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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 81-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE CULTURE, MEDIA AND SPORT COMMITTEE
Tuesday 30 November 2004 DR BOB MCKEE, MS MARGARET HAINES and MS CATHERINE BLANSHARD MR DAVID CURTIS and MS HELEN DEAN MR BILL MACNAUGHT Evidence heard in Public Questions 41 - 151
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Tuesday 30 November 2004 Members present Sir Gerald Kaufman, in the Chair Chris Bryant Mr Frank Doran Mr Adrian Flook Alan Keen Rosemary McKenna Ms Debra Shipley Derek Wyatt ________________ Memorandum submitted by Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals and Society of Chief Librarians Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Dr Bob McKee, Chief Executive, and Ms Margaret Haines, President, Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, and Ms Catherine Blanshard, President, Society of Chief Librarians, examined.
Chairman: Ladies and Gentleman, thank you very much indeed for coming to see us. I am going to call on Rosemary McKenna to start the questioning. Q41 Rosemary McKenna: Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I will start the way I did last week by asking each of the witnesses: what one thing would you like to say to this Committee to put in the report that would have an impact on library provision? Dr McKee: May I start, Chairman? Bob McKee from CILIP. Rosemary knows that I think there are four things, not one thing. One is being absolutely clear about the purpose of public libraries: what are they for, what are the outcomes expected? Once we get that right, it is about ensuring we have the right people in place, the right resources in place and the right regulations in place. So I would like to see all four addressed as a package. Ms Blanshard: Catherine Blanshard. I am president of SCL and also Chief Librarian Leeds. For me, as Bob said, it is very much about understanding the value that libraries add. It is around understanding that we provide the key to knowledge. It is around really our role in enabling people to engage with democracy. So a full understanding of that and all of the things that go with that in terms of pulling things together, getting action to get people to understand that at government level and at local government level and a real understanding of our position underpinning a lot of the key agendas of today. Ms Haines: I am Maggie Haines. I am President of CILIP, I am also Director of Information Services and Systems at Kings College, London, so a bit of an anomaly in that I am not a chief executive of a public library, but I was involved, when I was Chief Executive at the Library and Information Commission, with public libraries and for much of The People's Network. For me there is a phrase in a poem by Ted Hughes that Matthew Evans had commissioned for that report which is all about what public libraries should be, and it is about unlocking opportunities really, providing access to information and knowledge, providing support for learning, providing access to literature and therefore stimulating creativity and imagination and also providing an open door to a very welcoming community space. That is what I would like to see in the report. Q42 Rosemary McKenna: What we have seen so far is very strong evidence that there is a huge range of difference in the provision across the country and that some libraries are incredibly successful, some libraries have seized opportunities to move things forward and yet others are failing. Is that the responsibility of government, or is it the responsibility of local government? Where do you think blame should lie? Dr McKee: I do not think it is about blame, I think it is about looking at a partnership between central government and local government, and it is probably about a number of things. It is about local government being absolutely sure that they are using their resources in the most effective way (and work is being done through the Framework for the Future action plan to look at that), it is about central government giving a lead, particularly a lead in terms of the way that libraries contribute to the broad policy agenda, culture, but also education, social and community policy, and so on. It is also about getting the regulatory framework of libraries right, the standards and the way that local authorities are assessed through the CPA, because through the standards and through the CPA we can get that consistency of quality that we are looking for. Ms Blanshard: I think that the issue is again back to understanding what libraries are about and the value that they add. Libraries are very much there understanding the agenda that both local and central government have signed up to and the shared priorities. So, whether it be building stronger and safer communities, economic viability, staying healthy, capacity building, we have a key role in all of those. I think different levels of performance are around different levels of understanding and engagement in that. It is down to us not to see libraries very simply and with a frame around them; it is being able to understand libraries having this cross cutting agenda, and those authorities who understand that are moving forward. I would say that those authorities who are at the beginning of that understanding are beginning to move forward, and what the framework helps us to do is to build those skills within the professions and across the professions, to build that role, so that libraries are much more than issuers of books, they are actually underpinning democracy. Ms Haines: I think Catherine has made an important point: libraries are run by professionals, and I think the library professionals that are representative of CILIP have a responsibility in the better performing authorities to share their expertise and good practice with others in other authorities and, indeed, to share practice from other sectors, whether it is the academic sector or the health sector, in order to improve performance across the board. We are committed professionals. We have a responsibility to develop each other as professionals. Q43 Rosemary McKenna: I used to Chair CILIP in Scotland, and one of the things that I want to ask you is: do you do what was available to CILIP, which was to look at best practice and to look at pilot projects and to fund pilot projects which could then be used as best practice across the country? Dr McKee: We do not fund them, but I think the two organisations here, the Society of Chief Librarians and CILIP, part of our core purpose is about professional development and sharing good practice across our networks, which, as you know, are UK wide. Q44 Rosemary McKenna: But you do not fund any projects? Dr McKee: No, we are not resourced to do that. We are resourced to develop the personal skills, competences and knowledge of our members, and Catherine's organisation is really a forum for local government chief officers. The resources have to come from central or local government or some other public organisations. Ms Haines: But we do have an influencing role. I think one of the things that CILIP would say, particularly in research, we want to improve the evidence base for our own profession, and we are engaging in dialogue with research funders, particularly the Research Council, to say there are some key questions that really need to be answered about public libraries and all libraries, and our job, I think, is to suggest those key questions to the right funders. Ms Blanshard: The Society of Chief Librarians did fund training, and it actually funded a lot in kind, with a lot of senior chief librarians who have been in post developing both a mentoring system and a leadership course, and that leadership course took potential future heads of service away and worked on real live activities, both budget setting or management issues. That idea has now been taken up in the framework through the leadership programme and is now going to become core, and that is going to be funded as part of the framework. As well we are working with IDA on peer reviews, and that is working extremely well in the pilot. We have just done a few libraries, and another six libraries are going to be helped, where, again, successful staff within authorities are going to work. It is not just chief librarians, it is the staff who have had that chance to grow and to share that experience within a local authority. Q45 Rosemary McKenna: I should make it clear that the money did come from the Scottish Executive, and it was a small quota at the beginning but eventually it was so successful it has increased year on year because it has worked in disseminating best practice. Dr McKee: One of the things we would want to do at CILIP is take the sort of initiatives Catherine is talking about and build them into our framework of accreditation and qualification, and that would give them national relevance. Ms Haines: They are piloting those. In terms of training we are piloting with regions and with specific authorities the framework of qualifications, which, as Catherine has mentioned, is based on a mentoring programme and based on peer support and the spread of good practice and also encouraging members of the profession to be reflective in their practice and demonstrate what they have learned from their own experiences but also through the training and continued professional development that they have taken forward. Q46 Rosemary McKenna: One point you made in the evidence from CILIP and your recommendations about standards - and I think all the recommendations are excellent - that is really concerning is the fact that it would appear that, despite the fact that The People's Network was provided with joint funding and has rolled out through the country, there are still some authorities who are charging for access to The People's Network - which really cuts across the whole purpose of it - which was to make sure that there was free access to the internet for people? Dr McKee: We agree absolutely with that. The purpose behind "The People's Network" was to in some way bridge the digital divide so that those people who do not have access at home, at school or at work to that technology and those opportunities can get that access through the public library service. If you charge at the point of use that completely cuts across that policy, which is why we are very keen to see the new public library service standard insist that internet access be free at the point of use. Ms Blanshard: I would strongly support that. Those authorities where the library service has embedded itself as fundamental to the Government that are the way to enable people to access democratic rights, opportunity and information and grow their own knowledge, are not charging and that must be what we should aim for. Ms Haines: Again, from my experience when I was at the Library Information Commission, our vision was "free at the point of access" when we developed the new library for them. Q47 Mr Flook: The Bourdillon Standards from the early 1960s say that the number of qualified librarians should be at 40%. I am told it is currently at 24%. First of all, do those standards still matter, and, if they do, is the shortage down to a lack of money or a lack of actual people going through qualifications to become librarians? Dr McKee: There are two questions there, I think. The skill mix that is required in the public library service this century is different from the skill mix that was required in the 1960s. The concept of having a view of how the work force should be made up with a percentage of people with library and information skills, or management skills, or marketing skills, or financial skills, or customer service skills is absolutely right, but I think maybe the balances are different now. So we would not stick to 40% or another figure, we would want to see a balanced work force that relates to the needs of the local community, but I think there are some issues in terms of that work force. It is difficult to recruit and retain in the public library service because the pay and status of library staff in the public library sector is, frankly, lower than in other competitive sectors - the corporate sector or the academic or health sector - so there are issues around pay and status. There are issues around the diversity of the work force. It does not reflect the diversity of society, particularly at professional and managerial level. There are issues around building leadership capacity. All those issues, but I think the starting point is a positive one in the sense that there are lots of positive things to say about the public library work force. It is very committed, it is trusted by local communities, it has shown itself capable of delivering, and it has shown itself very capable of change when that change is well supported, and The People's Network and the training with The People's Network is a good illustration of that. What we have to do from our point of view as CILIP with our frame work of qualifications, from SCL's point of view as the practitioners, from the Government's point of view and from the point of view of other interested agencies like museums, like the Archives Council and the new Life Long Learning Sector Skills Council, we need to get together, identify what the key issues are, as I have just tried to outline, and then address them, but I think the foundation stones to build the work force of the future are in place. Q48 Mr Flook: I am also told that there is a demographic