Leicestershire Monthly Report - September 2021

For my monthly report (for September) I want to focus on the KPI’s we set over 12 months ago and how we have met or indeed fallen short on them. And ultimately what the future holds for the Club.

I will begin with our Company KPI’s. Our targets were;

• Achieve all Tier 1 standards of the County Partnership Agreement and move towards implementation of all Tier 2 Standards. Continue to take steps towards the ground standards that need to be met by 2023
• Achieve the silver standard of the County Governance Framework, which is required by Feb 2022
• Deliver a Community Centred and customer-focused and environmentally friendly first-class venue
• Ensure compliance across the business, having strong internal processes and a higher level of communication and satisfaction.
• Ensure that significant steps are taken towards the right structure for Leicestershire CCC

As is a common thread through this month’s update, Covid hampered a lot of progress that the Club could have made. However, that said, the staff remained undeterred by wanting to continue to move Leicestershire CCC forwards. I would also add the ECB, who work with us on the standards were also very understanding and ongoing meetings have been held (and to be held) creating further action plans around new timeframes. 

Some excellent progress has been made in HR systems inside the Club allowing staff to hold regular appraisals and provide feedback to further drive the Club forwards. I am particularly pleased with the introduction of our new ‘Club Improvement Committee’ that is a group of staff that have a common goal and challenge to make our Club a better place to work.

Regular audits have taken place and we now have a policy register. Other work that has been initiated includes a Diversity Action Plan, including staff training; Gap Analysis for the Club and a regular review of a Risk Register. Additionally, our record-keeping has improved and forms part of our GDPR compliance strategy which includes robust systems. 

Engagement with members has been hard to implement and the Club continues to endeavour to stay in contact with members as much as possible. Most notable was the successful members open day on day 1 of our recent LV= County Championship fixture. The feedback the Club received was excellent and we are looking to implement the feedback over the course of the forthcoming season. Additionally, we are further looking to increase engagement with our supporters including regular forums, email communication and additional research. 

Overall, whilst it is argued that we haven’t hit the nail on the head with our Company KPI’s there has been considerable and welcome progress. From a Company perspective, Leicestershire is making positive strides and will continue to do so.

On to our Community KPI’s. They were;

• Build the reach of the Leicestershire Foundation 
• Engage Children and Young People across all delivery programmes
• Transform the Women’s and Girls game in our area
• Enhance LCCC’s inclusive relevance to our Local Diverse Communities 
• Capitalise on Recreational Cricket Engagement.

Again Covid has a lot of influence here and indeed almost blocked us from achieving any of the above but with staff determined we again made some progress. A real highlight for us was the relaunching of the Foundation and the introduction of our first Tour De Foxes Bike Ride. Nearly £10k was raised through our fundraising activities of which local charities will benefit. As a Club, we are keen to do more and look forward to working on/developing and introducing further initiatives.

During the pandemic, a lot of the Community work reverted to Zoom meetings but engagement remained high. Once the ‘outdoor season’ returned we saw good growth numbers of children and young people accessing the game across cricket clubs and the new Dynamos/All Stars programmes. We as a Club have over-indexed on targets achieving over 2,000 children on All Starts and Dynamos Cricket alone.

As for Women’s and Girls, you can begin to see a tidal wave of change for the Club. We targeted 18 local clubs to develop Women and Girls cricket but we currently know of 22 across the county developing this format. Our girl’s county age group programme has strengthened and we have seen an improvement across each age group. Towards the latter part of the summer, it was great to see that 8 girls have represented the Lightning Academy. There is so much more to come from this part of our business.

As for our inclusive relevance, we would have liked to do more but the pandemic has made it difficult to hold face to face meetings. That being said the ‘digital meetings’ we held were very positive. All our community team are now ready to address this KPI going into the new season.

Overall, the Community Pillar of the Club is arguably the one that has been hit the most and delivering the KPI’s has been the most difficult. However, as we exit the pandemic our focus will return and we are looking forward to creating stronger links throughout the county. In the coming year, we will also see our Commercial and Community teams share offices that will encourage deeper-rooted links.

