Cllr Theodoulou said that should the volunteer scheme fail he believed there was an established charity waiting in the wings, which had offered to run the county’s community libraries if they were in danger of closing

Has this been their plan all along!? This discussion has happened behind closed doors as none of us know anything about this. This raises several concerns. Who is the charity? What expertise do they have? what knowledge do they have of running a library service? what is the charities agenda?

Ethical, moral and sustainability issues also arise. Charities are suffering badly in times of recession. They have faced unprecedented funding cuts and volunteers are being spread more and more thinly as authorities are asking them to fund and run public services. What assurances are there that this charity will be in a position to run these libraries in a few years time? Gloucestershire County Council are grasping at straws and are placing the future of important public service on a wing and a prayer!

Cllr Theodoulou is out of touch with his electorate and, instead of listening to them, chose to follow party lines. In the article he makes it sound like the County Council had no other option but to make Lechlade residents fund and run their own library. This is not true. Other perfectly viable options were put forward but ignored with no valid explanation provided http://foclibrary.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/a-desperate-plea-from-a-gloucestershire-community-to-council-leader-mark-hawthorne/

Feedback to the County Council libraries consultation also showed that people in the areas affected where overwhelmingly against the community run library model.

Gloucestershire County Council are passing off their statutory responsibilities onto the already stretched charity sector. Gloucestershire County Council’s refusal to listen to and discuss alternative options made it very clear that their decisions were not made out of necessity but ideology. Cllr Theodoulou has let Lechlade down.

It is an improvement on the “if they fail they fail” attitude that the County Council held before they were forced to reveiw their plans following their high court defeat, but the future of these libraries remains uncertain, and it is inaccurate to claim there was no alternative.

Feeling the pinch : Poster outside charity shop

]]> http://foclibrary.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/mystery-charity-to-run-libraries-if-communities-fail/feed/ 3 johanna bo anderson Charities feel the pinch : Poster outside charity shop http://foclibrary.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/httpfoclibrary-wordpress-com20120418liberal-democrats-call-in-gccs-library-strategy/ http://foclibrary.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/httpfoclibrary-wordpress-com20120418liberal-democrats-call-in-gccs-library-strategy/#comments Tue, 01 May 2012 17:57:42 +0000 johanna bo anderson http://foclibrary.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/httpfoclibrary-wordpress-com20120418liberal-democrats-call-in-gccs-library-strategy/ http://foclibrary.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/liberal-democrats-call-in-gccs-library-strategy/

Yesterday Gloucestershire County Council's "scrutiny" committee met to consider the library "call-in". the call in was rejected. The following is our response to this news.

Yesterday Gloucestershire County Council’s “scrutiny” committee met to consider the library “call-in”. The call in was rejected. The following is our response to this news.

We are disappointed but not surprised about the call-in decision. The last time the administration were attempting to push through almost identical, and deeply unpopular cuts, we witnessed a similar farcical “scrutiny committee” in which members voted according to party politics, rather than what was best for the electorate. With a committee that was largely made of up Conservative members we were under no illusion that the outcome would be any different. The whole library review has been a serious case of deja vu in which Gloucestershire County Council has failed to demonstrate that they have learnt any lessons from their court defeat in November 2011 when a high court judge ruled them to be guilty of “bad government”. 

The fact remains that many of the questions put forward by the Liberal Democrats, who led the call-in, have not been answered. Gloucestershire County Council changed the criteria, with no consultation, in order to exclude three libraries from statutory provision. They have repeatedly failed to provide any explanation for this. The fact also remains that the elderly, especially women, are going to be particularly affected by the cuts. The Council has no realistic strategy in place to mitigate the extent of the impact upon this particular section of society. It is always disappointing to see political one-up-manship, being put before the interests of the public. Sensible, respectful and thorough scrutiny of these draconian cuts, cuts which are going to affect so many people in Gloucestershire, has never been allowed under the current administration. 

When local elections come up in the future we would urge that the people of Gloucestershire remember the politicians responsible for the dismantling of our library service, in the face of overwhelming public outcry, and next time vote libraries!

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http://foclibrary.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/scrutiny-committee-farce-local-democracy-dealt-another-blow/

Sadly, judging by Cllr Hawthorne’s comments to the local press,  we suspect that it will be.