problem. There are a lot of librarians roughly your age group, a number sub‑thirty and not many in their thirties and forties. Is that right? Dr McKee: Yes, you are right, there is a greying of the profession, an ash-blonding of the profession! The issue about growing our own, if you look at library assistants that is not true. There is a real range both in age and in cultural ethnic diversity, disability, and so on. The trick is to take our library assistants and help them to grow to reach their capabilities. Some of them will be supervisors, managers, professionals, and a lot of our new qualifications frame work in partnership with the practitioners is about accrediting work-based training to enable that to happen. So it is very much about growing our own. Ms Haines: In fact we have in our new framework of qualifications that CILIP is launching this year a certification scheme, which is new, which is providing a qualification for what might have been termed in the past "non professionals", but for library assistants to help them grow, and they can move on from that into a formal chartership programme that most professionals go through. So we are allowing that movement up the career ladder route with our qualifications and accreditation programmes. Also we are doing quite a lot to market the profession. It is an exciting profession to be in - in a knowledge-based society to be someone who works with information and knowledge and opens those doors for people - and I think we have done quite a lot to market the profession to young graduates or young "about to be graduates" in universities. I have in my university quite a lot of interest in a lot of the different roles that we have, whether it is freedom of information, support, record management, whether it is in web management. There are a lot of exciting roles that I think the younger generation are interested in pursuing and we need to make it easier for them come into the profession. Ms Blanshard: From a practitioner point of view I think Bob is exactly right: the People's Network has changed our work force significantly. We have changed our age profile. We have changed our gender profile. We have been able to attract people from a range of different communities within the city. That is just Leeds, but I think that is replicated in lots of other places. I think the development of the progression within the service is crucial, and also a broadening of roles. The other thing is increasing opening hours. The fact that we have in many authorities been able to increase opening hours as a result of both national library standards and framework and focus, particularly on interest of what the community want, has enabled us to be able to provide more full‑time roles, and that has brought both more men, which was very much a need within a lot of library authorities, and also younger people, and they are staying and they are growing and they are bringing different skills there. There is a really strong raft of marketing skills, a really strong raft of business focus skills. I think the generation of today also wants to put things back into the community and a lot of young people are very interested in the public library for that role. Also an examiner at Manchester University where the library school there is seeing quite a lot of what is coming forward and where the future is, and I think it is really exciting. Q49 Mr Flook: You mentioned a lot about technology and modern ways of doing things. Do books still count? You are going to say "Yes"? Ms Haines: Of course, yes. Q50 Mr Flook: But do they count less than they did five years ago? Do you expect that to continue its progress in five more years' time? Then the worry is, of course, if everyone does have a computer at home, will some of them need to go to the library to go away because people will sit at home? Dr McKee: No, the two work together. You said in your inquiry four years ago that you did not want the investment in technology to rebound against investment in books. I think within the library community the two are seen as complementary. Books will always be at the heart of the offer that public libraries make. Ms Blanshard: I think 71% of authorities have added more stock in the last two years as a result of the National Library Standard, so there is a clear position to stop going on. I think we should understand what we are there for, which is about giving access to knowledge, and we want to exploit all approaches. Books are important, the information on the internet is important, pamphlets, leaflets, they are all important, and it is being able to give people the skills to access that. I think it will be a long time before we take a computer to bed with us to read. I think books have their place, they have their role. It should not be one or the other ‑ we are certainly not seeing it like that ‑ but our role is to get the best information. One of the big skills is showing how mediums differ or express their information differently in teaching people the skills of being able to use all of those different materials. That is quite a trick with children, because obviously for them maybe the idea is the pull and the call, but what we are finding is that we are able to mix the media, and that is the important thing. They will go home happily with a book, they will have been in the library playing and accessing information on the computer, but they will go home with a much more rounded piece of information. Ms Haines: If you look at the Tavistock evaluation in the People's Network, one of the findings they had was that even people who had computers at home liked coming into the public library because they got assistance and support in using the internet and other resources much more effectively, so they appreciated that personal support that they were getting from the library staff. Q51 Derek Wyatt: Part of my constituency is semi‑rural. I wondered whether it is possible for the street corner university to survive in rural areas where the library service has gone right to the bottom of serving the rural community? Dr McKee: I would like to think that is not the case, Chairman. The authority I used to work in, Solihull, is 70% rural, surprisingly, and it is perfectly possible with small community libraries and with computer networks to deliver a service in a small rural village that can link into the resources of the main central library, but maybe Catherine, as a practitioner, has more to say about this issue. Ms Blanshard: I think one has to look at what the needs of that community are. In a lot of our rural communities we have opened the library on a Sunday, for example, and we are getting families in, and it is very much becoming a proper library as the heart of the community. It is the place people go together as a family group or it is a place people go because they feel safe or they want to meet people. I would say we can improve the service of smaller rural libraries by, as Bob says, the network. What we have tried to do is link up and provide much more professional support in those libraries through having access to all the resources of all the libraries and information sources across the world, because we have got people in the local library with the skills to access that backed up by more experience - maybe staff in a large central library like Leeds - and I know that is happening in a number of other authorities. It is the fact that it is no longer a little isolated island in a rural village, which it used to be, visited once a week by a van bringing in books which were the renewals or reservations. It is now booked up from part of a wide network. If that network is used properly, that library should suddenly blossom and grow and be a core part of our community. Q52 Derek Wyatt: My major brewer, Shepherd and Neame, when each rural post office is closed or when we cannot actually get Broadband through our BT exchange because there are not enough subscribers, they have offered through their pubs a post office and a Broadband system on wireless. Are there any pubs that offer internet access to the library system that you are aware of? Have you developed anything with the pub as the centre of the rural community, which it often is? Dr McKee: I am wholly in favour of that, Chairman. I remember we had this discussion about books in pubs in Newcastle under Lyne four years ago with your then Committee. The pub is at the heart of the community, so is the library, so is the community centre, so is the school, so is the church. We all need to work together. Q53 Derek Wyatt: But are there any examples anywhere‑‑‑ Dr McKee: I do not know. Q54 Derek Wyatt: ‑‑‑where the pub has been used to put the computers in? Ms Blanshard: I think there is one, but I would need to research where it is. I thought there was one on the south coast, but I will find out. Ms Haines: I can tell you one thing, that in the student pubs at my university they have full access to all the electronic resources in the library. Dr McKee: We would be happy to talk to the directors of Shepherd and Neame, if you like, to broker that! Q55 Derek Wyatt: I think Jonathan Neame would be very interested. Dr McKee: Seriously? Q56 Derek Wyatt: He is the Chief Executive. There are three government departments that seem to have some sway over libraries: the ODPM, the Department for Education and the Department for Culture. Is this a sensible way of harvesting our library system, and do you think it ought to come under one? Dr McKee: It is a fascinating question. If you go to the purpose of public libraries and work it through - as Catherine has already said, access to knowledge, exploring knowledge and you look at the outcomes of that - you can find those out in cultural terms, or educational terms, or social and community terms. So the contribution that the public library service makes is properly the business of ODPM and DFES as much as DCMS. Frankly, the important thing, and I hate to use the phrase "joined up", but it is about joined up working that has real outcomes between those three departments. I do not mind which one it is in; I want the three to work together. Q57 Derek Wyatt: You would like one head department? Dr McKee: I would like a lead department, and we have got one, so let's work with it. I would like partnership and I would like some clear outcomes and not just people talking to each other. Q58 Chairman: If there is a head department, which should it be? Dr McKee: I would not want to be drawn on that, Chair. Ms Haines: Can I add also that there are other departments than the three that you have named that have a responsibility for libraries, the DTI and Department of Health as well. I think it is important that when you look at how public libraries support the wider agenda, these other departments also need to be engaged with public libraries. So, whichever is the lead department, it needs to be quite a strong advocate for pushing the role of public libraries in the other departments' agendas. I think some work has already been done with the Department of Health and public libraries, and libraries are in health centres, and that is a very positive way forward. Personally I would like to see that kind of joined up thinking in relation to procurement and licensing around electronic resources across the departments, across the Department of Health, Education and Skills and DCMS. I think we could make some efficiency savings that way. Ms Blanshard: I would like to add that if we go back to libraries and what value they add, as Bob says, it is around Safer and Stronger Communities, it is around Staying Healthy, it is around Capacity Building, it is around Economic Viability. We matter to everybody. What we could do is spend a lot of time deciding who should be the lead department. What I would like is that lead department to spend its time brokering those deals and getting action, because that is where the focus should be. Q59 Chairman: One of the things that I have noticed most is that our school libraries have declined, yet we have wonderful computer suites and on‑line information by comparison. Are there any examples of which you can tell me where a public library has worked with a school system to be one and the same thing? It may have the server system or it may have the books, but is there one that does both? Ms Blanshard: Could you amplify? Q60 Chairman: We have school libraries, which certainly in my patch are pretty poorly resourced, although we have good computer systems in our schools now, which we did not have ten years ago. Is there a system where a public library runs, or cooperates, or is part of the same system for the school libraries so that you are talking the same language and doing the same things? Ms Blanshard: I think one of the issues is that a lot of authorities have used the same network. So the school library, school library service and the public library service all run on the same computer network, so the People's Network is crossing over and informing. There is an issue about school libraries and school library services, and LMS (local management of schools) has had a profound impact on the role of the school library within the school. Q61 Chairman: Does that mean it has had a profound worsening impact? Ms Blanshard: Yes. Q62 Chairman: Why? Because it is not a resource that we choose to spend money on? Ms Blanshard: Schools have to choose and the issue is what do they chose to spend their money on? Is it the hole in the roof or is it the school's library? I think there is an issue there. I think there are two different