Of the many casualties of the recession, there is no doubt that the skill- and resource-base of local authority leisure departments have been severely affected.

Despite this, I was pleasantly surprised to see recent figures indicating that the number of new local authority swimming pools coming on stream has been steadily increasing over the last eight years, despite the recession. There were 14 new facilities completed last year, although there were steady declines in the education and commercial sectors.

These completed pools have been procured through a variety of frameworks and public/private sector initiatives. One of the key drivers, however, remains the desire for local authorities to reduce and, indeed, where possible, to remove the running cost deficit associated with leisure facilities from the books altogether. In the light of the diminished local authority skill base, there's a real concern that these facilities may become involved in a race to the bottom, without checks, balances and quality of thinking across all aspects of procurement and design.

Looking forward, we may see some of the skills and resource challenges being addressed by cities and regions aggregating the way new facilities are procured and bundling operational contracts into a larger critical mass with associated economies of scale. The quality of dialogue and debate across the continuum of design, build and operate is, however, still pretty poor. There also remain outdated preconceptions about the benefits good design can bring to the process.

Our collective goal as architects is to produce quality environments that engage people and encourage a healthy lifestyle. To achieve success, a strong social agenda needs to go hand in hand with efficiency, flexibility and cost-effectiveness.

One recent initiative is the resurrection of the RIBA Client Forum in the Sports and Leisure sector. The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland set a strong example with an excellent sporting component to its recent annual conference. While the Client Forum has got off to a slow start, it's an opportunity to engage clients and designers with topical issues. It'd be good to see more of these sessions integrated into sports seminars, conferences and so on. There are reasons to be positive about the upward trend of new facilities. However, the debate on the level of design needs to move forward too.