We urge the county council to finally take the opportunity to show that it has learned from the mistakes of the past. It must facilitate proper scrutiny and address and rectify the same serious issues that found it on the wrong side of the law not six months ago.

Cllr Hawthorne protests that the call-in is “pure party politics” (just as he did last time!). We would argue that this is deeply hypocritical as he and his colleagues in the cabinet have themselves been so blinkered by party politics that they have repeatedly failed to listen to the wishes of the electorate and have stubbornly continued to bulldoze through these overwhelmingly unpopular and inequitable cuts. This is not about party politics but about the authority’s duty to provide a statutory and important service to the electorate.

No one wants to end up back in court.

The following is the full Liberal Democrat press release and the grounds on which the call-in was lodged.

Liberal Democrats Lodge Legal Challenge on County’s Library Strategy

 LIBERAL DEMOCRAT group has lodged a legal challenge called a ‘call-in’ under Gloucestershire County Council’s constitution after the Tory cabinet approved plans for a new library strategy.

The ‘call-in’ will halt the strategy from coming into force until councillors on the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee can meet to review the grounds that have been put forward.

Liberal Democrat Leader Cllr. Jeremy Hilton said:

“The whole process for the strategic review of the library network has been shambolic from start to finish. The Tories first plan was thrown out by a judicial review last year, after it was deemed unlawful.

“The cabinet has learnt nothing from this and proceeded with some changes to the original plan, but with the fundamental flaws remaining intact.

“There appears to be a blatant favouritism with Tories increasing opening times at libraries in their Cotswold heartland but cutting hours in other parts of the county.

“We still have the ridiculous situation of the third most popular library in the county at Bishops Cleeve having its hours slashed by 13 hours per week and Stow Library number 25 in popularity getting an extra 19.5 hours each week – this is nonsense.”

The new library strategy involves a tiered network of libraries across the county with seven libraries facing the axe at Berkeley, Brockworth, Bream, Minchinhampton, Lechlade, Mitcheldean and Newnham, unless the community steps in to run them

Notice of call-in

To Pete Bungard – Chief Executive

We, the undersigned six members, give notice to call-in the decision made by cabinet on 5th April and published on 5th April 2012.

Agenda item 1 – Decision on the Future Library Strategy for Gloucestershire

The grounds for the call in are that the following conditions are satisfied for the reasons specified:

3. In making the decision, the Cabinet, Leader of the Council or Cabinet Member took account of an irrelevant matter or failed to take account of a relevant matter -

The relevant matter[s] not taken into account [are]

A – Three out of Seven of the proposed community-run libraries show a higher than average proportion of adult social care service clients in terms of the immediate local population; Newnham for learning disability, Brockworth and Mitcheldean for mental health. People with disabilities would only still be able to use these libraries and the 4 other libraries proposed to become community-run if they are successfully established in these areas. The cabinet report has failed to show what impact the unsuccessful establishment of these community-run libraries would have on people with disabilities in those areas and in particular Newnham, Brockworth and Mitcheldean.

B – The Leader of the Council could not provide members of the council with important information on the projected cost per visit for each library under the new provision. Such projected costs are essential for the successful delivery of any business plan including a future library strategy for Gloucestershire.

C – Mitcheldean and Brockworth have active co-located partners in their libraries which both the local communities and Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries pointed out to this council. There has been no reference made to this in the consultation report.

D – The Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) indicates that the draft library strategy is considered to have both positive and negative impacts on people sharing one or more of the protected characteristics. The negative impacts outweigh the positive impact, which has not been taken into account.

E – Vector research, the company asked by this council to manage the consultation process noted several key considerations, which should be taken into account when the final decision is made. For example, “How will the council address the disproportionate impact on older women and those living in rural areas, and older people generally, who are twice as likely to expect negative impacts as a result of the implementation of the strategy?” The cabinet report has neglected to provide a proper response to this question.

F – In terms of the 1964 Public Libraries & Museums Act – the relevant matter not taken into account is the fact that findings in the consultation report shows that the main use of libraries in the county continues to be for book borrowing. The book fund (stock fund) is therefore at the heart of sustaining library provision. The comprehensiveness of book stocks is also a specific requirement of the Public Library & Museum’s Act 1964. In answer to a question at a recent cabinet meeting, the Leader of the Council confirmed that this budget will be cut by approximately 60% for the next three years (compared with the pre-cuts budget of 2008-9). Despite the importance of this book fund there is not a single reference to it in any of the reports provided by this council (This matter also contravenes 7.02.1 as unlawful in relation to the 1964 Public Libraries & Museums Act).

