Examination of witnesses (Questions 126
- 139)
TUESDAY 14 MARCH 2000
MR MALCOLM
WICKS and MR
JOHN SEYMOUR
Chairman: Mr Wicks, I apologise for the
late start. I am sure that you are aware of the problems afflicting
this building today that account for the small attendance by Members
of the Committee. Others may be able to attend later. We considered
whether to postpone our meeting but as you, as a Minister from
a Department that we do not cover, have taken the trouble to be
here today and as we have a quorum we thought we should proceed.
I am sure that the answers that you give and the information that
you will provide will be valuable. I thank you and Mr Seymour
for attending today.
Mr Fearn
126. The Merton Library Forum states that Lifelong
Learning, especially in the context of IT, is a phrase that is
being used to "bludgeon library officers into a pro-active
educative role, for which they are neither trained nor qualified".
How do you seek to convey to local authorities that that is not
the case?
(Mr Wicks) Lifelong Learning is one of the great opportunities
for libraries of different kinds. Clearly, in the 21st century
we have to make phrases and sound-bites like "the learning
century" come to life, not just for our children and young
people—after all after going through the school system many
young people are barely literate and they need a second chance—but
also for those in their 40s, 50s or early 60s who need to re-educate
and re-equip themselves. As we take workplace learning more seriously,
the challenges for many institutions, including libraries, are
immense. I would be disappointed if anyone in the library world
found that the challenge of Lifelong Learning was some kind of
mini-crisis for them. I believe it is a challenge and an opportunity.
Alongside a library's core function of maintaining a stock of
books and, increasingly, other materials, over the decades a library
has often acted as an information and advice centre. Many public
libraries see that as an exciting new role.
127. Are we ahead with IT or do we lag behind?
Are we reliant on local authorities putting in the equipment?
(Mr Wicks) I believe we are catching up fast. I visit
a number of libraries now. In Croydon we have a library which
is a model for the 21st century and alongside a collection of
books and other materials, I see an IT centre and an ability among
the staff to enable the good citizens of Croydon to learn IT.
That is happening more and more. It is important that the different
IT initiatives of government are joined up, to use an expression,
and certainly the Department's National Grid for Learning, which
is about wiring up schools, will be linked also to the public
library system. That is a good example of how all this talk about
joined-up thinking can work in practice. That is certainly our
target.
128. When is that due to happen?
(Mr Wicks) My colleague, John Seymour, will correct
me if I am wrong, but I believe our target is by the end of the
year 2002 wherever practicable. It may be that in some rural areas
there will be particular problems, but our target is the year
2002. You will be able to go into a library or a school and access
the same materials of an educational nature. I think that is very
exciting. I can imagine that librarians of a certain age, to put
it delicately, may feel threatened by some of the ICT developments,
but that is true for people of a certain age in all professions.
I am impressed by the way in which the library world is embracing
the challenge of IT. Of course, one always has to maintain a balance—maybe
some enthusiasts do not—between the new technology and the
old technology of the book or the printed word.
129. The book will never be surpassed. It is
a form of relaxation enjoyed by people, especially the elderly,
once they have retired. Perhaps IT would not be taken up by them.
We have visited quite a few libraries and the elderly population
use libraries very fully and there is usually a junior section
for children, where they have stories read to them and they can
learn to read, but IT will never really get through to the elderly
population who frequent the libraries. Is that a fact?