issues between a primary school and a secondary school. I think a lot of our secondary schools have now taken on a professional librarian, they understand the role of the school library and they are working very closely with the public library, but the services are different and the needs are different. A school's library service stock is quite different from a public library service stock. Public libraries and primary schools work much more closely together in terms of stock need and in terms of support that is needed, but I think there are quite a lot of authorities where the schools library service and the public library service are working together, and I think the five‑year strategy of education is one that we need to look very carefully at in terms of that role of that school library, because I think that is going to change, and we need to be very, very clear about the importance of that school library in the future of schools. Dr McKee: I think that last point it is fundamental, the DfES five‑year strategy for children and learners. Maggie and I talked to senior officials at DfES just a couple of weeks ago about learning through libraries, and there are two major opportunities, one is Building Schools for the Future programme and the other is the concept of Extended Schools and libraries. Public libraries need to be in that dialogue, and if you can do something to get DfES to mention libraries explicitly in the guidance they produce on Building Schools for the Future and on Extended Schools, you will have done a good thing. Ms Haines: And Sure Start. Q63 Chairman: I think that is very good idea. We will take that on board. Can you give me an authority that has best practice between public libraries and school libraries, because we have got some visits to make in the near future and it would be good to understand? Ms Haines: I am hearing Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire in my ears. I used to operate in that context in Birmingham years ago. We could send you a note very quickly? Ms Blanshard: There are some very good examples around. Q64 Chris Bryant: Can I go back to basics just about books. In 1975/1976 there were 105 million, 106 million books in stock and now there are 91 million books in stock, and then there were 533 million loans a year and now there are 305 million loans a year and yet expenditure has gone up from £142 million to £845 million. That looks as if everything is going in the wrong direction: lots more money, fewer books, fewer loans. Dr McKee: You are missing one important part of the equation, which is the quality of the buildings. If you look at the recent figures, the ones that were published when the Minister made his report to Parliament two week ago, you are right, overall expenditure has gone up, overall expenditure on books has gone up, overall additions to stock have gone up. The quality of buildings is a postcode lottery because library services in some authorities are being opportunistically able to re-provision their buildings, and library services in other authorities or other neighbourhoods in the same authority have not. People will not go and visit tatty buildings. It is proven that when you build a new library to replace an old one or re-provision an old one, the use of that library will increase every time, once it is stabilised, by about 40%. So the issue is building buildings into the equation. Q65 Chris Bryant: But people are borrowing fewer books? Dr McKee: Yes. Q66 Chris Bryant: Roughly half what they were 20/30 years ago, but WH Smith and Waterstones and all the book shops are doing quite well selling books. In fact there are more new titles every year now than there were 30 years ago, yet WH Smith have limited the number of books that they carry themselves to a very small number. The missing bit in that jigsaw has been something like Amazon and people buying books on‑line so they never have to go physically into a book shop? Dr McKee: Can I come back to you on that, and then I will hand over to my colleagues. What book shops provide, and they do it very well, are current books; they do not provide the back stock; they do not provide the cannon, as it were, of the literature of the author or whatever it may be. The unique offer that public libraries make, apart from the offer to take a book away and try it for free, is the back stock. What has been happening in the last 20 years, because of under investment, is the pressure has been to buy the new books but not to replace the old books; and I think there needs to be a significant investment of capital resources to rebuild the back stock. Q67 Chairman: Is that because of the situation that Chris Bryant has been drawing attention to pretty vividly, the population as a whole, particularly including younger people, are less interested in books, as distinct from other ways of obtaining information, particularly on‑line or through CD ROMS, etcetera, and that the appetite for reading hard copy books, as it were, is going down and the diversion of what I would regard as core library activities is inevitable in this new era, or can we do something from the point of view of old‑fashioned people, rather than sustain them, to put it right? Ms Blanshard: I think the issue is why are we focusing just on books? The issue is around the role of libraries at giving us this knowledge. Books are only one medium. I do not buy the Encyclopaedia Britannica - no library service buys the Encyclopaedia Britannica any more - because they only publish it electronically. There are lots of resources that are much better available electronically. What we need to sort out is licensing issues to give library authorities much better access to some of those, but a lot of resources, Yellow Pages, which took up miles of space in libraries, we do not buy. We have been able to change our approach; we have been able to provide access to many different sources of information; so, yes, book issues have gone down. Interestingly, I think the issue is around is it fiction or is it non‑fiction, but I think there are a lot more people coming in and staying longer in libraries for the purpose of research. Local history, for example, has mushroomed beyond all existence, the interest in the local community, the Building the Community on‑line, which is going on in libraries now where people are creating their own information about their own local community on The People's Network that has been provided. So the role of the library has changed. If we focus so heavily on books, then I think we are missing what libraries are about and the value that libraries add. Books are important - I am not saying they are not - but they are one medium and we have to try and accept that people want their information in different forms. The key is to make sure that we have still got the ability to take home something, because that ability to try something, to do something different, to actually have something that is tangible that some people cannot afford, that some people cannot experience - a hard‑back book - is really important. We need to get the balance right, and I think there is an issue about back stock, there is an issue about whether we have got the range right, because, as one of you said, book shops are buying the current short‑term material; we are buying a lot broader base. Q68 Chairman: Maybe I could fix up some time during the Christmas recess to come across to Leeds, because, apart from going to school, my main indication in Leeds was Sheepscar Library ( which went long ago) and the Central Library, and it would be very interesting for me to see just what changes there have been in the Central Library I remember with such nostalgia and affection. Ms Blanshard: I think you will still be pleased. Ms Haines: CILIP sponsors awards, and I have been involved this summer in the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway medals, not only for children's literature but also for children's illustrations, and I do not think reading or interest in books is dying off at all. If you look at the shadowing scheme that was run around those awards and the children's interest in those books and in reading and the reading clubs that were sparked off, both in public libraries and in school libraries, there is a tremendous resurgence of interest in reading and books and literature at all ages, but particularly with children. I do not think we are seeing a decline in reading. We may see a decline in the book issues, for the reasons that Catherine outlined. Q69 Chris Bryant: I am glad you said that, because I wanted to be very old‑fashioned and say I think reading is a good thing! The more, not just young people, but people who read books, concentrate not just skim through something on a web page for two minutes, is a very important skill that we give to people? Ms Haines: That is right, but it is interesting to note that the kids loved reading and they loved reading books, but what they wanted to do was to post their reviews on the internet to share with children across the country what they thought about those books. When we went to see DfES, Bob and I, the other thing we raised in our conversation is that there is strong evidence that shows that the earlier children learn to read the better they do academically at school. So there is a very strong drive for reading in children. Q70 Chris Bryant: Exactly, and my worry, I guess, is that to some degree libraries, partly by virtually being called libraries, suggests books, and there seems to be a perception that we have got to move on from books to something else, that there is a danger that libraries become marginal to reading? Ms Blanshard: I would like to pick that one up because of Book Start. I think our fundamental role in Book Start is it is actually at the heart of what you are talking about. It is so crucial to give that baby at their nine‑month health check the book, the library joining form and the party where they can come to the library meet other babies, meet other carers and start reading; and that reading experience is proven. They join the library. You have got to learn to read before you can use the internet, so those reading times, reading challenges, summer reading game are all crucial and they have all proved that they contribute to the education of our children. Dr McKee: Two final points. One is if you think about people's reading habits, including your own, if you get interested in an author that is new to you, what do you want to do? Read the rest of the books by that author! That is why the library is different from the book shop, and that is why the back stock is important. If you look at Framework for the Future the provision of the public library service talks about three things: community, learning, reading underpinned by books and by technology. Reading is always going to be at the heart of it. Q71 Chairman: You promised that we will lie down in the streets and blockade the libraries if any attempt is made to rename them "resource centres" or anything like that? Dr McKee: I would be very happy to join you on the floor in doing that, Chair. Q72 Chris Bryant: Or "Idea Stores"? Dr McKee: Tower Hamlets has done some very good market research, finding out what the community needs, looking at capital re-provisioning, retailing in the way that they present the offer; but just down the road in Peckham when they built a new library they put the word "library" in huge capitals on the top of it. The brand value of a trusted community place ‑ how many public services can say they are a trusted community place ‑ the brand value of libraries cannot be lost? Ms Haines: Can I come back to one point about reading, as we are talking about the importance of books and access to reading, and that is to raise an issue about the books that are available through public libraries for those who are blind or visually impaired. Some of you might have been aware about a Right to Read campaign that was launched in this building and know that statistically only 5% of the books in public libraries are actually accessible to those who have visual impairment. I think there is a need to look how public libraries are addressing the one million people in the UK who have visual impairment. You probably read in the NLB's submission, only 30% of libraries have a budget to provide those kinds of accessible materials and 81% of websites are not accessible at all. I think there is quite a lot we could do in public libraries to spread good practice and to work with the specialist libraries like the National Library for the Blind to make our book collections and our other resources as accessible to that community as they are to the public at large. Ms Blanshard: If you could get the electronic version of the book required to the British Library and funding to the British Library to produce that in an accessible format using the Daisy Standard, we would have a global library, we would have true access for visually impaired people. It would be a fundamental difference. Q73 Mr Doran: I want to pick up the theme that Derek Wyatt launched, the issue of the lead department, and press Bob McGee a little, because he ducked out of naming a department, but I notice from your own evidence that one of your recommendations is the reference to DCMS acknowledging the ability of libraries to meet key national policy objectives across a range of departments, etc, and that DCMS should drive a cross-cutting agenda within government. It seems you have already chosen the lead department. Dr McKee: The evidence is based on the existing