G – The Leader of the Council could not explain at the Cabinet the rational of why communities in his party’s Cotswold heartland were getting favoured treatment with extra hours at Stow-on-the-Wold (+19.5 hours), Chipping Campden (+12 hours) and Tetbury (+9 hours) with small populations of between 5.7K and 7K and annual visits from 25K to 30K, whilst more popular libraries elsewhere in Gloucestershire with large populations of between16K to 31K and with annual visits from 98K to 163K were getting hours dramatically cut.

H – After months of preparation the Leader of the Council was unable to answer a simple question about the projected value of the book fund at each library for the new financial year or the actual book fund per library for the past three years. This simple information should have been available as part of the business planning for the restructured library service.

I – The cabinet report failed to respond adequately to the Equality Impact Assessment (EIA), date of assessment 30th March 2012. Cabinet did not properly consider and provide adequate solutions to overcoming the negative impacts identified in the EIA. For example, where a negative impact has been identified, it does not clearly indicate how regularly re-assessment and monitoring will take place by the Development Manager and the Community & Development Officers team. It is not enough to merely state that these needs are regularly re-assessed and monitored without also providing a clear timeframe.

4. The Cabinet, Leader of the Council or Cabinet Member acted

contrary to the Cabinet Procedure Rules, the Access to Information about the County Council’s Formal Business and/or the principles of decision making set out in Part 2, Article 7.02 of the Constitution.

The above matter was contravened in the following way(s) –

7.02.1 They must be lawful

A – The decision is unlawful in relation to equalities legislation in that this council has said nothing about training volunteers about equalities. It is worth noting that Surrey library campaigners have just won a Judicial Review on the grounds that this particular council also said nothing about training volunteers about equalities.

7.02.3 They should take proper account of consultation with others

A – The Leader of the Council failed to circulate information requested by Cllr. Jeremy Hilton, member of this council, confirming the running costs for each library for financial years 2009/10, 2010/11 and 2011/12 or the projected budgets for 2012/13. This failure to provide such information prior to the cabinet decision on the future library strategy for Gloucestershire raises questions concerning transparency and openness in terms of consultation with others.

B – Despite the fact that the six week consultation was built on the findings from previous consultations undertaken by the council since September 2010, the council in receiving a number of complaints and/or adverse comments regarding the questionnaire led to requests for the questionnaire to be withdrawn in the first week. This significantly impacted upon the length of the consultation period. The consultation period should have therefore been extended accordingly or preferably given the full 12 weeks as recognised by the Gloucestershire Compact.

C – Minchinhampton, Lechlade and Mitcheldean parishes all provided information that people in those communities could not reach a main Library in 30 minutes by public transport. As a result this council changed the criteria to 30 minutes from any library. There has been no consultation on this change and no support received.

D – The deliberative workshops that formed part of the consultation process were flawed in that:

i. Each of the 8 workshop group sessions began with an introduction of the funding challenges faced by this council and the need to find savings of £114m over four years and thus contaminating the objectivity of individuals taking part in the two exercises. This would have also had significant impact on the same individuals whose final task was to then complete a copy of the consultation questionnaire.

ii. The offering of shopping vouchers (of up to £40) to ensure good attendance at each of the 8 deliberative workshops can easily be misconstrued by members of the public as bribery. Although it is fairly common in the private sector to offer people incentives like this, it is not, however, a widely standard practice for local government.

iii. The incentives offered in the form of shopping vouchers ensuring good attendance were deterministic and not randomly given in that only those individuals who attended the specific deliberative workshop and who qualified as being within a specified group could obtain such vouchers discriminating against the rest of those individuals who took part in the consultation process.

iv. The very fact that the deliberative workshop groups did not include an independent facilitator brings into question whether each of the 8 workshops were conducted in a transparent, impartial and open manner.

E – After months of deliberation, the Leader of the Council could not provide a list of the 50 places that the new public sector mobile library service would visit. This resulted to another cabinet member having to plead at a cabinet meeting for the mobile service to visit his own community.