(Mr Wicks) I think it is a reasonable generalisation
that older people, and indeed not so old people, struggle more
with new technologies than do younger people. I slightly hesitate
to agree with you because when I visit learning centres, to use
a grand expression, for people learning IT—they are in a
remarkable number of places that people find accessible and attractive,
as I have seen one in a library and one in a football club—I
have been struck by how many older learners I see. Sometimes such
learning is prompted by the grandchildren and sometimes older
people are tutored by grandchildren. We should not be part of
a conspiracy that says that over a certain age—I shall not
name the age—somehow IT is not for that generation. I really
do not think that is true. Only on Friday in Wolverhampton at
an adult learning centre I met a gentleman who was clearly into
his early 70s who was learning IT for the first time. One of our
great concerns for opportunities in IT is how we tackle the extraordinary
problem that is relevant to the deliberations of this Committee
about adult illiteracy in this country. It is an extraordinary
fact that at the beginning of the 21st century we have to record
that one in five adults struggles with basic literacy. Your inquiry
is into public libraries which effectively are not accessible,
by definition, to a large number of adults. The Moser report on
basic skills instanced that kind of extraordinary data. One test
was that some 7 million adults in England—one in five—if
given the alphabetical index to Yellow Pages cannot locate
the page reference for plumbers. That is fairly basic. I realise
that most of us can never find the reference to reliable and inexpensive
plumbers, but that is an aside. This is a very serious indicator
of adult illiteracy. Why do I raise that in relation to IT? I
have a hunch—a hunch that is backed up by those in the adult
education world—that while it is not easy for the man of
45 to go into a library or anywhere else and say, "Help me,
I cannot read", it may become easier—because at a certain
age it is the sort of thing one can show off about—to say,
"I do not understand IT, but I would like to learn".
Maybe through that we can enable some of those adults by learning
IT also to improve their literacy.
130. How do academic libraries fit into the
scheme of things? Are they of use? Is there a cross-purpose between
them and the public libraries? Do they work well together?
(Mr Wicks) The main academic libraries are the school
library system and obviously there are challenges facing that
system relating to some issues about balance between expenditure
on books and expenditure on ICT. As you imply, there are many
other libraries in further education colleges and in our universities.
What access they grant to the wider community is a matter of policy
for the institutions themselves. My guess is that some are rather
good at that and some are not so good.
131. To whom are they responsible? Who can jump
them up if they are not so ready to do that?
(Mr Wicks) Of course, the universities are autonomous
institutions with their own governing bodies. If they are not
so good I would have thought it was the governing body or the
governing council of the university that should look at those
kinds of issues. There is much good practice in the university
sector and in the FE sector, but I feel that universities have
to try rather harder than some have done in the past to see themselves
as relatively well-resourced institutions—I do not want
to get into a quarrel with academics—often in the heart
of fairly poor communities and the resources of the library, and
other resources of the university, should be more accessible to
the community than sometimes they are. I repeat that there is
good practice to draw on.
132. We have a wonderful worldwide famous library
here. Is it used from outside or is it kept for the use of Members
of Parliament and the House of Lords?
(Mr Wicks) My responsibilities do not extend to the
library of the legislature. My guess is that it is not extensively
used. That is only my guess, but no doubt in terms of inter-library
loaning it would be used.
Chairman
133. I want to follow up one or two points raised
by Mr Fearn, particularly in relation to IT. In your memorandum
you tell us that you work closely with the Department for Culture,
Media and Sport and other organisations. Obviously, nothing can
be seamless, but taking into account the different ways of obtaining
reference information, how do you call it in? On the one hand
we have the libraries—the physical libraries with physical
books—but inside the libraries there are now all over the
place IT facilities and there are IT facilities in schools. Recently,
I attended the opening of the computer room of a primary school
in my constituency which is working with the National Grid for
Learning and Manchester University so that it is a multi-disciplinary
thing. They have access to almost all the information in the world
through that system. Then there is television. The BBC under Mr
Dyke is saying that it wants to use digital television for educational
purposes. Granada has specific plans to do the same. I think I
saw the other day that Pearsons want to do that as well. You have
the National Grid for Learning and you have the Lifelong Learning
programme. All are commendable and encouraging, but how do you
manage to get a co-ordinated focus on it?
