– Public libraries used by less than 10% of the population.
– Professional staff reduced by more than half
– The library service no longer able to produce reliable figures
– No national library website or eBook offer.

when the audit commission, 20 years ago predicted that unless management operated differently the library service would be closed, their criterion was that there would be less than one book loan per person per year. We passed that some time ago. That effectively meant that there is no national public library service.

It may look wonderful in Cheshire, but it doesn’t in most other places. One of the largest impediments to improvement has always been that senior librarians assume that the whole service is as good as they think it is on their own patch, and so they have resisted calls for change. If that hadn’t happened, so much could have been done.