House of Commons - Culture, Media and Sport

Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Third Report

4 Strategic framework

51. Three government departments have key responsibilities for services provided by public libraries. Statutory responsibility rests with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport whose duty it is to oversee the discharge by local authorities of their functions in relation to libraries;[70] ODPM provides the majority of resources for libraries through its funding of local authorities; and DfES works with libraries in so far as they provide educational services and coordinate activities with schools.

52. At the sub-departmental level there is the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and the Advisory Council for Libraries (ACL). MLA is the non-departmental public body working as a development agency for and on behalf of museums, libraries and archives, whose role includes the distribution of some funding and advising the Government on policy and priorities for the sector. MLA states that its aims are to: "provide strategic leadership, to act as a powerful advocate, to develop capacity and to promote innovation and change."[71] ACL describes itself as "an expert group on public libraries" which provides advice to the Secretary of State and MLA on all public library matters.[72]

53. Some submissions argued that the division of responsibilities between government departments inhibits the development of public libraries. The library sector seems confused as to the division of responsibilities between each department, the MLA and ACL in relation to libraries and consequently as to where it should focus its lobbying and persuasion.[73] Some of our witnesses argued for policy responsibility for libraries within central Government to be handed over to ODPM from DCMS, thus connecting the strategic leadership with the bulk of the resources. The Society of Chief Librarians (SCL) for example complained that: "It [the Government] has hidden away its support [of libraries] in the bowels of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and it often feels as if they [libraries] have dropped off the Government's radar. The influence they can bring to bear on both larger government departments and the ODPM appears to be ineffectual and poorly supported."[74] The SCL urged the Government to: "realign libraries within government to ODPM where they would be at the heart of Local Government reflecting our role in democracy."[75] Bedfordshire County Council, for example, argued that: "Public libraries really need solid representation within the ODPM. Only in this way will local councils be encouraged to properly fund this important local service."[76]

54. Other witnesses supported the status quo provided that libraries were given sufficient priority whichever department has control and that all government departments work together to produce a co-ordinated approach. For example, Mr Bob McKee of CILIP said: "The reason I do not want to be drawn on which department [should have responsibility] is because to me the essence of public library service is where those three sets of life activities—cultural life, learning life and community life—intersect. I do not want to divide them, I do not want to have a turf war between departments, I want them to work together."[77] Nonetheless, CILIP in written evidence did complain of the current position: "There is a perception within the library community that at present DCMS carries insufficient weight and authority within Government."[78]

55. We understand the concerns of those who feel the library sector is not getting its voice heard across Government. However, we question a solution which would place libraries within a much larger government department with the potential for libraries to rank as an even lower priority, amongst its other concerns, than within DCMS. Clearly, the same problem would apply were libraries policy to move to the DfES (compounded by the same dislocation from core funding suffered within DCMS).

56. We believe that the debate about which government department has responsibility for the performance of the service as set out in the 1964 Act is largely irrelevant. The key interface is between central government and local authorities. The only benefit of uniting resources and strategic responsibility for policy would be if the funding for the library service was to be in some way ring-fenced and allocations to individual authorities influenced by performance. Such an approach would be very much against the tide of Government policy. The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, told us in 2003: "I simply do not have the levers to compel local authorities to…observe [library standards]. This is arguably an area where one thrust of policy in relation to local authorities—to free them up from a lot of red tape and the targets and the centrally determined obligations that have been the source of controversy—swims against the policy of my department exercising leverage in relation to libraries."[79]

57. We note that the Department's 2004 report on public libraries refers to a power, under the 1964 Act, for the DCMS, on behalf of the Secretary of State, "to intervene in an authority where it has concerns that an authority is in breach of the Act." The example of unwarranted and disproportionate budget cuts was given as potential grounds for concern but there was no indication of what form such an intervention might take nor whether this power had ever been used. If local authorities are the correct level of government to manage the country's library services—and we received no evidence to the contrary—then the DCMS is probably best qualified to hold overall policy responsibility and the logical source of strategy, advocacy and targeted resources with which to seek improvements.