7.02.6 They should be made in public whenever this is appropriate and practicable

A – Cabinet Members failed to provide adequate responses to supplementary questions asked by members at the cabinet meeting on Thursday 5th April 2012.

7.02.8 They should be properly reasoned and alternatives that are discounted should be identified and the reasons for their rejection explained adequately

A – (See above 3.F) – No explanation has been given to the reasons why no reference has been made to the stock fund, which is essential for the library service in the reports provided by this council.

B – The decision to cut the Home Link mobile library service is not properly reasoned. For example, in the consultation information, the Home Link mobile library service is put together with all mobiles at “low use and high cost”. This is highly misleading, as it is, in fact, according to this council’s own figures in the strategy report, one of the cheapest and most effective of all library services (This matter also contravenes 7.02.1 as unlawful in relation to equalities legislation).

Dated – 16th April 2012

MEDIA RELEASE Monday 16 APRIL 2012 by John Holland

Gloucestershire County Council announced on Friday 12 April 2012 that County Councillor Antonia Noble had not breached the council’s Code of Conduct. (Decision notice attached).

Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries’ John Holland, who made the misconduct charge against Councillor Noble on 2 June 2011, explained, “The decision is not credible.  The County Council self-regulates any misconduct charges made against councillors itself, using its own council solicitor to recommend a decision.  This cannot be impartial. “

“The fact that it took ten months for the case to be heard is a further indictment of the council’s process, and of the decision.”

County Councillor Noble, formerly the lead cabinet member for library services, led the first review of libraries which was declared illegal in the High Court in November 2011.  She stated in her Cabinet report of April 2011 to the council that “wards found to be in the top 10% of the country’s multiple deprivation indices were assessed as one of the criterion (sic) for evaluating how future library services could be provided.”

Mr Holland commented, “The implication here is that information about the needs of the poorest areas in the county was used to inform the library review.  In fact, it was not.  Even Councillor Noble states now that it was not.  Her Cabinet report statement therefore misled the council and the people of Gloucestershire.  It seems extraordinary that the council will not admit this, and uphold the charge.”

“Had we not challenged this in court and won the Judicial Review, the county’s poorest areas – Hester’s Way, Tuffley and Matson – would now be running and funding their own non-statutory libraries, or these libraries would by now be closed.”

“County Councillor Noble led a review of libraries, which, in my view, misled councillors and the public, and was declared illegal in court and cost the people of Gloucestershire hundreds of thousands of pounds. The council is apparently happy to sit on its hands rather than admit it was a huge error-strewn blunder. I call this decision a whitewash.”

He continued, “Bizarrely, the council’s misconduct process requires actual proof that a councillor intended to mislead the council.  Councillor Noble simply said that she did not intend to mislead the council and this was accepted. As misconduct processes go this beggars belief.”

Additional information

1. The County Council’s Decisions Notice was published on Friday 13 April 2012. (Please note that the council has made an error in this notice. The word “counties” should read “country’s”.)
2. This misconduct charge reached the second stage of the council’s misconduct process.  At the first stage, the assessment sub-committee, held on 11 Jan 2012, decided unanimously that this matter be passed to the Monitoring Office (ie the County Council’s head of legal services) for local investigation.
3. This is the second misconduct charge against Councillor Noble.  In April 2011 the County Council’s Standards Committee considered a complaint that Councillor Noble had both written and stated verbally in public, and on more than one occasion, that, as part of the original review of libraries, “no library needs to close”,  when in fact 5 mobile libraries, serving  120 local communities were due to close in July 2011.  The Standards Committee decided that this was not a breach of the council’s code of conduct because, and I quote, “there was confusion about the word ‘libraries’.”
4. Following the November 2011 High Court Judicial Review, in which the County Council’s library strategy was deemed unlawful, “a substantive breach of the law” and “bad government”,  Councillor Noble was replaced as lead cabinet member for libraries by Councillor Will Windsor-Clive.  She took no part in the 2012 library strategy, which did use deprivation information as a criterion, and therefore retained statutory libraries in the poorest areas of the county – Hester’s Way, Tuffley and Matson.
5. County Councillor Mark Hawthorne, leader of Gloucestershire County Council, confirmed at the cabinet meeting of 20 January 2012 that Councillor Noble was not to be involved in the new library strategy and that he would lead the project himself.
6. County Councillor Antonia Noble is the Conservative Councillor for Lansdown, Park and Warden Hill in Cheltenham, and is currently Cabinet Member for people with long term support.
7. John Holland worked in public libraries in 5 authorities for a total of 37 years, until he retired as Assistant Head of Libraries for Gloucestershire in July 2010. He is an active member of the Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries.