situation. The existing situation is that the lead department is DCMS. The reason I do not want to be drawn on which department 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, and, since we have got a lead department, we might as well work with it. Q74 Mr Doran: I can understand that, that is a very sensible and pragmatic approach, but DCMS is probably weakest in terms of the funding of library systems. Just taking it on a little, immediately after you, we will be hearing from the Audit Commission, and one of the issues that the Audit Commission raises in its report is the lack of clarity in a number of respects in the framework for libraries. There is ambiguity over what constitutes "comprehensive" and "efficiency" in the running of private libraries and the test in the 1964 Act and a sensible lack of direction from government. Is that something that you are aware of? Dr McKee: It goes back to the question about what libraries are for, and, specifically in Audit Commission terms, what are the outcomes and what are the key performance indicators. I do not think we have gone far enough down that road to assess those things. I think it is perfectly possible to do that while keeping in this triptych, if I can put it that way, of culture, community and learning. The Audit Commission can also help us, and I hope you will discuss this with them, by giving us a level playing field in terms of the value ascribed to libraries as opposed to other key statutory services in the comprehensive performance assessment. As long as libraries are under‑valued, local authority chief executives and leaders will under‑resource them. Q75 Mr Doran: Can I throw that back at you: because one of the issues I am interested in is the way in which sectoral bodies like yourselves lobby and promote their particular interest group, and I am conscious that as a Member of Parliament I do not think I have ever been lobbied on behalf of any organisation representing libraries or librarians. I do not hear from you. Dr McKee: We are happy to change that. Are you a Member of the All‑Party Parliamentary Group? Q76 Mr Doran: No, I am not. I am admonished and I take that point, but as far as the way in which your case is heard, you have to get beyond those who have already expressed an interest, and I am one of these and I do not hear from you? Dr McKee: I would agree with that. There is a major debate within our profession ‑ there has been over the last couple of months ‑ about the role that CILIP should play as well as our role in professional education and, if you like, as the regulatory body of the profession. It is clear that the library work force wants us to take a stronger leadership role in terms of advocacy, and we will be looking at ways to do that. Ms Haines: Our submission statement is about positioning the profession at the heart of the information society, and we take that very seriously. One of the things we have done recently is to develop a really strong collaboration with a group called SCUNL (the Society for College and University National Libraries), and SCUNL advocates a lot on behalf of higher education libraries - that is what it was set up to do - and national libraries. We are working now with SCUNL to make sure that we speak with a very strong voice on issues that are relevant to both the profession at large and that particular sector within the library community. Similarly, we have done work with various help library groups, and I think the point is we want to give government, whichever department, whichever agency, very strong messages, very clear messages that are consistent from our professional community, and we are planning to do that. We have already started doing that, as I have said. In my own experience, because I have come mainly from the health sector and higher education, the library groups or sub‑groups of CILIP that relate to my particular sector have lobbied government constantly and often about particular issues, whether that is licensing scheme, whether it is professional development staff or whether it is funding. We have made our representations to the officials, I would have to say, in those government departments. Dr McKee: I think there are two other things in terms of working in partnership in order to lobby strongly, one is about working with the users of libraries. We have colleagues in the Library Campaign and the Friends of Libraries, those users scattered across all library communities, and we work in partnership with the Library Campaign to promote the views of users as well as professionals. The other thing is working with employers. I am really quite interested in the development of the new Sector Skills Council Network and the new Life Long Learning Sector skills Council, and I see that as a very strong engine from the employers to lobby you about the value of library and information people. Q77 Mr Doran: Can we expect a much more aggressive approach in the future? Dr McKee: You can. Q78 Chairman: Call in the librarians! Ms Haines: The exciting thing about that Sector Skills Council is that it brings libraries together with workplace learning, community-based learning, as well as further and higher education. So those five sectors are brought closer together in that one council. Q79 Ms Shipley: The Audit Commission, when you went round libraries, found that half of them were good and half of them were not. Having half of the libraries not anywhere near up to scratch does suggest that there is a major problem. Allowing for some poor administration in some councils, there still must be other problems if 50% of them can be really quite good and heading upwards and the other 50% are not. What has gone wrong in those 50%? Dr McKee: I think the figures have changed. Catherine may be closer than I am to the current figures. Q80 Ms Shipley: Those are 2003, so it is only one year out of date. Dr McKee: It comes back to the point that was made earlier about the lack of consistent quality across the library service. Q81 Ms Shipley: Clearly, that is what the 50% says, but I am asking you why? Dr McKee: Because of variable investment, variable championship from political interests at local level, because of variable local social cultural and economic conditions. To change that what is needed is a national policy, which we are close to, a national regulatory regime, which we are close to but could get better, and a partnership between national and local government so that there are national offers delivered locally, which we are trying to get to, with the Framework for the Future action plans supported by appropriate capital and revenue investment, which we need. Q82 Ms Shipley: So that is all the things that other people can do, all of which I agree with you, but the other half is to do with the quality of people who are staffing the libraries, some of whom are excellent and some of whom are not. It does not seem to matter whether they are paid or not, frankly, some of them are not very good. A local library that I use - not in my constituency, I hasten to add before any journalist writes it up - recently was given money and was cleaned up. As far as I can see, it only had new carpet in terms of being done up capitally, but the big difference was that there seemed to be a change of staff when it reopened its door; and the difference now is you are welcomed when you go in, there is more happening and there is more enthusiasm. Goodness knows what they did with the other staff, but I am really glad they went because they were not very nice; they did not know what they were doing; they did not know what was going on. If you said, "What is happening in so and so library?" they did not know. They we were sat there like puddings. That is not an isolated case in the libraries. Other libraries you go into and the same person sitting in the same position doing the same job in a similarly under resourced place with a poor council not doing a very good job, but if you have got an enthusiastic person there they can turn around what little resources they have and make it welcoming and enthusiastic. What are you doing about getting rid of those people who should not be there? Dr McKee: I would not want to talk about getting rid of people; it is about workforce development; it is about changing people's skills, people's attitude, people's cultures, people's behaviour. Q83 Ms Shipley: That is all very nice, but what if they are not up to that? What if they should not be there; they are not people who should be interfacing with the public? They might have a degree in librarianship but they should not be interfacing with the public? Ms Blanshard: I think the issue when you go into any shop any service, if you are not given the service that you want it is the same feeling. If you go into a bad service it is a bad service. Libraries are no different from anything else. We have lots of good people. I think it is down to the management to have a very clear vision. One of the things about the Audit Commission issue I think is very strong is the interpretation is so broad that trying to measure a service if it has not got a very strong performance framework, it is not looking at performance right across the board, it is not self‑assessing, so the Audit Commission coming in in the old days with an inspection is not a surprise. They know exactly where they are; they are not just output measures; they are impact measures; they are self‑assessment; they are mystery shopping. If you have all those elements then you see the sulky person on the counter, the misfit, the inappropriate member of staff and you deal with it. You deal with it through training, you deal with it with personal support; you sit down, you work through all the processes, but, if push comes to shove, then you take action, and that is the important thing. Q84 Ms Shipley: So how can we get that standard across the country, in one sentence or two sentences, because where it is excellent it is fantastic and I am applauding it all the way, but other 50% where it is not, how do we get that standard? Dr McKee: What motivates people? A sense of direction, leadership, good support, and it is those things. Ms Haines: In the Tavistock Institute evaluation the People's Network said that the ICT skills that were delivered through the training programme did boost the staff's confidence and in many ways gave them much more incentive, boosted their spirits, changed their attitudes around. The staff then said, "But we need more skills and more training." One of the things that came out of that evaluation was the need for changed management skills in the public library sector more than there are. There are some excellent leaders in the public library service, but overall management, perhaps more changed management training. So I think it is about leadership and encouraging the leaders to grow and develop in that sector, but also it is about offering them the training and support from professional bodies like CILIP. Ms Blanshard: I would add that it is actually about listening to the community and starting where the community are, showing that you are listening to the community, that you are delivering a service that they want, that you can measure that service, that you understand the impact and can measure that impact, that you are assessing it, you are happy to have outside people coming to in look at it and you are working with them to learn and grow and you are working with local people to learn and grow. Q85 Ms Shipley: I do not agree with what you are saying, because you can put in some extra training and that is good, that is fine, but you can train and train and train, take people out of the work place, train them, send them off for more training. They just love it, they just know they are going to have a wonderful time, they know they are just fantastic and sign up for the next one; but, no, they are actually in their workplace working and getting on with the job, and if they are not good enough and they are responding to the community, then they have got to go, which I think is what you said; and I would go with that rather than more and more training, because presumably these people are trained librarians in position to start off with, so they might have a little bit of a boost now again - absolutely - wonderful - but continually training them, taking them out of the workplace, training them up a bit more, back in, out again - and I have seen it happening - no, sometimes you have to liaise with what the community wants and find out why they are not delivering it. Mainly the community wants somebody who is knowledgeable, and librarians are, just by definition they are knowledgeable, and then they have got to be able to communicate that knowledge? Ms Haines: I disagree that you have to take them out of the work place to encourage learning and professional development, but also it comes back to leadership, because if there are, as Catherine says, very strong messages from the top about customer care being at the heart of the service and people being expected to deliver that, then if they cannot deliver it because of lack of skills and inter‑personal skills, or whatever, they get the support they need to develop the skills, or if they have the skills and just chose not to use them or are incapable of good customer care, then they do have to go into another role or out of the service. Ms Blanshard: Everybody deserves a chance. Q86 Chairman: I am sorry, but we are going to have to move on; we are running quite late. Thank you very much indeed. Dr McKee: Thank you very much indeed.
