Memorandum submitted by Manchester City
Council
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 A key role of the library service in
Manchester is to contribute to building sustainable communities.
Our library service includes 22 district libraries, a city-wide
mobile service and Manchester Central Library. We are fortunate
to run Manchester's Central Library which provides an important
reference and information facility for the region and attracts
people from the rest of the country and abroad. The Central Library
should be seen as part of the library service as a whole and in
the context of the contribution that the service can make to our
vision of Manchester as a successful international city with sustainable
communities where people chose to live. Our aim is a modern and
appropriately funded library service in which the Central Library,
as a regional facility, compliments the role of libraries in neighbourhoods
in closing the social exclusion gap.
1.2 There has been public concern locally
and nationally (especially nationally) about the rumoured loss
of specialist facilities at Manchester Central Library, eg the
Henry Watson Music Library. There are no proposals, and there
never have been proposals, to withdraw services from the Central
Library. The Henry Watson Music Library will not close. The position
is that we expect to increase spending on libraries and threatres
by £312,000 (2.1 per cent) next year but to balance the budget
after the effects of inflation efficiency savings of £443,000
will be required in the library service next year. The impact
on the Central Library is expected to be £143,000. This will
be achieved through good management. In the context of a budget
of £12.9 million for the library service as a whole and £6.7
million for the Central Library, these are the sort of efficiency
savings that any well managed organisation would expect to achieve
by annually reviewing costs on the assumption that efficiency
savings will be found and innovations introduced to make the service
more relevant to the needs of its customers.
1.3 The speculation about the Central Library
is obscuring the wider issues. The peformance of our library service
is strong. This is a well-used service with over 200,000 registered
members and, every year, over 3 million visits, over 2 million
items borrowed and over 1 million information enquiries. On all
the main indicators (book-lending per head of population, visitors
per thousand population, reservations supplied within 15 days)
we out-perform other core cities. The exception is cost. The service
is too expensive. Spend per head on libraries in Manchester is
£20.94 compared to a core city average of £14.77 (audited
1997-98 figures).
1.4 The key questions are—does this
represent best value for Mancheser people; and does it adequately
recognise the key role of culture as an economic generator in
Manchester as a major regional centre? The high cost has led us
to bring forward a fundamental review of our library service in
the first year of our five year programme of best value reviews.
This review is already underway. It will fundamentally
challenge the purpose of the service as a whole and challenge
the means of achieving that purpose—as required by the Government's
Best Value legislation. The review, as with all of our Best Value
reviews, has to address how the service can most effectively contribute
to the priorities for Manchester.
1.5 We believe that the service can and
does contribute to Manchester's priorities by providing excluded
communities with access to information and knowledge, but also
through the role of the Central Library in promoting the economic
competitiveness of the city centre as part of a dynamic cultural
infrastructure and as an important regional resource. The Council
takes its role in providing a regional reference and information
facility through the Central Library very seriously. This is reflected
in comparisons between the performance of our Central Library
with those in other core cities (see 3.3 below). This is also
demonstrated by our continued commitment to Central Library and
why there are no proposals to withdraw any of the specialist services
currently provided.
2. PURPOSE OF
THE LIBRARY
SERVICE
2.1 A major role of libraries remains and
will continue to be to lend books and other materials for entertainment
and information. But the role of libraries in providing information
and access to knowledge is increasing. The national trend of falling
book loans and increasing use for reference and information is
mirrored in Manchester. In addition to providing access to information
and knowledge, the role is also to provide individuals and communities
with the skills to access that information and knowledge. This
is particularly important to Manchester. We have been relatively
successful in creating jobs and attracting investment to the city.
But unemployment within the city is 9 per cent against the UK
average of 4 per cent and the critical issue is to ensure that
local people gain the skills to benefit from the knowledge-based
industries.
2.2 In Manchester our focus is on libraries
supporting our goal of raising educational attainment. A key factor
in people's decisions to chose to live in Manchester (and to stay
when they can afford to leave) is the quality of education. The
library service has a key role in supporting schools by promoting
education outside of the school context, ie outside school hours
and outside school ages. Libraries can support parents with materials
for pre-school education. They can provide facilities and information
for lifelong learning. They can provide equipment, materials and
space for homework clubs. For example, Manchester homework centres
in libraries have proved very popular. Young people are choosing
to attend outside school hours. These centres are beginning to
demonstarate improved educational attainment and schools are reporting
evidence of a positive impact.
2.3 Libraries are also playing an essential
role in closing the gap between the most deprived and other neighbourhoods
through Information and Communication Technology (ICT). If we
are to reduce social exclusion we must make the transition into
the information age without leaving excluded communities behind.