The Gloucestershire Echo reported this on 17 April 2012

Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries (FoGL), the campaign group which took Gloucestershire County Council (GCC) to the High Court, finds the so-called ‘new’ GCC strategy (being considered by cabinet on 5 April) to be a cynical exercise containing some highly misleading information.

FoGL initiated the Judicial Review in November 2011 which resulted in the High Court Judge declaring all GCC library plans ‘as unlawful’, referring to them as ‘a substantive breach of the law’ and ‘bad government’.  As a result GCC had to undertake a new review.

Founder and Chair of FoGL, Johanna Anderson said, “This is a deeply disappointing strategy.  With a few exceptions, GCC has duplicated the same proposals for individual libraries as the original review which was declared unlawful.  We believe that GCC has been running down its library service for a number of years, and these further destructive cuts simply continue this trend.”

Johanna also said, “The consultation process was a sham. Only one proposal was made so the public were offered no options, and the consultation questions were loaded to give the council the answers it wanted. Even then for the one and only open question about whether respondents agreed with the strategy, less than 50% said they did. Councillor Hawthorne has conveniently ignored this fact – as he has ignored many others.”

Gloucestershire’s former Assistant Head of Libraries, John Holland said, “We are delighted that Matson, Tuffley, Hester’s Way and two mobile libraries have been saved.  These were always our priority.  Without FoGL’s campaign and the court case we initiated, these libraries would have ceased to receive funding in 2011.  However, we also campaigned, as did local communities, for the retention of Minchinhampton, Mitcheldean, Brockworth and Lechlade libraries, as they effectively met GCC’s published criteria. We are disappointed that their claims have been ignored.”

“The draft strategy criteria stated that everyone should be able to travel to a ‘Main library’ by public transport within 30 minutes.  Rather than accept that, based on this criterion and proof provided, that Minchinhampton, Mitcheldean and Lechlade should retain their libraries, GCC has cynically changed the criteria specifically to exclude these libraries.  In the new strategy it is now apparently acceptable for library users to theoretically travel in 30 minutes to any library (not just a ‘Main library’); no matter how few hours it opens.”

“Similarly both Brockworth and Mitcheldean libraries meet the criteria for partnership, which we and local community groups have brought to GCCs attention, but GCC refuses to even to refer to this fact, let alone acknowledge it.”

There are 3 million visits to libraries in Gloucestershire each year, a service costing only 1% of the whole County Council’s budget. GCC states that the cuts in library provision will save the council £1.8 million which they equate to 25.7% of the Library Services’ budget. GCC neglects to say that £1.73 million has already been saved from libraries since 2009 – making the real saving nearly £3.6 million which is nearer to 40% of the library service budget.

According to its own figures the Council has already wasted £1 million on staff redundancies, mainly of professionally qualified librarians, £95,000 on losing the High Court case, and £60,000 to pay a private company, Vector, to run its consultation process.  These figures exclude the thousands of staff hours used in compiling and re-compiling reports and statistics, and may equate in total to the £1.8 million they are claiming to be saving.

John said this, “We have forwarded all the Council’s report to the Public Interest Lawyers, who won the High Court case for us against the council last year.  Because we were victorious in the court case, the Judge made the council pay all our costs.  We retain that budget should it prove necessary to use it.”

NOTES FOR THE EDITOR

Examples of misleading information, anomalies and omissions in the GCC Library Strategy reports