Memorandum submitted by the Audit Commission
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr David Curtis, Director of Education, Culture and Social Education, and Ms Helen Dean, Performance Specialist, Audit Commission, examined.
Chairman: Good morning, sorry to have kept you waiting for a little, but you were here for the last session and it was quite vivacious. Alan Keen? Q87 Alan Keen: Good morning. You heard Deborah Shipley being critical of one library at one particular time. How effective is your influence on the library system? Mr Curtis: 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. It is important and we have a role to play, but I think probably too much influence has been afforded to the outcome of inspections. That I think probably is a result of a lack of useful performance information elsewhere which challenges the performance of the library services. Ms Dean: I think I would support that. The effectiveness of library services is varied across the country, as the figures that were given out a little bit earlier on indicate, and although we have done some further inspection since those figures were pulled together, it is roughly still a 50/50 split. I think perhaps a few more are creeping into the better half and out of the worse half but by no means has there been a huge step change in library services and their effectiveness to move everybody into the top half. Q88 Alan Keen: I think maybe what Deborah Shipley was getting at was that the standards are not smooth across the country. I might be unfair to them but in the USSR there was probably a chief librarian in Moscow who controlled the whole lot. That would be going to one extreme, but do you think there should be much more central control of libraries? I have been a local authority councillor and there are tough decisions that have to be made on budgets, which would be the word to use here. Have you a view on the management control? Would you leave it with local authorities as it is now or would you go for a little bit more centralisation? Mr Curtis: Perhaps I could kick off on that. My background is not in libraries, my background is in education. I came into inspection and looking at education. The DfES is a very, very centralist department and the way in which education operates within the country is that there is a national service but it is locally delivered. When we have inspected library services, we have inspected local services operating within a fairly loose national framework. If I were to be asked the opening question about how could library services be improved, I think my response would be about ensuring that there is a better balance between locally determined priorities and national priorities, and greater clarity and consistency of purpose, which could be given centrally which perhaps is not there at the moment. The point was picked up earlier on about what is meant by a comprehensive and efficient Library Service. For instance, you might expect the public library standards to be derived in some way from an understanding of what is comprehensive and efficient, but if you look at the public library standards they are neither comprehensive nor do they address issues around efficiency and value for money. In response to your question, my thesis would be that you would be better able to assess the delivery of library services if there were to be a sharper expectation at a national level about what councils and others were expected to deliver locally, so a greater prominence for the acknowledged national and shared local priorities in expectations of local library services. Ms Dean: Yes, I would support that. I think the key for me is actually around the need for strong strategic direction at that national level which is predicated on a very good and solid understanding of what public libraries are actually there for, picking up some of the discussion that was had by the other witnesses this morning. That it is supported then by clear guidance to local authorities on what it actually is that they should be providing. That then could be coupled with a very strong performance management framework that would enable everybody to be able to see whether or not that national framework with the local tailoring that might be required has actually been delivered and it would enable local authorities to address performance issues around staff, it would enable them to address performance issues around their financial management, the way they do procurement, and so on. For me it is a fundamental missing link at the moment. Mr Curtis: If I can just go back on the point. You are absolutely right in that standards are not smooth and that has been summarised in Building Better Libraries and other publications from ourselves. It is right, however, that local library services should have a local agenda and should focus on what are the needs of the local community and respond to those needs, but if you take something which is very prominent at the moment around the children and young people's agenda ‑ every child matters and everything that follows on from that ‑ one might expect, for instance, that the public library standards or some expectation of performance would be being addressed currently to local authorities about delivery on children and young people, but that is not explicit; it is only implicit. Therefore, it is difficult for local authorities to respond consistently when there is not an explicit expectation of what Government might expect them to deliver on. Q89 Alan Keen: Derek Wyatt raised a point of school libraries and what direct, effective connection there was between libraries as we know them ‑ local authority libraries ‑ and school libraries. They have both got resources. Commercial companies also have their own libraries which at some level in any case would be useful if there was a link between local libraries and youngsters going in there. In my constituency in West London some commercial companies have very strong links with one school or even two schools but not necessarily therefore with all the schools in the borough. What evidence have you seen? Can I put it the other way round: what could be done to link these resources in a more formal way than presumably exists at the moment? Ms Dean: There was a report a few years ago which the Library and Information Commission called Empowering the Learning Community, and one of the key thrusts in that paper was actually about sharing resources between the academic sector, between the independent sector, between schools, between the public sector and so on. Some authorities have made great strides in actually sharing access to all of these materials so that somebody going into a public library can access materials which they would normally need to be a student at a university to be able to access or would perhaps have to wait quite a long time through the normal inter‑library loans system to be able to borrow. So there are some examples of joined‑up working but that is not consistent across the country. You did ask earlier on for examples of authorities where schools library services (so the library in the school) and the public library service had worked together. There was just one example that I wanted to highlight which is from an authority I used to work in which is Stockton‑on‑Tees in the North East of England who on the largest housing estate in Europe, Ingleby Barwick, have built a new PFI‑funded school with a library adjoined to it. The library is used, as I understand it, by children during the day and come 4 o'clock is open to the community well into the evening, so there is actually the shared use of those resources there. There are some other examples as well of authorities where similar approaches have been taken. Mr Curtis: If I can add to something on the school dimension. Perhaps there is an issue of government clarity of message here. A few years ago when more and more money was being devolved or delegated to schools, the decision was taken to devolve money to schools to buy back the school library services. We have not looked at that in detail and we have not looked at it in detail when we were involved in inspections with Ofsted. I asked a colleague last week to look at the Section 52 statements (which is the spending return by a local authority on education) and there is a very uneven pattern of identified expenditure on school library services. The hypothesis that one develops from that is that actually that money has not been devolved, it has effectively been delegated and schools are not buying back into school library services. Colleagues in the profession will be able to give a response on the detail of this, I guess, but there is a prima facie case which suggests that on the one hand you have got a government department saying we are protecting the money by ensuring it is devolved but the reality is that it is not being devolved, it is being spent by schools because they have got other priorities. There has been a policy decision to try to protect the services but actually the follow through has not ensured that that has happened. Q90 Alan Keen: My own local authority has handed over what used to be leisure services, including libraries, to an arms' length organisation in order to benefit from grants and VAT. Have you any evidence that that has weakened further the links nationally or is it an advantage? Have you come across that? Ms Dean: There are very few examples of local authorities putting library services into trust. The authority in your constituency is one of two that I am aware of nationally. There may be more but I am only aware of two and it is not something that the Commission has looked at in detail in terms of the effectiveness of those trust arrangements for delivering public library services any more than we do in terms of just looking at the quality of the Library Service from the users' perspective in our inspection work. Mr Curtis: It should be forced upon a local authority to be clearer about what performance is expected in terms of delivery. In our Building Better Libraries study we did a check‑list of what would be behavioural factors that would improve library services. Defining what is the purpose, what are your expected outcomes, and so forth. were integral to that and setting up the trust should, if the trust is successful, enable the trust to demonstrate to the local authority that it still retains the statutory responsibility that it is delivering, so as a mechanism it has potential to make things clearer. That does not mean to say they cannot be clearer in non‑trust settings. Alan Keen: Thank you very much, you have been very clear. Chairman: Could I just say to colleagues that every colleague who has not yet asked questions wants to so I am going to have to impose reasonable time limits. Q91 Chris Bryant: I will only ask one question but it might be a slightly long one. Your argument seems to be that we need greater consistency of purpose, which is something we have heard from other organisations as well. All the witnesses in fact so far have said that getting the purpose of libraries right is at the heart of getting their futures right. That seems obvious. In 1990s I wrote a biography of Glenda Jackson. It is not a particularly good one so I am not advocating that you buy it or read it, but the difficulty was that every local authority had a completely different system of archiving material, a completely different set of decisions about how you kept material, how you found it, whether it was available to anybody from another part of the country. Genealogy is not just people who are writing books (who can commercially look after themselves, I suppose), genealogy is one of the great growing pastimes of the modern era and yet it is phenomenally difficult. Is this something that you have found as well? Ms Dean: In our inspection work we try to take the users' perspective, so the people who are going into public libraries, to see what their experience is. Yes, there is a vast variance across different services of how easy it is to access the information that that authority holds. Whether or not there should be a right or a wrong way of doing it is perhaps a different issue because every authority is working under slightly different circumstance in terms of its building stock and all of that kind of thing. However, that should not make any difference to the user. If you need to access something then you should be able to do that in the most efficient and effective way possible. There are things that local authorities could do to make their collections more accessible. That is partly around things like retrospective cataloguing because there are still a lot of things that local authorities hold in their stores that are not on their on‑line public access computers that make it very difficult for you to know that they are there, and a whole range of other issues as well around how we procure new books, not just about what we are doing with old books, and around selection policy and so on. There is, I suppose, a possibility that something that could work would be to introduce something along the lines of the national service frameworks. We have national service frameworks in place for services to children, for services to older people and perhaps something similar could or should be developed for