Following the Prime Minister's lead—"I believe IT is
important in tackling social exclusion because anyone can walk
into a library, sit down at a screen and start tapping away—at
absolutely no cost" (Libraries Entering the Information Age:
the Prime Minister June 1999). Manchester is leading the Government's
drive for public access to ICT through libraries. For example,
our target for last year was 200 computers in Manchester libraries.
By July we had 228. Last year we provided 128,000 free computer
sessions in Manchester. This is not a marginal service—this
is central to our objectives for the city. Children with access
to computers at home do better at school. Manchester is using
its libraries to close the gap between those with and those without
computers at home.
2.4 The free use of ICT in libraries to
close the gap between the most deprived and other areas is more
important in Manchester than elsewhere. Manchester is third on
the DETR Index of Local Deprivation. Recognising that deprivation
is more concentrated in smaller areas than in the past, Manchester
is at the forefront of government area-based initiatives, eg New
Deal for Communities, Health Action Zones, Education Action Zones,
SRB, Sure Start, etc. Manchester is also focusing mainstream services
on areas through best value and new democratic structures. We
are publishing ward performance plans for every ward in the city
and developing Ward Service Co-ordination Groups to deliver Best
Value locally. Making the library service part of these joined
up local solutions to social exclusion leads us to examine wider
questions about the role of a library in a neighbourhood—the
need for a separate building; whether libraries would be better
provided in and through schools; what other opportunities ae there
to improve service provision through shared accommodation with
other facilities/services such as housing offices; the role of
the mobile service; and the need for virtual libraries.
2.5 This movement in the role of libraries
is not exclusively capital-led. It is essential to have well-motivated,
well-trained staff who can act as information professionals able
to pass on skills at using ICT to some of the most deprived communities
in the country. Library staff are having to develop skills that
cross organisational boundaries, for example, by directly supporting
the national curriculum. We believe that Best Value will increasingly
require librarians to challenge their traditional roles and to
move into more sophisticated roles as providers of information
and knowledge; to become quasi-teachers within communities.
2.6 These are not abstract considerations.
They are essential to the success of local communities in cities
like Manchester. Libraries can, for example, provide space for
information, support and networking for local community and voluntary
groups. They also provide the means for joined-up governement.
As the Government's "Information Age" strategy rolls
out, the public will be able to access a whole range of public
services (local and national) through the Internet. Free Internet
access-points in libraries can bring these benefits to excluded
communities. Where such space is not available, the city-wide
mobile service provides a regular, frequent and essential community
service direct to the public in their own neighbourhoods, including
a doorstop service to elderly and visually impaired people.
2.7 Manchester has shown, through the Moss
Side Millennium Power House, how libraries can be integrated with
other services. This is recognised as an example of good practice
in the DCMS Guidance "Libraries for All; Social
Inclusion in Public Libraries":
"The Powerhouse is a new youth centre being
developed in the Moss Side area of Manchester. It will provide
a library and information centre (which will also provide careers
advice) together with an ICT suite, music and arts studios, fitness
centre, sports hall and performance area, cafe, creche and residential
wing. This has involved the library service in a partnership approach
with other Council services, private companies and community groups.
A young people's librarian has been recruited who is also trained
in youth work. The aim is to involve the local community in stock
selection and marketing the library facilities."
2.8 For examples of libraries as part of
joined-up local solutions, such as the Powerhouse, to become the
norm will require a strategic integration of the library service
with the use of mainstream resources for services such as education
and social services. This is a challenge for central as well as
local government. We need more cross-cutting indicators of success
focused on outcomes in communities and we need budgets that can
be allocated against the key policy objectives of central and
local government, rather than narrowly focused departmental programmes.
3. MANCHESTER
CENTRAL LIBRARY:
A REGIONAL REFERENCE
LIBRARY
3.1 Manchester Central Library is an important
part of the city's cultural infrastructure. It is a key asset
for the city. The Central Library, which also houses the Library
Theatre, forms part of the dynamic cultural infrastructure of
the city along with our new art gallery, museums, the Bridgewater
Hall, the Conference Centre, etc.
3.2 The Central Library provides a breadth
and depth of services of regional significance. It houses significant
stocks in language and literature, social sciences, scientific
and technical information, a music library, a European Information
unit, a local studies and archives unit, a commercial library,
Chinese Library and a Visually Impaired Unit. It will continue
to maintain these regional resources in a more cost effective
way.