58. We note the evidence of Ms Lyn Brown, of the Local Government Association and Newham LBC, who pointed to the range of objectives of other departments to which library services contributed and suggested that top of her wish-list would be to "persuade the other departments outside the DCMS of the value of libraries to the outcomes they want".[80] She mentioned the Department of Work and Pensions and what libraries do about getting people into employment and helping small businesses; the Home Office and how libraries contribute to tackling anti-social behaviour and truancy; and the DfES and the value libraries add to education programmes and learning for all sections of the community. While we see no case for moving responsibility for libraries to a different department, it is vital that the DCMS raises its game and acts far more effectively as a champion and advocate for libraries across Government. In the absence of levers with which directly to achieve improvements against the statutory criteria for a satisfactory service, the DCMS must establish other means to secure improvements which we discuss below.

Standards of provision

Library standards

59. As we have noted, there is a consensus over the patchy quality of library services around the country with about half being sub-standard to some degree.[81] It is important that all library services seek to improve their performance towards the standards set by the best. There is of course some tension between local authorities' responsibility for developing the library service to meet the requirements of their communities and the statutory role of central Government. The setting of common Public Library Service Standards tries to bridge this dichotomy.

60. The current top ten Public Library Service Standards with which library authorities must aim to comply relate to:

i. the proportion of households living within a specified distance of a static library;

ii. aggregate scheduled opening hours;

iii. the percentage of static libraries providing access to electronic information resources connected to the internet;

iv. the number of electronic workstations with access to the internet and the libraries catalogue;

v. dealing with requests;

vi. number of library visits;

vii. adults' satisfaction rates;

viii. children's satisfaction rates;

ix. number of books and other items acquired annually; and

x. time taken to replenish the lending stock.[82]

A Best Value Performance Indicator around compliance with these standards is being piloted currently.

61. Standards which were omitted from this streamlined set, but incorporated in those published in 2001, referred to: book issue periods; the number of books permitted to be borrowed at any one time; the number of visits to library websites; levels of success in finding a specific book or gaining information; and other types of satisfaction rates.[83]

62. Evidence to the Committee called for a range of revisions and changes to the new standards. CILIP and the Audit Commission for example have requested additional standards which cover free access to the internet (a subject we deal with later in this Report), social inclusion factors, higher standards for children's satisfaction rates, as well as some for the elderly, and standards covering skills and competencies required of staff.[84] The DCMS's evidence suggested that the ten standards were 'work in progress' which would continue to be developed and revised over time, especially "as the quality of data is improved". DCMS indicated that an important factor in setting the standards was the avoidance of additional burdens on local authorities.[85]

63. We have sympathy with those of our witnesses who wished to see the standards strengthened and the list extended. We deal with specific changes as they arise in our discussion of the issues throughout this Report but in summary we believe that the list of standards should be extended and/or revised to include measures of: the number of adult and children's book loans; the provision of material for users with disabilities; extended opening times; value for money and the three Es (efficiency, effectiveness and economy - including the balance of management and frontline staff); free access to the internet; and the quality of user consultation (and subsequent action).

Library impact measures

64. A second strand of work is the development of library "impact measures".[86] Although these measures are not yet promulgated, they do not appear to have been conceived as tools for the assessment or management of library service outcomes. DCMS wrote that: "These [impact measures] are intended to further raise the profile of library services by highlighting the contribution that they make to corporate and national agendas in the context of shared priorities of local and central government." The Department added: "Relevance to local needs will be ensured by the linking of measures drawn up by authorities to a community profile."[87] We have no idea what this means. We hope, and expect, that the library impact measures, being drawn up by the government and the library sector together, will eventually enable the DCMS and local library authorities to assess the outcomes of library service provision in a specific community, with a view to the improvement of those services and those outcomes.

65. However, it hardly seems to matter what is on the list of standards or impact measures if they are not taken seriously by local authorities. Mr Coates asserted that: "the first set of DCMS standards has had little impact…councils came to regard them as not obligatory."[88] There seems to be no evidence of any of the plans, position statements, nor standards resulting in remedial intervention by the Government, as envisaged in the 1964 Act, despite "confirmation" of suspicions within the DCMS that half the country's public libraries were below par.