being able to access information through library services. Just an idea. Chris Bryant: Thank you, Chairman. Q92 Mr Flook: In your submission to us you raised the problem of recruitment and advocated that library leaders of the future need not be professional librarians. Have you discussed that with the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, who are sitting over your left shoulder, as well as with the Society of Chief Librarians, the President of which is also sitting over your left shoulder? Ms Dean: I am glad that Mr McKee is not still sat here because he would probably kick me under the table for that! I think one of the issues that the Commission has found quite strongly in its inspection work is that the quality of leadership and advocacy by both members and officers within local authorities for libraries has a really big impact on the quality of the public library service to local people. Where we are coming from is that it is incredibly important to have people who are technically competent in librarianship as part of the public library service, as part of the system. Without people who actually know how to catalogue and classify and arrange things and handle complex information requests the whole service would fall down. However, the people who have those skills are not necessarily the people who have the ability to go to members or to deal with the public who want certain things from their service that it is not able to provide at the moment or in situations where a service might want to close a library, or to move a library to a better facility. They just do not have the skills to be able to stand up and do that. Q93 Mr Flook: But you took on board Mr McKee's point that they are training from within? Ms Dean: Absolutely, yes. All I am saying is that it should not just be people who have got a librarianship qualification like myself. Other people could play a really valuable role in directing and leading public library services. In the same way as heads of cultural services, for example, might have museums and arts and tourism and sport and leisure and libraries underneath them, they cannot be a professional expert and professionally qualified in all of those areas but they rely on the skills and expertise of the people around them to help and advise them on technical issues. Q94 Mr Flook: Can you just tell me a little bit more about your inquiry about the Library Service. You said earlier in an answer that 50 per cent seemed better and 50 per cent needed a lot of improvement. If that is the case, do we need a new Act? What do we need to stiffen up here? What would you recommend to us? Mr Curtis: If we can just clarify what this 50/50 means. Before we published Building Better Libraries in 2002 we had inspected about 36 local authorities. Since then, we have inspected about another 43 and overall we have adjudged the services we have inspected as scoring either a one or a two, one being the lowest and two near to the basement, or three and four, being above the line. What we have said is that of the services we have inspected, 50 per cent are scoring one and two and in terms of prospects for improvement 50 per cent are scoring above the line. So it is the individual services we have inspected and what we have been looking at is their performance management and their ability to improve in their particular context. I go back to the earlier question about the clarity of purpose. I think there may be a question of looking back to the 1964 Act and saying what are we expecting these services to do because unless there is a clarity of purpose ‑ and I apologise for repeating it - and unless you can derive from those words like "comprehensive" and "efficient" exactly what they mean, it is very difficult for local authorities to log into other people's expectations. The position of library services is really no different to the position of services across the cultural sector. Often where they work well is because they have given themselves locally clarity of purpose, they have an ambition, it is engrained in it what the needs of the local authority and the local community are. You also have the commitment from members who resource it, who then challenge performance. Where it works well those conditions apply. Where it does not work well there is poor performance management and there is a weakness in terms of what they really are about. They are bobbing around like corks on the ocean trying to do their best and survive but without that direction that either a local focus would give or a national direction would give. Q95 Mr Flook: When we last looked at libraries which may be 1999 - and I am looking at the Clerk - one of the things at that time was there was some nervousness that London Boroughs were going to shut some of their libraries and I remember Alan Howarth when he was the Libraries Minister being able to stop them, by a nice, gentle letter no doubt. Is that tough enough? In other words, is that the only way that we can do it, by a letter from a minister? Mr Curtis: One of the threads in our submission is along these lines, that if you do not meet standard or national expectations what are the consequences of doing that? At the moment ‑‑‑ Q96 Mr Flook: There are no consequences ‑‑‑ Mr Curtis: --‑ There is no iron fist in a velvet glove; in fact there is not really a velvet glove. I think that is one of the problems, that at the moment there are not any penalties as such. Q97 Mr Flook: What would you suggest? Mr Curtis: It seems very hard --- Q98 Mr Flook: --- When you get a failed school, you get more money. Mr Curtis: You certainly get more attention. Q99 Mr Flook: Should you fail the libraries so in fact there is more money for them? I do not understand. What would you suggest there? Mr Curtis: I think it is a question of focusing the agencies who are involved in improving on improving those library services. First of all, it is identifying where they are failing or where they are under‑performing. Let's not leave it to the Audit Commission inspecting every three years. It is not the best use of resources and you are only doing it every three years. You need better information first of all to find out why it is or where services are not performing as well as you would expect them to. There is then the question of identifying what support services exist to work with those library services to bring them up to appropriate standards and then to use inspection in a much more focused way to address areas of poor performance. If I go back ‑ and you alluded to it ‑ my experience in education, what you have there is a process that schools that perform well and local authorities that perform well are increasingly left alone and perhaps ought to be left alone. Those schools and local authorities that need most attention get most attention, and it is focused local attention so using existing resource in a sharper way. There is perhaps a difference in library services in whether or not you want to get to the stage of national intervention - probably not - but certainly the mechanisms for improvement and challenge before intervention perhaps ought to be paraded more explicitly than they are at the moment. Q100 Mr Flook: In the way that the Lottery has changed in that we now look at social need and deprivation as one aspect, my poorest community has the poorest libraries, which seems rather mad. Is there not a first stage that we ought to audit and say in the poorest communities they should have the best libraries? Mr Curtis: Again it is a question of what do you mean by the best libraries. Mr Flook: Hours of opening, the quality of the books, access to Internet, which is very poor‑‑‑ Ms Shipley: --- Good staff. Q101 Mr Flook: Minimum requirements. Why should not the poorest areas have at least equal to the best town libraries? Mr Curtis: You are probably arguing for better performance information there. The sort of criteria that you have put forward need to be turned into data and intelligence and wisdom so that you can then address the particular issue because unless you surface that information then you do not get the focus of attention subsequently. Q102 Mr Flook: There is no way there can be a corner of the street library that is only open three hours a day and not at weekends in our poorest communities. Mr Curtis: In fairness, we have said in our evidence that the public library standard which raises the issue about opening hours has had an impact on increasing opening hours so that suggests that if you shine a light on something because it is important then that gets attention, but if you do not shine a light on it it will not get attention and will continue to be ignored. Q103 Ms Shipley: Can I give you the opportunity to shine a light then on the funding variances across the country. Tell me who is top and bottom? Who spends the most and who spends the least because I bet you do know that? Helen Dean: Not off the top of my head. Q104 Ms Shipley: Go on, I do not believe you. I bet you do know who the big spenders are. Helen Dean: We would have to come back to you in terms of spend per head. Mr Curtis: Certainly there is a huge variation. If you look again at Building Better Libraries‑‑‑ Q105 Ms Shipley: I know that there is a huge variation. You have said that. I want to know who. Name names. Mr Curtis: We could probably give you that information but we have not got it off the top of our heads today. Q106 Ms Shipley: Just name me some who are particularly bad and some who are particularly good. Mr Curtis: I think we have identified in our evidence library services where they are good. Q107 Ms Shipley: Tell me. Mr Curtis: Shropshire. Q108 Ms Shipley: Good or bad? Mr Curtis: An excellent local authority. Q109 Ms Shipley: A bad one? Mr Curtis: Recently? Ms Dean: York came out as a "fair" service. We are about to go back into Rochdale which was originally a "poor" service with uncertain prospects. Q110 Ms Shipley: This is on spending? Ms Dean: This is about quality of service. Q111 Ms Shipley: I want to know who is spending and who is not. Mr Curtis: One of the things we say in our submission is that there is an incredible amount of data around library services and what we have not done and what the sector does not do is translate that data into wisdom. If spending levels is what you want ‑‑‑ Q112 Ms Shipley: --- Yes, I do. Mr Curtis: --- Then that information is available in statistics and we can ensure it gets to you. Q113 Ms Shipley: I will have the top three and the bottom three spends, please. Mr Curtis: We will give that to you. Q114 Ms Shipley: That will be very helpful, thank you. The other thing that you said that really concerned me was to do with school libraries and involved money. When I was elected in 1997 quite a few schools in my constituency had no libraries, which was absolutely appalling, and I was very pleased over the two years that followed that I found myself opening libraries in the schools, which was excellent, particularly in the poorer areas. These were books that the kids could get and I was really, really pleased that the Government had put money in specifically for that. I am incredibly worried that you are telling me that some of that devolved money is not being used properly because simultaneously I am against vending machines in schools and I am being told that it goes to help pay for books and things that they have not got, but you say that the money is there but it is not being devolved properly. I would like to know if you know which authorities are not devolving the money properly. Ms Dean: Can I make a point of clarification before trying to answer that. Q115 Ms Shipley: Please do. Ms Dean: I think there is a slight difference between schools having their own libraries for children to use as part of the school building. What we are talking about in terms of devolved and delegated funding is funding to be able to buy in professional expertise from the public library service or another mechanism, together with additional selections of books for specific topics. So, for example, the Tudors comes up every autumn --- Q116 Ms Shipley: The clarification is helpful but the question stands; who are not doing it? Mr Curtis: By looking at the Section 52 statements which set out which local authorities are devolving money you will find lots of gaps there. Some local authorities are devolving money and reporting it as such and other authorities appear not to be devolving the money or not reporting it. As a result of our inquiry last week what I intend to do is to look at that and see whether or not that is a matter of reporting or whether it is a matter of policy. Q117 Ms Shipley: That is very interesting and I see a question to the Minister coming upon me. Civil servants have a habit of writing back almost these exact words: "We do not currently collect that information". Can you put on record they could access that information if they wanted to? Is that possible? Mr Curtis: The information sits at the moment within Section 52 statements, yes. Q118 Ms Shipley: So it is possible. They cannot write back to me and say they cannot get the information; it is there? Mr Curtis: The information is there. It is a matter of whether or not that is appropriately reported. If you are looking for a yes or no: yes. Ms Shipley: Great, thank you very much. Chairman: Frank