Question
It has been almost 4 years since the Council abandoned its attempt to hand over the running of Borough’s library service to a private company. This plan had met with significant public opposition. At the time, the Liberal Democrats, as the Opposition, recognised the need to make savings, but felt that there were alternatives such as a charitable trust or a shared service which would meet the same objectives without introducing any element of private profit. Both of those alternatives were dismissed by the Conservative administration.
Since then there have been no significant changes to the way the library services are delivered but the financial position of the Council has worsened and is likely to worsen further in the next few years. It was clear from the public response to your privatisation plans that libraries are valued. They, and we, want a sustainable future for the library service.
What are your plans for the future of the Borough’s libraries?
Minutes:
It has been almost 4 years since the Council abandoned its attempt to hand over the running of the Borough’s library service to a private company. This plan had met with significant public opposition. At the time, the Liberal Democrats, as the Opposition, recognised the need to make savings, but felt that there were alternatives such as a charitable trust or a shared service which would meet the same objectives without introducing any element of private profit. Both of those alternatives were dismissed by the Conservative administration.
Since then there have been no significant changes to the way the library services are delivered but the financial position of the Council has worsened and is likely to worsen further in the next few years. It was clear from the public response to your privatisation plans that libraries are valued. They, and we, want a sustainable future for the library service.
What are your plans for the future of the Borough’s libraries?
Answer
As you know I also value the library service and as you must recall we decided that our dedicated staff and volunteers were best placed to develop the service and improve its cost effectiveness over the last four years.
In the time since the Council withdrew its considerations to adopt the alternative model for the delivery of its library services, both the number of active library users and the numbers of visits to our libraries has increased. The number of active library users has increased by more than a thousand in the last year. That is against the national trend. This has been achieved against a backdrop of falling library usage across the country and significant technology innovations that mean that some people will not use libraries who did in the past.
We have done this by investing wisely in the types of things our residents want and expect from a modern library service. This includes being open when residents need them, providing free Wi-Fi and computers in all libraries, improving our online services and investing in eBook stock, and creating flexible spaces with libraries for events and activities. We do all sorts of activities with children to encourage reading; we have competitions; we have presentations from authors; we have craft events, all sorts of things to get children and parents into libraries. These successful investments have been achieved whilst also reducing the overall cost of running the service.
There has been an absolute reduction in the cost of running the library service of 8%. That is quite significant in itself and that is on a base of an increase of 4% in demand so that is a very significant efficiency improvement. That has not been achieved by cutting service we have actually increased our services and I think we are providing significantly better value for money and that is in no part thanks to the staff and also the volunteers who are absolutely excellent.
Our approach is to continue this good work which has been done across the library service and to be open to new opportunities to further improve the value of our library service to those who live, work and study in the Borough. As you will be aware the Council’s financial position, as you mentioned, will be challenging over the next few years and in common with other services, the Library Service will continue to need to play its part in finding further efficiencies. However we remain committed to a quality library service and any changes to the library service, including examining new ways for the Council to generate income will be identified through comprehensive analysis, robust public engagement and commitment to quality.
Supplementary Question
I am pleased and had noticed that the library usage had gone up. On the Executive agenda for next week which came out after I had put the question in, there is a report about the libraries IT system and the report says you are going to look at how the libraries contribute to health and wellbeing this autumn and then says you are going to review libraries at some point in approximately the next two years. Could you explain a bit more about the timetable for that and what you are hoping to get out of it?
Supplementary Answer
Yes certainly, happy to. The review of the libraries IT system is all to do with actually managing the stock of books and managing loans and managing all the sort of gubbins that goes behind managing a library, so that renewal will happen. We have been developing plans to try and further improve the services provided by libraries. We are looking to commercialise some elements of that, so where we can get revenue from other organisations, or where we can actually support other products and facilities that library users actually value, we will bring those forward. At the moment we have not actually got to the end of that work so I cannot be specific about what we are planning but when we do plan it and have got to the bottom of it and analysed it properly I will be happy to bring it back.