(Mr Wicks) In terms of how the National Grid for Learning
is linking up—I have mentioned the target of 2002 in terms
of IT—that is potentially an extraordinarily good example
of joined-up policy and joined-up government. We are also working
hard, in terms of our relations with DCMS, to ensure that many
of our initiatives, particularly in the field of the post-16 year-olds,
are fully linked up with libraries. For example, the university
for industry, which will become the way in which people in business—employers
and employees—can access relevant information about industry
and business, will have centres in a whole range of different
institutions in this country, including FE colleges, for example,
but some of them already are being developed with libraries. That
is not an initiative that ignores the library. It uses the library
in the best sense of the term when appropriate. We are also developing
a number of ICT learning centres, and properly, so I believe,
in a range of different institutions so that people can gain access
in places where they feel comfortable. Again, some of those will
be in libraries. A third example of this kind of co-operation
is our need to develop better information and guidance for adults
about learning opportunities. Again, we are linking up with the
Department and those in the library world because often the appropriate
venue will be the library. In reality, it is early days but I
believe that we can demonstrate some quite effective co-operation
and co-ordination. Personally, I am very enthusiastic about this
but this Committee is not the place in which to go into detail.
As we develop our new strategy, particularly for post-16 education
and training, with the end of TECs, with the new Learning and
Skills Councils and with a real drive to tackle the basic skills
problems of adult illiteracy and innumeracy as we drive forward
on work-based learning and all of that, we have more opportunities
and we have to ask ourselves how the public will learn about those
opportunities. Again, there is no one answer to that question.
When we have a question in our mind of this kind, many of us often
turn to the library. Therefore, I think that one of the challenges
for the libraries—over the years many have risen to the
challenge—is to become a really first-class access point
for information about such kinds of learning opportunities. That
is a major role for libraries in the future. I believe we are
already working well with DCMS on this matter. The initiatives
that I have mentioned demonstrate that. As we unfold our post-16
agenda—the Learning and Skills Bill is due to come out of
the House of Lords today, so we are still legislating—we
shall want to work even more closely with libraries across the
country.
134. What about relationships with commercial
organisations? I can also ask Mr Howarth about this later. For
example, the "Photo-Me" booths, where one gets passport
photographs, are developing a network around the country in which
1,000 of their booths will be available as Internet and e-mail
centres. That is another way of going into IT. Would that be something
in which your Department or DCMS, or maybe the Department of Trade
and Industry, would be involved or would be interested in being
involved, or is that something simply to be left to the commercial
market? In a sense that would be a pity because it is another
way in.
(Mr Wicks) No, I believe we would want to work closely
with commercial interests, not least because the private library—the
collection of books and/or on computer—is in the person's
home. Increasingly, many people, young and old alike, will use
their home as their college and their university. Earlier you
mentioned the example of the primary school, Mr Kaufman, accessing
all the world's information, to put it rather grandly. Given that
it is the commercial sector that supplies those computers and
that kind of software, we have to work closely with them. As a
Department, our task is to ensure that the public are fully aware
of the range of educational and learning materials that they can
access in that way. I believe that relations with the private
sector are very important. To take a non-IT example, last year
when we had the reading year a number of private corporations
became involved. I remember going to ASDA supermarket, for example,
and taking part in a reading strategy by reading Peter Rabbit
to some young children who politely listened to me until the very
end. That is a different example of how education is both public
and private.
135. I accept that. We had that initiative in
my constituency and I found myself reading some very strange stories
to children who were more familiar with them than I was.
(Mr Wicks) I too have read How to be a Minister,
Mr Kaufman.
136. People of my generation and I think people
who are a great deal younger too, are addicted to books—the
physical object - and I hope, as Mr Fearn has said, that we shall
never lose that. You are in the learning business—that is
what you are about—and we are particularly interested in
the interplay between the different ways of getting information,
through the library. Last week, for example, I needed some fairly
recondite information, that even the brilliant Library of the
House of Commons, to which I pay tribute, as did Mr Fearn, could
not supply. I had to go on the Internet and it came up in a way
that I would not have been able to find elsewhere. When talking
about co-operation with the Department for Culture, Media and
Sport, which is the lead department with regard to libraries,
how do you relate the strategy of the library to the strategy
of the school?