Doran? Q119 Mr Doran: Your evidence has been very helpful to me. I am not an expert on libraries and your external views have been extremely useful. I am building up a picture of a very patchy service and your submission makes that clear and the evidence you have given today underlines that. Certainly it is a service that needs advocates at a local level. Some places have this, some do not. There are obviously external pressures. One is by customers and often their pressure is by staying away rather than doing anything constructive. Then obviously there is the Audit Commission examination. You have done 86 authorities so you have got a few to go. Mr Curtis: We are not intending to go round and beat the bounds of the whole country and inspect all library services. The Audit Commission's approach to inspection ‑ and you will know this ‑ is to move to an inspection model where we will inspect where there is greatest need. It is the mantra of the Commission to have "strategic regulation". Therefore we are not intending to go round and test every library service. What we are advocating is a better process of gathering performance information of library services, which will both inform the local community about performance, will inform the Library Service about how well the Library Service is doing, and will inform us as a regulator and you nationally to determine where we should inspect, or indeed other agencies where they might offer most support to library services. Q120 Mr Doran: That is helpful. Moving on, at the national level you have identified a number of problems, lack of clarity in the statutory definitions, for example. I was not clear when you answered Derek Wyatt's question, were you suggesting that that needed new legislation or could all of this be dealt with by government guidance or whatever? That is before we get on to your framework. We will come on to that in a minute. Mr Curtis: I am not an expert on that but the Department has produced public library standards and one would have thought that you could derive public library standards from legislation. They do exist at the moment. I suppose you could say they are not standards in that as set out local authorities are being told you do not have to meet all of them so are they therefore a standard or just a loose expectation, but the definition at the moment, as it sits and as I read it, enables anyone to interpret it in their particular way. Therefore, we need legislation to ensure a tighter interpretation. But again just to reflect upon the Framework for the Future document, that talks about ‑ and I think this came up in CILIP's evidence ‑ the expectation that the Library Service should focus on areas of greatest need, but how does that fit with a remit which says you have got to provide a comprehensive and efficient service. Q121 Mr Doran: Is that measurable in your terms? Mr Curtis: I think you could certainly identify particular outcomes or particular activities that would start to hit your policy priorities. For instance, if we look at another area of our remit, and that is sport provision or exercise or recreation provision, Sport England is piloting and developing a measure of participation in sport or moderate activity. You can never prove that taking exercise is going to ‑‑‑ I suppose researchers have done this, but the notion is that there is a link between exercise and healthier communities, therefore you have a proxy measure there in terms of exercise and you can make a judgment about the performance of a local authority and its contribution to a healthy community. Likewise issues around provision of Bookstart and so forth. You might say that the level of participation by children and young people in a library service is a good proxy indicator of the contributor of the Library Service to literacy standards and future reading. I think those things are measurable. Q122 Mr Doran: Just finally, you threw the idea into the pot of a framework and that has got its attractions. Another tool that government uses is targets. Do you think that would have an effect on measuring and improving the Library Service? Ms Dean: Absolutely. If we had the strong strategic direction then as part of that there would need to actually be a system by which we could measure whether or not that direction was being achieved and that can only happen through performance measures by identifying what the criteria of success would be and by looking at each authority's performance against that. In fact, in some areas for some authorities, particularly those with mixtures of affluent and deprived areas, perhaps we need to be looking much more at neighbourhood or ward level data around the provision of public library services rather than just at the authority level. It would enable authorities then to pick up where their opening hours are in relation to deprived communities, for example, and those most in need of access to public library services. Mr Doran: Thank you very much. Q123 Chairman: It was suggested to us by a witness last week that libraries got sufficient funding but do not spend it efficiently. What is your comment on that? Mr Curtis: I think what we have said in our various publications is that performance management is often not the libraries' strongest suit. If performance management is not a strong suit it means that you are not necessarily getting the most out of your resources. Again, we have said in our evidence and said elsewhere that issues around procurement, for instance, and back office functions, could perhaps be better managed, and it will be a matter of further investigation from the Audit Commission this year. Q124 Chairman: Local authority services 25 years ago were assessed in a very different way. We had what Neville Chamberlain started out in Birmingham and what then became known, curiously, as "municipal socialism" whereby local authorities were expected to provide facilities like libraries, museums, sports facilities, swimming pools and so on, and they were not approached on the basis these had got to make money or be closed down, but they were intended, as it were, as loss‑making services which were an amenity to the public. Nobody wants to see money wasted but do you not think it would be a very good thing if we went back to that kind of ethos rather than judging every single thing ‑ and I realise that is your job which is why I am asking you the question ‑ by some exterior criterion of cost-effectiveness. How do you say that a swimming pool is cost‑effective other than people using it? How do you say that a museum is cost‑effective other than there it is and people can take advantage of its beauties and learning? Mr Curtis: I think the issue is about getting the best out of the resource you have got. It is an issue of value for money. It is not an issue of making a profit but it is ensuring that the public pound works as hard as it ought to for the public who has contributed it in the first place. There is nothing wrong with something that is loss‑making as long as you set out deliberately to make the loss. The difficulty is when the resource controls your decisions rather than your decisions controlling the resource. Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. That was very instructive. We are most grateful to you. Memorandum submitted by the Advisory Council on Libraries Examination of Witness
Witness: Mr Bill MacNaught, Chairman, Advisory Council on Libraries, examined.
Chairman: Welcome, Mr MacNaught, and thank you for listening. One of the things that I find very attractive about inquiries like this is that witnesses arrive early and listen to other people's evidence or stay on after their own evidence because they are really interested in the subject that we are discussing. It does not always happen that way. Rosemary McKenna? Q125 Rosemary McKenna: Would you explain to the Committee the role played by the ACL and the difference between the role that you play and the role of the MLA? Is there a difference in the membership of both bodies? Mr MacNaught: Yes, the role of the Advisory Council on Libraries follows from the legislation in 1964 and our purpose is to advise the Minister on all matters pertaining to public libraries, and that can be in response to questions from the Minister or it can be unsolicited advice from ACL to the Minister. The Advisory Council was reconstituted two years ago and I was appointed by Baroness Blackstone, the then Minister. She deliberately reconstituted the Advisory Council to be practitioner based and so the current membership, as you will have seen from the evidence, consists largely of chief librarians from public library authorities. The difference between our role and the advice that the Government might get from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council is a very interesting point at the moment because there is some discussion about the possible move of the Advisory Council to be hosted by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, which is still the subject the much discussion both within MLA and within DCMS. Q126 Rosemary McKenna: So the membership is quite different? Both are quite distinct? Mr MacNaught: Yes, as chair of the Advisory Council I am a board member of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and, as it happens, Bob McKee from CILIP is also on the board of MLA but he is an observer at the Advisory Council. This may be confusing for you. Q127 Rosemary McKenna: So the Minister is getting advice from two different directions and maybe sometimes conflicting advice? Mr MacNaught: Possibly. It has to be said I cannot think of too many areas where we have differed in our advice to the Minister. Q128 Rosemary McKenna: But your role is basically to act as advocates for library services? Mr MacNaught: The Advisory Council on Libraries, I am quite clear, is there specifically to advise the Minister as best we can. Q129 Rosemary McKenna: Have you felt that you have had any impact in the two years of your existence? Mr MacNaught: We have helped steer the revision of the public library standards. I suppose the one area where I feel frustrated at the lack of impact is the very strong advice we gave about free internet access. Q130 Rosemary McKenna: I know that that is something that does concern the Minister and concerns this Committee. It just cuts across the whole reason for establishing the People's Network and the funding that was put in from various sources to do that. Do you feel that it is possible that something can be done about that, that authorities can be instructed in some way not to charge? Mr MacNaught: As a member of the original working party that produced the People's Network report, I do feel a deep sense of frustration that we have not been able to ensure free internet access in every library authority. The general mood at the moment within local government is that we do not welcome in local government micro management from central government, and I think some local authorities feel that that would be micro management, therefore some kind of instruction would probably not be welcome. However, I do think that the inspection of local authorities could send a very strong signal to public libraries that a "good" and an "excellent" library service would expect to include free internet access. I think it would be perfectly within the powers of DCMS to include free internet access as one of the standards. Q131 Rosemary McKenna: As one of the standards? Mr MacNaught: That was our advice. Q132 Rosemary McKenna: But they did not accept that advice? Mr MacNaught: They chose not to. Q133 Rosemary McKenna: My recollection of it was it just was not envisaged that any local authority would charge and therefore it came as a surprise to learn that ten per cent is the figure. Is that accurate? Mr MacNaught: I could not say exactly what figure it is. I believe that it is a small minority but it is an important issue because with the financial pressures on public library services clearly if one authority is charging then it becomes attractive to treasurers in other authorities. Q134 Rosemary McKenna: Yes, creeping up rather than being removed. Therefore, you were not successful in that. What would be the thing that you would say was your major achievement? Mr MacNaught: The main thing that we have been doing in the last two years is helping to manage the implementation of the Framework for the Future action plan, in partnership with the MLA. One of the areas that I believe is most important in implementing the Framework for the Future is precisely this issue of clarity about our purpose as a public library service. I think the framework document leaves room for some ambiguity. I think we need to get much better at articulating a clear message to the public, to government, to local authorities about the role of the public library service in the 21st century. Therefore, one of the things that we have successfully done is to persuade government and the MLA to support a marketing programme. I hasten to add by that I do not mean some glib superficial advertising campaign but a proper exercise working from the basic premise of what business are we in all the way through to a proper promotion of that. Q135 Rosemary McKenna: Do you think that within some authorities, as we have been hearing, there are some very, very good