https://www.publiclibrariesnews.com What's happening to your library? Sun, 23 Feb 2014 22:01:50 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 https://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/campaigning/volunteer-run-libraries/practicalities/are-volunteer-libraries-statutory-or-non-statutory#comment-5918 Mon, 17 Feb 2014 21:21:50 +0000 http://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/?page_id=6936#comment-5918 I agree with you that a Council can decide whether a branch is part of its statutory library service or not. If we are talking about a branch run by a local community and staffed partly or entirely by volunteers then the issue is whether the Council partnering with the community run branch is the best way to deliver the statutory service to that community. Best is a combination of service delivery and cost. Obvious alternatives are a traditional Council run library (arguably – expensive to serve a small community) or a mobile library (lower cost but providing significantly less service).
If a branch is part of the statutory service I don’t agree with you that a Council has the freedom not to support it. If a branch is part of the statutory service the duty of support is the same in principle between all branches whether Council or Community-run. The extent of the support provided can and probably should vary branch by branch depending on what is necessary to serve each community. Councils are responsible for funding statutory services for which they are responsible. Thus they should fund the cost of running a Community-run library included in their statutory service.
I agree with you that a Council has no particular duty to a library branch outside of the statutory service. Some Councils are providing support for non-statutory libraries but that is purely at their discretion. This is no doubt due to local resident pressure. However the Council still has a legal duty to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service to the residents in the area served by the non-statutory library.

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