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Abstract

Town Hall staff have set up their own not-for-profit company – the first of its kind in the country – to run half of the borough’s adventure playgrounds.

The 19 employees of Islington Council’s play and youth service last week won a contract to run the six adventure playgrounds they manage, breaking away from Town Hall control and going it alone.

The three-year deal, worth £1.8million, is the result of two-and-a-half years of painstaking work by the play staff, who came up with the idea to secure the future of the adventure playgrounds at a time of swingeing council budget cuts.

In neighbouring Camden, a number have closed in recent years and they wanted to avoid that scenario.

Under the Localism Act, council employees have the right to express an interest in running services provided by their authority.

The Awesome Community Interest Company (CIC) – the name was chosen following consultation with children who use the playgrounds – is the country’s first play staff-led mutual.

“The idea came about because we were in the middle of austerity. It looked like it would get harder and harder for the council to provide non-statutory services,” said managing director Guy Lawrence, whose career at the council’s play department spans 17 years.

“Adventure playgrounds have been here in Islington for 40 years. Our aim is to have an employee-led organisation that can use the skills of the staff to be entrepreneurial and create a sustainable play service, ensuring adventure playgrounds continue to serve Islington families.”

Each of the not-for-profit company’s 21 employees – there are two vacancies currently – will have a stake in Awesome and appoint non-executive directors to the board. The expert volunteers will scrutinise and advise on Awesome’s business strategy.

The company will start running the Three Corners, Barnard, Cape, Cornwallis, Waterside and King Henry’s Walk adventure playgrounds in October.

Becky Pryce, who will be the new company’s director of play, grew up in Islington and started working on an adventure playground at the age of 16.

“In terms of adventure playgrounds, Islington has the most of any London borough, which is great,” she said. “They’re not like play centres. They’re essentially adult-free zones and the children lead their own play here.”

Mr Lawrence added: “This gives us a bit more control of our destiny. For us it’s about securing the playgrounds’ long-term future and being a bit more creative in terms of generating other income, such as hosting school trips, corporate team-building workshops and applying for lottery funding.

“We’ve based ourselves on the John Lewis model. All the money we make has to go back into the company. We’re in the heart of the community and Islington families get the benefit if we do well.”

The rest of Islington’s adventure playgrounds will continue to be run by Islington Play Association, a charity, effectively allowing the Town Hall to see which model works best.

The staff-led company will rent the playgrounds from the council for a peppercorn rent. The company will take on two apprentices.

The council has committed to invest £1.2million a year in adventure play between April 2016 and March 2019 as part of a drive to make children and young people a priority in its budget.