidelines outlined by Dubbo Regional Council.

The new contractor will be responsible for all operational maintenance while the council would be responsible for all capital works and asset maintenance over $2000 required at all three of the facilities.

Mayor Mathew Dickerson, who made the amendment to offer the opportunity for organisations to have the choice of running one or more facilities, said he wouldn't want smaller operators to miss out just because they couldn't afford to run all three facilities.

"A single larger organisation might come along and put a proposal in for all three pools and that might be good from a financial perspective but one of the attractions may well be that individual operators of the Wellington and Dubbo pools may run at a more personalised level," he said.

"I would hate to see those smaller organisations restricted from doing it because they didn't have the capacity to run all three pools."

Councillor Pam Wells questioned what would happen to Geurie pool if expressions of interest only came for Dubbo and Wellington.

Chief Executive Officer Murray Wood said that would be "less than ideal".

"We would be talking to this proponent to make them include the Geurie pool in the running of Dubbo or Wellington, equally distant," he said.

"At the moment we run it by the Wellington team so we would say 'you aren't going to get it unless you take Geurie as well', so we will negotiate, we would come back to council so you can give me a licence to negotiate with the proponent to ensure the Geurie pool is managed."

This is only a request for proposal, which provides more details than an ordinary expression of interest but is not a contract.