• Vector, the private company which both managed the consultation exercise for GCC and wrote the consultation report, asked in their report, “How will the council address the disproportionate impact on older women and those living in rural areas, and older people generally, who are twice as likely to expect negative impacts as a result of the implementation of the strategy?”  Despite the fact that GCC lost the Judicial Review on equalities legislation there is no real response to this question from GCC.  The law states that equalities must permeate the whole review.  Even more bizarrely, the council’s equality impact assessment actually states that there are “positive impacts” for elderly people, children and disabled people losing their local library. This is highly misleading.
• Vector’s report for the council also states that “consideration needs to be given to the specific concerns raised by Minchinhampton, Lechlade and Brockworth communities”.  How does GCC address these concerns?  In the case of Minchinhampton and Lechlade by changing the criteria which would have allowed them to retain statutory library status, in order to exclude them.  In the case of Brockworth (and indeed Mitcheldean) GCC completely ignores the fact that these libraries have active partnerships in place which should allow them to be retained as statutory libraries.
• Minchinhampton, Brockworth and Mitcheldean libraries are all busier than 10 other libraries which are being retained.  This includes Stow-on-the-Wold library, which, rather than being excluded from council funding, has had its opening hours increased from 20 to 40 hours per week, at an estimated cost of £100,000 a year.  The council’s original justification for the decision to invest in Stow library was the criteria that everyone should be able to travel to a ‘Main library’ by public transport within 30 minutes.  Now that the criteria has changed to travelling to any library, no matter how few hours it is open, how can the continued waste of council money at Stow be justified?
• In the report Lechlade library users have been directed to libraries in Swindon.  How can GCC, to whom Lechlade residents pay council tax, justify this?  Will GCC be providing funding to Swindon Council?
• Cllr Hawthorne describes the seven local communities who will have to fund and run their own community libraries as enthusiastic about this.  This is highly misleading, as, even the report by Vector for GCC states that there was “particular opposition to the community library proposals for Minchinhampton, Lechlade and Brockworth.”
• The council has failed to inform the people of Gloucestershire about the exact nature of the non-statutory community libraries it is proposing.  People in these communities, who currently pay council tax for their library service, will have to pay a second time to directly fund their local library, and they will also have to organise, manage and run it.  Such places will not be public libraries in the true sense of the expression, as they will be non-statutory, undemocratic and unsustainable.
• Findings in the consultation report shows that the main use of libraries in the county continues to be for book borrowing.  The book fund, or stock fund as it is known, is therefore at the heart of sustaining library provision.  The comprehensiveness of book stocks is also a specific requirement of the Public Library & Museum’s Act 1964.  In answer to a question at a recent council cabinet meeting, Cllr Hawthorne confirmed that this budget will be cut by approximately 60% for the next three years (compared with the pre-cuts budget of 2008-9).  Despite the importance of the book fund there is not a single reference to it in any of the reports provided by the council.
• Information provided in the council reports, including in the public consultation documents, refer to the low use and high cost of mobile library services.  This is highly misleading, as the council has neglected to point out that it has been systematically running down the mobile library service over the last 3 years.  This includes decreasing the frequency of visits; failing to promote the service; and failing to keep vehicles on the road because of staff availability.  As a result levels of use have fallen by 25% in one year – a telling indictment of council library management.
• The Home Link mobile library service to residential homes for elderly people etc is to be axed in the new strategy, having also been referred to as high cost and low use.  This is highly misleading, as it is, in fact, one of the cheapest and most effective of all library services.
• Page 31 of the strategy report states that “customer service staff who work in libraries are not themselves professionally trained librarians, although they are trained and managed by professional library staff”.

This is highly misleading; the implication here is that Chartered Professional Librarians directly manage all front line staff. Generally, library assistants are managed by other library assistants who are not Chartered Professional Librarians.

The approximate number of Chartered Professional Librarians remaining at this point in Gloucestershire Library Service is only 14, of whom 4 are the management team, another 3 work at shire hall, and only one is a group manager managing library assistants. The other 5 group managers, making up the rest of the county, managing library assistants are not Chartered Professional Librarians.

In fact, there is not a single post in the current library service which exclusively requires it to be held by a Chartered Professional Librarian.  The majority of such staff were made redundant in 2011 to save money.

• Many of the statistics used in the library strategy reports are inaccurate and therefore misleading.  The council has not defined the geographical catchment areas for individual libraries since 2003 (9 years ago) despite this being a criterion for the ‘new’ strategy.

The ‘active borrower’ figures provided for individual libraries are bogus, as the council’s library computer system is unable to provide actual figures for each library.

Those who will suffer the worst impacts of the cuts are being ignored.

Lechlade, a community that is having their library taken away by Gloucestershire County Council, has today shared a letter with us they have sent to Councilor Hawthorne in a last ditch attempt to be heard. They are understandably furious. This letter has been printed below with their permission.