(Mr Wicks) I know that there are ministerial meetings
on that subject. I believe that Mr Alan Howarth, whom you are
to interview soon, has regular meetings, for example, with schools
ministers, on a range of issues of that kind.
137. There is no "departmentalitis"
on this issue, is there? You do not resent Mr Howarth going into
the education area just as he will not resent you going into the
library area?
(Mr Wicks) No, indeed occasionally I venture into
libraries without even asking Mr Howarth, which shows the confidence
we have in each other! Seriously, how we instigate joined-up government,
to use the current phrase, is a difficult matter. I am certainly
aware of that. However, I think genuinely that our relations with
DCMS are good. David Blunkett and Chris Smith meet regularly on
a range of issues. There are meetings at the schools, arts and
libraries level. At an official level they are good too. My concern
would be not to be complacent about that. As regards our agenda
in terms of the literacy hour in primary schools right through
to my own responsibilities in terms of post-16 education and training—I
emphasise the work-based training which will become more and more
important—we need to develop yet better relations, not just
because that seems to be the right thing to do, but because our
objectives and goals in terms of a citizenship that is literate,
skilled and employable are very much the same goals.
138. It is interesting to hear you say that
because you have, in fact, touched on my next question. You talk
about training and you are from the Department for Education and
Employment. How does the New Deal fit into your Department's library
strategy?
(Mr Wicks) In terms of the New Deal and in terms of
other policies that we are developing now for young people, such
as a service that we shall call the Connexions Service, which
is a modernisation of the Careers and the Youth Service which
is about advising young people between the ages of 13 to 19 about
learning opportunities the world of work and career opportunities,
and in terms of enabling those young people to become employable
and, therefore, successful adults, we are very concerned about
young persons in the round, not just whether they can get a low
paid job down the road but how they can get good work. Therefore
attention is paid, for example, to personal appearance in terms
of clothes and so on, but also to basic skills. We take that very
seriously. One thing that staggers me at the beginning of the
21st century is that over many decades we have had a situation
in which quite a hard core of young people have managed to survive
the whole school system and come out relatively innumerate and
illiterate and certainly poorly equipped for the kind of economy
and job prospects that they face today. We have 170,000 of our
young people between the ages of 16 and 18—about one in
11 of that age group—who at this moment are not in jobs
or education or training. The association between that snapshot
and the issues about skills and literacy are bound to be fairly
close. In the Department we are concerned not just about the traditional
schools' agenda but also about the interface with the world of
work and adulthood.
Derek Wyatt
139. Perhaps I can tease you a little about
joined-up government. I am lucky in that I have 44 schools in
my constituency. I have visited 43 of them and I am visiting the
44th on Friday. I have visited all the libraries in my constituency
and I love them to death. As a former publisher what else do you
expect me to say. However, there is real trouble with the secondary
schools. They are all buying servers but the servers do not talk
to one another and the secondary schools are buying the same software
or different software but not sharing it because the servers do
not talk to one another. Would it not make sense for there to
be a definition of where the hub should be in the local community
either in the public library or in schools, so that instead of
duplicating or worse public money there is one defining architecture
in the local community?
(Mr Wicks) I take that point. I hear your report on
software. I have mentioned earlier that in terms of the National
Grid for Learning we are putting in place a structure that will
mean that whatever school or library you are in or other institution
you can access the same materials, but I hear what you say. One
of the difficulties that we have in schools' policy is the balance
that we need to strike between national direction, the role of
the local education authority and the discretion and relative
autonomy of the local school. Although to some extent it varies
from one area to another, with secondary schools, for example,
we have pursued a policy of giving more and more money to the
secondary schools to spend in ways that their governing bodies
think fit. It may be that your question indicates that despite
the advantages of that, there becomes a problem about co-ordination.
I would like to take that matter away and reflect on it with colleagues.
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