66. Annual Library Plans and their successors, the Public Library Position Statements, and now the returns required under the latest Public Library Standards regime, were in practice forwarded to CIPFA and copied to DCMS. CIPFA is contracted to compile scores from the returns which are subsequently fed into a local authority's Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) undertaken by the Audit Commission. However, we understand that the weighting attributed to these scores has not been significant. DCMS on the other hand appears not to react to them at all.

67. The right standards, properly reported to Government and triggering remedial action in the event of poor performance are all crucial elements in helping to improve the quality of the service. We recommend that the DCMS reviews its system with this in mind.

Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA)

68. The other available measuring device relies on the Comprehensive Performance Assessment, referred to above, conducted by the Audit Commission and applying to local authority services as a whole. This tool is potentially effective as the Audit Commission is local government's own public spending watchdog. The Audit Commission itself, however, was careful not to overstate its importance: "I think we probably are afforded too much influence over the Library Service. There is often an expectation, for instance, that CPA as a tool of the Audit Commission will in some way contribute to the improvement of the Library Service. The CPA is a very important tool to enable local citizens to know about the state of their services but ultimately it is about weighing the pig, rather than feeding the pig."[89]

69. Despite the Audit Commission's reservations, CPA does appear to have an effect in raising standards; indeed otherwise there would be little point in conducting the work. A local authority which receives an "excellent" rating in its CPA is given more "freedoms and flexibilities" to carry on its administration released from certain administrative burdens by central Government. The consequence of an overall poor CPA assessment can result in ODPM intervention. In addition, a poor rating in the "libraries and leisure" block of services would automatically prevent a council from being assessed as "excellent" overall.

70. Therefore, CPA clearly does exert influence on where political and administrative attention is focused amongst local services. In addition, CILIP believed that: "Local decisions on the allocation of resources are shaped by the pressure to improve the Local Authority's CPA score."[90] The submission from, for example, the London Borough of Haringey confirms that the system has this effect: "The Audit Commission's judgement marked a turning point for the council, triggering it to look at a radical new way of running this vital service."[91]

71. We believe that Comprehensive Performance Assessments (CPA) have an important role to play in bridging the central/local divide with respect to library policy. CPA has the potential to connect performance against national library standards to local government decision-making over priorities; supplying something of a "stick" to augment the potential "carrots" available from the centre via the DCMS and MLA which we discuss below. The vital elements are: how the assessment of performance against the national standards feeds in to a CPA score; what other performance indicators for library services, if any, are used by the Commission; and what combined influence this has in the final result. We are aware that the Audit Commission, in concert with local government and the DCMS, is working on new proposals for the CPA scoring system.[92]

72. In evidence the Audit Commission admitted that performance information is weak at present and that there should be a move towards obtaining more useful data and more appropriate performance measures.[93] The CPA 2005 proposals were still out for consultation while this Report was being prepared but we expect the Government's response to this Report to set out the conclusions in some detail. Expectations are that the new measures will deal more prominently with indicators of performance in libraries as an important local service and we would welcome that.

73. Without seeking to pre-empt the outcome of consultation we would expect DCMS to work with ODPM and the Audit Commission to ensure that the weighting and threshold arrangements within, and across, the various "blocks" of services within the CPA take full account of the importance of library services and the statutory obligation for them to be efficient and comprehensive. We strongly recommend that the meeting of national library standards by a local authority be made a key factor in the eventual overall CPA score to establish a mutually reinforcing mechanism to link national and local responsibilities in this area which has so long been the subject of "frustration" for the Secretary of State amongst others.