Dear Councillor Hawthorne,

When the GCC published its first library strategy the Lechlade Civic Society was dismayed by the logical and factual errors it contained in relation to the Lechlade library.  After these anomalies were identified to the GCC, we were outraged when the final report was published still containing the same errors.  When this report was accepted by Cabinet, and subsequently rubber-stamped by Council, we provided full support to the legal challenge that resulted.  The findings by the Court, and in particular the judgement that the GCC proposals were “unlawful and amounted to bad government” resonated with our own experience.

Nevertheless, when the GCC subsequently launched its Library Strategy Consultation the Lechlade Civic Society participated fully despite having grave reservations regarding the quality of the Vector Research survey questionnaire.  Further, we continued to try to find a pragmatic solution whereby Lechlade could have a Partnership library in the future.  Such a solution was fully costed and, with the support of our neighbours in Fairford, a viable proposal was made to our County Councillor, Mr R Theodoulou.  Now, in an email from him dated 27 March 2012, we learn that “the GCC is not minded  to concede to our proposals and that the idea is too far removed from the models proposed by the GCC;  neither was the Authority convinced about the cost neutrality of the idea”.

Once again the GCC has laid bare it’s complete disdain for any “ideas” other than their own preconceived “solutions” even when the latter are based on erroneous facts and logic. We maintain that the basis of the library consultation is flawed, that a viable alternative for Lechlade has been discarded without full consideration, and that the outcome of this latest consultation is markedly the same as the original.  As such, we believe it is an affront to basic democratic values.

In light of all the evidence that supports a viable, cost-effective, Partnership Library in Lechlade, and in light of the continuing failure of GCC to tackle the question of access to a comprehensive and efficient library service for vulnerable members of the public, will the Council now please follow the proper democratic procedure of negotiating the utterly reasonable request of Fairford and Lechlade Councils to collaborate in providing a Partnership library for Lechlade?

You should be in no doubt that this request has the overwhelming support of Lechlade’s inhabitants. Only if this is done can the GCC Cabinet ask the full Council to support a Library Strategy that will not, once again, risk a full legal challenge. Localism is above all a concept of partnership in which dictatorial, unsupportable and unpopular actions have no place.

Yours sincerely,

Stewart M Bruce
Chairman, Lechlade & District Civic Society

Gloucestershire County Council yesterday released its report on the libraries consultation. Council Leader Cllr Hawthorne claims it was a “thorough” exercise. Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries maintain that it was deeply flawed and misleading. And that the results as set out by the council are equally as misleading.

It gave people the following options – “you run libraries yourself or they close”.  We raised serious concerns, which the County Council chose to ignore, about the leading and manipulative nature of the survey from the start and so are unsurprised by the results, which the County Council claims support their cuts.  We are disappointed that the County Council paid Vector Research Company £60,000 of tax payers’ money just to get the answers they wanted.

The fact remains that the plans have changed little from the cuts that were deeply unpopular and were ruled to be unlawful and a result of “bad government” by the High Court in November 2011. Cuts that prompted 16,000 people to sign our petition opposing them, and 19 other petitions, to be submitted to the county council.

The council’s claim that the consultation results (undertaken by only 0.6% of the population – significantly less than last time)  shows that people in Gloucestershire are in favour of the strategy simply does not hold water. GCC’s own report states-

• “Although some people accept that the library service has to change because of the reduction in GCC’s funding, the majority feel that the proposed cuts are too severe.”
•  the 8 deliberative workshops held by the council, were against the proposals.
•  email correspondence was “largely in opposition to the draft strategy.”
•  correspondence from the communities threatened with running their own libraries “objected strongly to the loss of statutory service”.
• less than half the people completing the open text part of the questionnaire on reactions to the strategy were in favour
• the “self-selected and online respondents were more likely to record negative or neutral impacts”

There simply is not the support for the proposed cuts that Gloucestershire County claims there to be.  The draconian attack on our library service, which costs less than 1.4% of the council’s overall budget, but which gets 3 million visits a year, remains deeply unpopular and disproportionate.

There are serious concerns raised in the consultation report that we are waiting for GCC to address.