3.3 The importance which Manchester places
on maintaining its Central Library as part of the success of the
city centre is reflected in comparisons with the other six core
cities. We have the second highest number of visits per thousand
(6,678 in 1998-99 after Newcastle 7,007) and the highest book
stock per thousand (4,613 against an average of 2,046 in 1998-99).
But we also have the highest spend per head on libraries (£20.94
in 1997-98 against an average of £14.77).
3.4 The customer base of the library is
effected by:
— approximately 30K students who live
in the city and have free access to the library;
— other students who live outside of
the city but who attend universities in and around the city and
make use of the Central Library;
— a daily influx of tens of thousands
of people who work in the city;
— referrals from surrounding local
authorities. Manchester is at the heart of ten authorities within
Greater Manchester. The largest book stock held by any of the
other nine is one-quarter of the size of the stock held by Manchester;
and
— the needs of the city centre business
community met by the commercial library and the European Information
Unit.
3.5 The majority of factors in the calculation
of the Authority's needs for SSA purposes are population based,
with only a small adjustment for commuters. Little account is
taken of the needs of the regional centre to provide and maintain
the infrastructure to support business, university and commercial
interests.
3.6 The provision of a library service used
by a population much larger than the one which pays Council Taxes
for the service and which is used for SSA/RSG calculations, also
impacts on a range of other essential services, such as highway
maintenance, street cleansing, leisure and recreational facilities
and licensing. This is a challenge faced by other major cities
but it is particularly acute in cities such as Manchester and
Newcastle, where the administrative boundaries are drawn tightly
thereby excluding, with very few exceptions, affluent suburbs
and including mainly inner city areas with severe social and economic
problems. This leads to Manchester having the lowest tax base
of any major city in the country. 94 per cent of its dwellings
are in Council Tax bands A-C, with 71 per cent in band A. In addition
to a low tax base, the narrow administrative boundaries also increase
access to services such as the Central Library from other districts.
Two of the neighbouring authorities have boundaries within one
mile of the city centre. A further two are within three miles
of the centre.
3.7 Drawing on CIPFA data for 1998-99, we
estimate the element of cost to the Council of the Central Library
operating in a regional context to be £4.2 million compared
to an estimated SSA for this provision of £3.4 million. The
current system acts as a disincentive to the development of the
library service as the regional/national role is not effectively
recognised in the current system of local government finance.
Mainstream funding of capital investment in library facilities
is extremely restricted. Furthermore, additional funding obtained
from sources external to local government for new cultural facilities,
whilst welcome, does not fully exploit the potential of existing
facilities and can draw revenue funding away from existing services.
A more coherent strategic overview for securing investment in
cultural facilities is required.
4. CONCLUSION
4.1 The trend is for libraries to be used
less for lending books and more for access to information and
knowledge. This increases the pressure on central libraries as
regional reference services but also opens up new opportunities
for libraries to include some of the most deprived communities
in the use of ICT for economic success and social cohesion. The
role of the Central Library as a regional resource and as part
of the rich cultural infrastructure of the city centre should
not been seen as conflicting with the role of libraries in improving
the quality of life in the communities that surround the city
centre. The library service has a role in regenerating both the
centre and the inner areas of the city. They are therefore at
the heart of both city council and government policy.
4.2 The challenges and opportunities are
to redefine what a library as a space for information and support
within communities can achieve; to provide library services through
space shared with other services; to join up the work of librarians
to other key services, especially schools; and to use ICT to attract
and engage young people in personal development.
4.3 The challenge for libraries at the centre
of the major cities is to find ways for funding and running them
that are more appropriate to how they are used. The City Council
has made previous submissions to government on the failure of
the present system of local government finance to reflect the
role of the city as the regional centre. These issues will be/have
been raised with government as part of the current review of the
SSA system.
4.4 In Manchester we have embraced the Government's
Best Value agenda. We are determined to challenge the way in which
public services, including the library service, are delivered
and the relationship between those services and people as service
users and as citizens. We are joining up Best Value across the
public sector. Our aim of a modern appropriately funded library
service in which the Central Library, as a successful regional
facility, compliments the role of local libraries in building
sustainable communities requires other sectors and levels of government
to reassess how they can contribute. This will need to include
other local authorities on a sub-regional basis, regional government
and the higher education institutions amongst others.
4.5 A more strategic approach, perhaps through
cultural development plans, at both national and local level,
would support the sort of work we are already doing to place the
library service more explicitly at the heart of the social and
economic regeneration of cities. A strategic cultural development
plan would provide a more transparent relationship between needs
and resources and enable greater integration between cultural
services such as libraries and the main blocks of public spending—and
should involve several government departments.
February 2000
| 