Our third Pillar is our Commercial. Our KPI’s were:

• Increase Commercial Sales of Sponsorships, Partnerships and Advertising by a Minimum of 10 %
• Exceed memberships, match tickets, indoor school ad merchandise budgets by a minimum of 15%
• To exceed sales by a minimum of 10% of the target budget
• Deliver and an exciting, engaging and professional events programme, which also delivers record levels of visitors and increased budget by 12%
• Improve and Increase the profile and image of LCCC locally, nationally and internationally. Grow our database by a min of 15% through a programme of engaging social media and marketing campaigns.

In this particular Pillar of the Club, the commercial team did everything it could with the KPI’s that were not going to be affected by Covid. The results of which speak volumes of the effort that was put in.

As a Club, we witnessed more partners and advertisers than ever before and budgets were exceeded by 19%. A real encouraging sign that we are becoming a great business hub.

Memberships and ticketing didn’t get where we wanted to, purely due to Covid extension, this meant that numbers at the ground were restricted and the normally lucrative T20 fixtures at Uptonsteel County Ground were greatly missed along with those sell-out crowds buying hospitality.

As for the Indoor School and our conference and banqueting offering. They were both severely hit and resulted in a loss of circa 250k to our bottom line.

There are however real encouraging signs. As we exit the pandemic, bookings have returned and this bodes well for 2022. Our reputation for having outstanding food and service here at the Uptonsteel County Ground has remained long in the minds of our supporters and we are excited about what the new season can deliver.

Social media and database wise, this has been a great year for the Club and the KPI has been well and truly met. We have never had so many followers or names on our database. Growth has been 20% over the past year. This stat proves there is a growing interest in our Club.

Overall, considering the handcuffs placed on the commercial team, the performance to hit the KPI’s has been well executed and shows strong foundations for the future.

Our Cash KPI’s were:

• Compliance with HMRC Legislation including timing and statutory payments 
• Annual External Audit 
• Ensure Expenditure complies with all CPA relevant requirements such as Player Pathway Costs and Player Salary Collar
• Provide benchmarking and Management accounts to the 4 Pillars of the Club 
• Financial reporting to be simplified and into understandable monthly reports 

In simple, all of the KPI’s were met. It has always been our target to maintain strict financial controls, whilst at the same time provide our senior management team with information that helps them be fully aware of the financial state of the Club. Communication between the Cash Pillar and the other 4 Pillars is exemplary. Together they have a firm grip of our budgets and what is expected.

Finally our Cricket Pillar. The KPI’s were:

• Show progression in the County Championship
• Compete for a knockout place on the white ball competitions
• Keep player availability high, improving athleticism and aim to be the best fielding side in the country 
• Have Gold Fox standard and take pride in everything we do.
• Be inclusive and selflessly give back to the communities of Leicestershire and Rutland.

With our Cricket Pillar, the results are there to be seen and I am sure all of us will make our own conclusions. I guess if it was a ‘school report’ it would read ‘Leicestershire has worked very hard this season in difficult circumstances. Occasionally it has gone off the rails but overall the general direction of travel is a positive and progressive one. The future promises so much'.

If you look at the stats, there are some encouraging figures including the best home record in County Championship for 20 years and best overall win ratio for over a decade to mention just a couple. Combined with over 30 personal bests from our team, it’s clearly identifiable where we are headed. As with our ‘Academy of Cricket’ mantra, it is one about learning, developing and ultimately improving.

For me, this has been very much a ‘year 1’ on the programme. And having observed, Paul Nixon the coaches and playing staff along with all the support staff in the cricket pillar, the desire to succeed is outstanding. We will continue to improve the channelling of our efforts and results will continue to improve and the new rounds of KPIs will see us aim higher and reach further. I for one am incredibly excited about what year 2 will bring if we maintain our work ethic levels.

In summary.

Over the past 12 months, I have brought you information on a monthly basis about the development of our Club. Hopefully, you have found them useful. It would be wrong for me to say that we have met all our targets but one thing is for sure we have done everything possible to try and meet them and in some cases exceed them.

Our culture and focus are improving daily at the Club and as of 1st October, (we see this as day 1 of our new season) we begin now on how we plan for a successful 2022. I promise you there are some exciting announcements and developments to come over the next 12 months. We ultimately want you to be part of it and of course, help us to a better future at the Running Foxes.

Exciting times are ahead!