There was high level of satisfaction expressed regarding the library staff and concerns were raised that the professionalism, helpfulness and efficiency will be threatened in the community libraries.  Gloucestershire County Council state that

“The concept of using volunteers in libraries was also supported by 82% of the people questioned in the telephone survey and generally other respondents agreed with the principle”

Gloucestershire Libraries has long used volunteers alongside library staff and we agree with the survey respondents they can enhance the service however; this is very different to expecting volunteers to fund and run services themselves.

The statistics Gloucestershire County Council quotes, in an effort to justify the cuts, need to be considered with caution, as they do not provide the full picture. For example, the consultation report shows that there was particular opposition to the community library proposals in Minchinhampton Library, Lechlade Library and Brockworth, 3 of the areas that are set to have their county library service withdrawn and replaced with the volunteer run model. There is far from the overwhelming support for the volunteer libraries that GCC would have us believe and it is disappointing that Gloucestershire County Council chose cherry pick the results in order to suggest otherwise. We ask – will these people who will be directly affected by the cuts be listened to and the proposals changed accordingly?

We also have serious concerns that the consultation report states that the cuts will have disproportionate impact on the elderly who are “twice as likely to expect negative impacts as a result of the implementation of the strategy” and we ask how this will be mitigated?

The top priority identified by the public in determining how resources should be allocated was ensuring that vulnerable groups, deprived communities and those living in remote areas can still access libraries.  Does the proposed strategy allocate resources in a way that mitigates these concerns?  We fear not.

We note that there is overwhelming support for retaining the mobile library service, a service that Gloucestershire County Council would have scrapped almost a year ago if not for our tireless campaigning.  We expect them to now be granted a reprieve.

Following the high court ruling GCC need to consider, and be at pains to show, that their planned cuts are equitable, sustainable and democratically accountable. We maintain that they still are not. We expect to see them change their proposals in response to all of these concerns.

We have passed all of the relevant paperwork on to Public Interest Lawyers who were successful in the judicial review case brought against Gloucestershire County Council.

Jo Grills has confirmed that the agenda item for libraries is:

“to take a decision as to the future Library Strategy for Gloucestershire, taking into account inter alia the feedback from the consultation on the draft Strategy and having due regard to the statutory equality needs”

The meeting will be open to the public so if you are able to attend, contact Shire Hall about ticket arrangements (Tel: 01452 425000)

It is particularly galling as this consultation is only happening because Gloucestershire County Council made such a monumental mess of the libraries review the first time around. Such a mess that a High Court ruled them to be guilty of “bad government” and a “fundamental breach of the law”. Despite plenty of warnings GCC insisted on leading the tax payers of Gloucestershire into the costly court case. They are now paying a research company £60k of our money to do a new consultation, one that has been roundly criticized, and now they are giving our money to big business – all because they would not listen. We are not against incentives to take part in the consultation but this is thoughtless and excessive. It seems unfair that Tesco and Sainsbury are benefiting from brutal cuts to our much loved library service. How many books would this money have bought? How many wages could it pay?

Gloucestershire County Council continue to make one mistake after another at our expense.

We have asked for further details regarding the format that these “indepth workshops” will take and the questions to be asked in them. We have asked

• Please can you provide us with the consultation briefing Vector received from Gloucestershire County Council?
• Please can you tell us how you are selecting groups for the “deliberative workshops”? Who has the invite gone to?
• Please can you tell us what format the workshops will take. What questions will be asked and how will the workshops be facilitated?
• Please can you also tell us how you intend to analyze the data you received before people were directed to answer “3.3″ to the 10 point scoring questions? (3.3×3 does not equal 10 so this would not have been a natural selection for people to make. Clearly this will skew the data)

For some reason both Vector Research and Gloucestershire County Council have so far failed to respond to or even acknowledge our queries. Have you attended a “workshop”? Please feel free to email your thoughts about the experience at foc.cheltlib@gmail.com

Update : the Vector representative has sent us an email refusing to answer our questions as we are not his “client” (after telling us at the roadshow in Cheltenham that he did not have time to talk to us and advising us to email him with our questions). As tax payers of Gloucestershire who are paying for the services of Vector we would argue that we ARE the clients. We are left wondering at the reason for the lack of transparency regarding the collection of data that will decide the future of our important public service!

Gloucestershire County Council have refused to answer due to “data protection issues”. a spurious reason given that we have requested no personal data and that they need to be at pains to demonstrate they are doing things properly this time. What ARE they afraid of?