Remedial action

74. It is necessary for poor performance to be tackled when it is identified. Incentives are necessary, and this has been discussed above. Our evidence pointed to the need for carrots as well as sticks and the allocation of resources by DCMS to an effective system for the assistance and encouragement of those library authorities which are assessed as performing poorly or below their realisable potential. One of the major conclusions of the work around the Government's Framework for the Future strategy was that "the fragmented nature of the libraries sector—149 library services each being delivered by a different local authority—made it difficult for key messages from the national level to filter down to local services and for examples of good practice to be spread across authorities."[94]

75. DCMS's response to the inquiry set out what it was doing in this area:

i. in 2003 the MLA was commissioned by DCMS to develop an Action Plan to achieve the Framework etc. objectives with £1 million per year for implementation over three years; and

ii. in 2004 DCMS announced a supplementary libraries improvement plan with a further £1 million per year over two years including a Peer Review programme to spread best practice, which, as MLA stated, represented a radically new approach to improvement for public libraries.[95]

76. Lord McIntosh acknowledged that that there were places where the library services had fallen behind, and said that the improvement programme was designed "specifically to go into those library authorities most in need of help to provide them with peer review assistance from librarians in very good authorities and to provide back-up assistance from people outside in such areas as marketing, design, research, book procurement and so on".[96]

77. This initiative is not unlike the prescription written by Mr Coates which was also based around peer intervention of a roving kind. He recommended to us that:

i. a small project team be created under the leadership of the responsible Minister and Audit Commission with its own staff and resources for "pump priming" reforms;

ii. this project team should be responsible for remedial action within the public library service, with the aim of helping local authorities to restore it, within three years, to a pattern of increased usage, increased lending of books, increased value for money and improved reputation; and

iii. this team would use the powers of intervention in local government available to the Government and take appropriate action, including recommending an effective political and management structure for the national library service to be adopted when remedial work is concluded.[97]

78. We believe that the MLA, the Government's Peer Review programme and the Library Improvement programme contain the seeds of an effective programme for change and should be considered for significant coordination and expansion. A team, under the auspices of the MLA, should spend time with those working in under-performing libraries understanding their particular problems, reaching a diagnosis and prescribing the solution suitable for local circumstances; including additional resources if necessary. These library services should then be revisited regularly to monitor developments and discuss difficulties; alternatively their returns against the national standards could be flagged for a period for special attention. The MLA should be used as a central database for good practice and as an ongoing contact point for those failing to reach the minimum requirements. Any roving team must be established in such a way that staff at all levels of any service in difficulties would see the team as fellow professionals providing advice, assistance and access to targeted resources, and not as an instrument of central control. We believe this, funded by DCMS, could be the most cost-effective and expeditious way of revolutionising the service.

A New Act?

79. There is an attractive argument that a new Act should be introduced to update the provisions of the 1964 legislation in order to create the right foundations for twenty-first century library services along the lines set out in Framework for the Future and recommended in this Report. The role a library plays in its community in 2005, the services it provides, and the range of media it must embrace are not comparable with circumstances existing in 1964. In addition there is need for more clarity as to what constitutes a "comprehensive and efficient" service and what action will be taken when this criterion is not met.

80. As the Society of Chief Librarians (SCL) maintained: "Public Library Authorities are legally bound to provide a public library service that is 'comprehensive, efficient and modern' but there is continuing ambiguity as to what this means in practice."[98] The Audit Commission echoed these sentiments in its submission: "The legislative framework for library services continues to lack clarity in some respects. There is still ambiguity over what constitutes 'comprehensive and efficient' in the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964."[99] We acknowledge the useful steps taken by the Government in this area with its Framework for the Future strategy but more needs to be done. We recommend that the DCMS reviews the case for new legislation to govern public libraries, standards and framework, and report to this Committee on its conclusions in its reply to this Report.

70 Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964, Section 1 Back

71 MLA website: www.mla.gov.uk Back

72 DCMS website: www.culture.gov.uk/libraries_and_communities Back

73 See for examples Ev 20, Q 35; Ev 22, Q 38; Ev 107 Back

74 Ev 33 Back

75 Ev 33 Back

76 Ev 108 Back

77 Ev 42, Q 73 Back

78 Ev 31 Back

79 Second Report, 2003-04, DCMS Annual Report: etc., HC 74 Q 49 Back

80 Ev 78, Q 156 Back

81 For example Ev 45 Back