Clissold Leisure Centre in Hackney, London, run by social enterprise GLL, is the first in the UK to be awarded an excellent rating in the new Quest Plus assessment.

Daryl Emes, Clissold Leisure Centre's manager, said: "Achieving this excellent rating is a fantastic reflection of the hard work and dedication of centre staff, and great news for our customers, who can be assured they are receiving a top quality service. The new modules and style of assessing places far greater emphasis on continuously reviewing performance in order to improve the centre, both for staff and customers."

Quest Plus is a new and improved version of the traditional two-day assessment. It follows a two year cycle with a mystery visit and a two day assessment in year one, and a second mystery visit and a one day assessment in year two. "

Meeting the requirements of Quest Plus is in itself a formidable task, but to achieve an excellent rating required the management and the team to go that extra mile," said Quest assessor, Mike Tebbutt, who assessed the centre over two days.

"Clissold Leisure Centre is impressive from the moment you walk through the doors - a well maintained centre with an excellent range of equipment and an embedded health and safety culture, which is demonstrated in every service provided. A strong emphasis is put on both occupational and developmental training of staff; the standard of National Pool Lifeguard Qualification (NPLQ) training is particularly high," he added.

The Quest assessors were also impressed with the management's awareness of the local demography and the sophisticated monitoring of customers to assess whether the needs of the community were being met.

"A range of measurable objectives and targets have been set for all areas of the business which are monitored by the completion of regular internal / external audits and mystery visits.

"Recommendations from these activities have resulted in a range of improvements to both the services and programmes during the last two years. The way the centre is managed demonstrates the value of being part of the Quest process," said Mike.

Mark Sesnan, GLL's Managing Director, said: "At GLL we are always looking at ways in which we can improve the service we provide. The modules within the new Quest Plus assessment closely mirror GLL's mission statement, which is based around four key pillars: Strong Business, Service Excellence, Social Impact and Our People. It therefore makes absolute sense that we take part in the scheme and I am confident that our participation will add real value to our business, the development of our staff and the customer experience we offer."

Mike Lockwood, GLL's Audit Manager said: "The new Quest Plus standard is extremely testing and covers a wide range of areas spanning everything from 'legacy' to 'skills development'. For a GLL centre to be the first in the UK to achieve an excellent rating highlights our commitment to the Quest initiative, which GLL has supported since its inception. Looking ahead, a further five GLL-operated leisure centres, which have been selected from our flagship sites, will undertake the Quest Plus assessment during 2012, while all 77 GLL and GLL Nexus leisure centres will be reviewed at Quest Entry level. And depending on their performance, we anticipate that at least 80 per cent of our centres will go through Quest Plus in the future."

This spring will see the launch of Quest's new advanced scheme, Stretch, which will be open to centres that have already achieved an excellent rating. Next month, Fareham Leisure Centre, which scored excellent in its mystery visit and unannounced assessment, will become the first Stretch pilot site.