Editorial

Total net expenditure on public libraries went down from £842k in 2015/16 to £771k in 2016/17, a decline of over 8% in just one year. Add in inflation and it’s more like 10% (or it would be if salaries weren’t semi-frozen). That would be awful enough if that was a one-off but it isn’t: there’s been real cuts to expenditure every single year since 2009/10 and there’s inflation in that period too (of 17%) to account for. So, that’s mega isn’t it? Brutal in fact. No surprise then that usage is falling. The surprise is that it’s not falling faster, After all, visits are down a mere 3% when the cut to funding was three times more.

So that’s one horror story. The other is, of course, how the figures themselves  are collected. Given by councils, CIPFA then collates them when the financial year finishes in April, presumably then does something else for a bit (because it’s now December), sends out a summary press release as a sales pitch and then charges an eye-watering charge for anyone wanting the full package. But, hang on, these are our statistics. Which we’re stopped from using unless we’re rich and don’t mind waiting, let’s think, more than seven whole months to see. And this is for the library profession, which should be fairly good on information. I’m glad to say that things are changing though. All of the organisations (well, apart from, presumably CIPFA but I don’t know) involved (SCL, Taskforce, CILIP etc) are keen on improving on the current mess. I hope they succeed. Then we’ll be able to tell for free and in real-time how fast budgets are declining. Hang on, that doesn’t sound fun. But at least it’s not downright embarrassing, unlike the current situation.

Changes

• East Sussex – £720k overspend on Hastings Library.
• Lancashire – Fulwood Library reopens. Bolton-Le-Sands Library reopens.
• Warrington – £1 million for repairs, maintenance and investment, one-off £150,000 extra book fund in 2018, new libraries partnership group.

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Editorial

Good to see library news connecting with the general goodwill of the season. A news article from Warrington reports that no libraries may close (a big turnaround from the original proposals), although of course the devil may be in the detail, as yet unseen. Also – and I love this – West Dunbartonshire are putting out to consultation (rather than just voting through) deep cuts in their library opening hours due to a well-timed letter from CILIPS. Well done Scottish CILIP people. And it may be Christmas for Derby libraries every day as the council catches on, finally, that Section 106 money from new housing can be used for library projects. But the big applause must go to the library team at Plymouth who are keeping their library open on Christmas Day. It can be the loneliest day for so many so this is a really warm-hearted move. Well done those who volunteered to work that day. I hope it goes well, and the mince pies are delicious.

Changes

• Northern Ireland – Open / staffless technology installed at Whitehead.
• West Dunbartonshire – Consultation on cuts, after CILIPS queries scale proposed.

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Editorial

Congratulations to those voted in as Trustees for CILIP, especially public libraries blogger Leon Bolton whose blogging career I have watched with great interest. There’s a few ongoing fights in various library services, including an interesting suggestion from Warrington’s auditors about the need to consider other bidders for library services. The deep cuts to Northamptonshire libraries are again in the news too (and I’d like to point out they only had 36 branches to begin with, not the bigger number I have accidentally given them in previous posts), as are the final dates for some of Bury libraries to close. The long-running legal fight in Darlington will continue, with the judge saying there’s just enough evidence to move the review on to the next level.

Changes

• Darlington – Judicial review into cuts
• North Tyneside – Opening hours may be reduced.

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Editorial

Two key news stories for me this post. The first is from Bristol, which has temporarily a deep cut to its libraries while it looks in to the possibilities of mutual and co-locations. This is coming about from government money designed to encourage mutual and it’s unusual for such a delay in libraries due to Government funding, although the strong push towards such trusts has been notable for years. I suspect the depth of the cuts and the level of protest had something to do with it.

The other is a CILIP-led protest letter, signed by authors and others, against cuts to school libraries. It started with a tweet and snowballed into a major (well, for libraries, anyway) news story. I got some serious deja vu from it as you may recall a similar mass protest letter against public library closures a few years ago. The difference now is that CILIP was key to the action, while back in the old days of 2011, it hadn’t quite got the hang of protest or realised how deep and prolonged the cuts will be. That has all changed now and the organisation is earning its subscription fee to both public and school libraries.

Changes

• Bath and North East Somerset – Mobile safe (after being proposed closed in cuts).
• Bristol – Cuts to libraries postponed by four months due to consultation/exploration towards change to mutual or co-location. Government fund used.
• Croydon – Possible new £500k library to replace South Norwood.
• Hertfordshire – Bishops Stortford Library may move into new theatre/cinema/café building.
• Pembrokeshire – Haverfordwest new library Saturday hours extended due to town council funds.
• St Helens – Central Library to remain closed for repair (has been closed since March).
• West Dunbartonshire – Opening hours could be cut by one third.

Ideas

• Elf on the Library Shelf – Christmas reading challenge.

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Editorial

Library trusts in England haven’t been around for long, with the oldest being just two or three years old. As such, their chiefs are the library managers who took them out of council control. So the first changing of the guard, caused by the retirement of the Suffolk boss Alison Wheeler, was an interesting one to watch, and not least because of the 17-page vacancy pack. No, it was one to watch to see who would get it and where they would come from. And now we know. It’s someone from a charity and with apparently no library experience. That gives a clear indicator as to the direction of travel Suffolk has already gone on: the skills needed are now those of an independent fundraiser and not of a public librarian. It’s a truism that the higher up an organisation one goes then the less specialist skills you need and that’s the case in libraries as well as elsewhere, and Suffolk is not the first library service to have a non-librarian running it by any means. But it gives a view into the future, and the present, that would perhaps have surprised those in the library sector ten years ago and shows the financial and political pressures that such services are expected to have to face.

Interestingly Hertfordshire have just announced that they’re thinking of going down to the libraries trust route because it is “supported by national government” and it’s certainly true the Taskforce is heavily pushing the model. As funding is reduced in authority after authority, on a cycle of every two to four years, the siren call of the Trust is going to get louder. But it means that library services will become more akin to charities than statutory council run services, with all that implies. The first library chugger may not be far away.

Changes

• Bath and North East Somerset – Bath Central to remain open but with One Stop Shop located within.
• Brighton and Hove – Holingbury Library reopens in community centre: staffed one morning but open seven days per week (self-service machine, otherwise card access).
• Glasgow  – Eight libraries (Baillieston, Cardonald, Castlemilk, the Mitchell, Partick, Riddrie, Whiteinch and Woodside) to be refurbished.
• Hertfordshire – Considering whether to become a library trust and to use swipe-card open technology.
• Inverclyde – £57k cut / South West Library to close. Consultation.
• Kent – Tunbridge Wells Library to close for two years while new £13.3m combined library/museum/art gallery/adult education centre.
• Lincolnshire – £160k volunteer library at Burgh Le Marsh.
• Warrington – Bewsey and Dallam Hub opening indefinitely delayed.
• West Dunbartonshire – Opening hours review. £421k proposed for improvements to children’s libraries, flexible shelving etc.

Ideas

• Libraries in laundromats – Wash and Learn.

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