examples of a modern, 21st century library, whether it is called a library or not? Mr MacNaught: I would have to say that my own authority in Gateshead is quite a good example. We were inspected by the Audit Commission through the best value inspection regime in the year 2000 and we remain one of a handful of authorities that received a three‑star rating. What is particularly interesting for me about that is that Gateshead, in answer to a previous question, is a high spending authority. It was interesting for me that when that question was asked earlier ‑ which are the good authorities and which are the bad authorities ‑ it depends who you ask whether high spending is good or low spending is good. What was interesting for me in the best value review of Gateshead is that the Audit Commission's best value inspectors were prepared to award three stars to an authority that was at the top end of the spending range. Q136 Rosemary McKenna: Yes, but it has also been said to this Committee that sometimes it is not necessarily how much money but given the resources that are given to the library service by the local authority it is what they actually do with that money. Mr MacNaught: I agree absolutely and I think the other success of the Advisory Council in libraries has been to support very strongly the importance of a leadership programme. It is something that I have been urging government for about 14 years to pursue because the quality of management in the public library service can be improved. Of course it can. I think what is important is that there is a properly supported management development programme for librarians, including a leadership element to that management development programme. I absolutely agree that we can get more efficient management in the public library service. Rosemary McKenna: Thank you, Chairman. Q137 Derek Wyatt: Good morning. Given that the last Act was 1964 is it your view that the Act should be updated or do you think it is strong enough? Mr MacNaught: I think it would be very interesting to sit down again and write a Public Libraries Act in the year 2004, or probably 2005 before we would start something like that. Q138 Derek Wyatt: Because? Mr MacNaught: Because the world in which we operate has moved on significantly. Not in terms of our core purpose because I have always believed that public libraries are about literature and information as our two main products, if you like, but the way that we deliver information clearly has been transformed and we have quietly in the public library service gone through a major re-engineering of how we deliver our information role. I am not sure that that would alter the values that were articulated in the 1964 Act about free access. I think it would be helpful if the new legislation could enshrine, for example, the free access to the internet because it is fundamentally equivalent to providing a free book-lending service, and that would require legislation, I believe. Derek Wyatt: In the 1970s and 1980s when the then Government was uncertain what to do, it created agencies like the Highways Agency, the Environment Agency and the Child Support Agency as a sort of halfway house to making this more important. Do you feel that there are too many library institutions and people? Would it be better that we had a Libraries Agency or would it be better that we just gave to the British Library? What should we do to make sure that there was just one, so that the schools libraries, the university libraries, the whole of libraries came under one tent?. Q139 Rosemary McKenna: Private libraries and all that. Mr MacNaught: I think the creation of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council was an attempt by Government to provide that streamlining within the cultural sector. It obviously incorporated the Library and Information Commission which had had a brief life before that. I think that the challenge at the moment is to strengthen the ability of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council to provide that leadership for the library domain, as it is described, and at the moment I feel that the public library world is still looking for that level of leadership for the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. I know that the chair of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council very much wants to develop the role of MLA to provide that strong leadership. Derek Wyatt: Thank you, Chairman. Chairman: Thank you, Mr Wyatt. Seriously though, I disagree with the trend of your questioning since I was opposed totally to the creation of all the next steps agencies, but that is a different matter. Deborah Shipley? Q140 Ms Shipley: How worthwhile are you really? I am sorry if this sounds a little rude but we have got no efficient performance indicators, we have got no mechanisms for enforcing standards, we have got 50 per cent roughly of the libraries not up to par, we have got a lack of consistency across the country. So if you are one of the major advisers ‑ and you said that your advice does not differ from the other major adviser, both of you then ‑ either a) you are not advising strongly enough on those particular issues or b) your advice is being ignored. Which is it? Mr MacNaught: I do not think our advice is being ignored. We have, as I say, supported the development of the Framework for the Future action plan which is putting in train a number of the remedial processes to address the issues that they have highlighted. We take the fact that 50 per cent of the authorities have had a bad review from the Audit Commission very seriously and we have supported a peer group inspection system and we have supported the development of the leadership programme. These things will take time but we take very seriously those issues. Q141 Ms Shipley: But I put it to you that there has been a Labour Government for seven years, so is the Labour Government and are the Ministers actually listening on those four things that I outlined or are you failing to tell them strongly enough? Mr MacNaught: I do not think either is the case. Q142 Ms Shipley: Well, they are not happening. It takes time to put the performance indicators in. Did you tell them that seven years ago? Have they taken seven years? Mr MacNaught: As I say, I was appointed as chair of ACL two years ago and the Government has been acting as fast as it can on our advice. The position on the standards, as far as I am concerned, is that we are halfway there in terms of improving the standards. The first thing that we did was respond to the criticism from ODPM and chief executives in local authorities that the previous standards were far too focused on inputs and that as part of the trend in local government generally we need to move towards outcome measures for libraries. Q143 Ms Shipley: But were you so off the mark waiting for them before you responded? Should you not have been pushing years before that for these sorts of things - performance indicators and mechanisms for enforcing them - because it is pretty basic stuff? Mr MacNaught: I can only speak as Chair of ACL for the last two years and we did engage in that immediately. Q144 Ms Shipley: Only when you were pushed because the Audit Commission came up with the information, by the looks of it. Mr MacNaught: It certainly was not as a response to Audit Commission activity. It was part of a recognition that in local government generally we need to move towards outcomes. Q145 Ms Shipley: What sort of teeth do you think should be in place? Here is your opportunity to advocate. Once you have tried all these things, and all these things have been put into place, what sort of teeth should be available for when it starts to fail still? Mr MacNaught: I think the strongest challenge for local authorities to adhere to the standards and the advice from DCMS is the instrument that CILIP referred to in their evidence of the CPA process because that is, in my experience, the overarching issue that concentrates minds in local government at the moment. So if the CPA process flags up that a local authority is going to be marked down because it has not adhered to standards properly and adequately that will have a lot of teeth and it does not depend on the Advisory Council to target authorities particularly because the CPA process will do that. Q146 Ms Shipley: And how long would the process take? Mr MacNaught: The CPA process is active at the moment and I know that local authorities will be concerned about the element of the culture block within CPA inspection and if there is evidence that the performance of libraries is going to adversely affect their CPA score then the local authorities will do something about that now, is my belief. Q147 Ms Shipley: How do we measure that they have actually done that? How long will the whole process take between library failing identified; library put right? That is put really simply but that is what everyone wants, everyone wants the library to be put right. Mr MacNaught: It can happen very quickly. In two of my neighbouring authorities there are examples where the first round of the best value inspections showed up poor performance, the senior management has been changed, and the performance has turned round in both authorities. Q148 Ms Shipley: How long would that take? Mr MacNaught: Perhaps two years to see some marked improvements in both cases. Ms Shipley: Thank you, Chairman. Q149 Mr Doran: I know you are here as a witness from the Advisory Council but I am also interested in the fact that you are wearing a hat as the Society of Chief Librarians so you will forgive me if I pursue a point that we have covered earlier and that is the number of government departments which have an interest here. I notice from the Society of Chief Librarians that there is a firm recommendation that the lead policy on libraries should be transferred to ODPM. To contrast that with Bob McKee earlier, I am not sure whether he took a strategically pragmatic and cautious view or whether he wimped out. Contrast that with the Advisory Council where you say that DCMS should be making a much more robust case to larger government departments. Wearing two hats, you are both recognising the problems but the emphasis is slightly different. If you accept that there needs to be a stronger lead taken by DCMS, how would you see them doing that? What areas would you want them to concentrate on? Mr MacNaught: The other hat that I wear is Head of Cultural Development for Gateshead Council and I believe in the importance of culture as a collective area of activity both for government nationally and for government at local level. Therefore, I am very happy to see libraries as part of the DCMS, provided that joined-up support from the rest of government can take place. I think that there is an issue about ODPM providing greater evidence that they recognise the important role that libraries can play across all areas of local government. The shared priorities between local government and central government include several areas that public libraries can support. Whether they are in education or in neighbourhood development, there are lots of areas that we can contribute to. I think that the greatest support that we could receive would actually be for a follow‑up programme of investment in the public library buildings that we have which, if I may suggest, could be funded through a new stream of Lottery funding in much the same way that the People's Network levered a great deal of support and enthusiasm from local authorities and has undoubtedly embedded our role in the e‑government agenda generally across local authorities. I think similarly an ambitious programme of supporting the bringing up to standard of our public library building stock through Lottery funding, through a challenge to local authorities but essentially one where every local authority would be entitled to some funding support to improve their building stock provided the local authority met certain conditions, would be an enormous lever for government. Q150 Mr Doran: That keeps you with DCMS. Lottery funding is going to reduce over the next ten years, particularly if we are successful with the Olympic bid, so you need muscle somewhere else. Mr MacNaught: That is why we need the support from ODPM to recognise the importance of this and if they were to lever other support in embedding the important role of local authorities in local government that could be a huge achievement for the Government and it would address the chronic problem that will always beset discussions between central and local government about libraries which is that, by and large, wherever you go, there are huge problems with the building stock. Just as the Lottery funding is reducing so is main line capital to local authorities and there is no obvious solution to this on‑going problem of our building stock, which is why I do think that some radical proposal involving Lottery support would be very helpful. Q151 Mr Doran: If I could ask you to ponder this. The idea of shuffling responsibility amongst government departments is really just hiding the problem. What is coming across quite strongly to me in this short inquiry (we have heard a lot of it today) is that there is a failure on the part of those interested in the libraries to be advocates in their own case. I was quite taken by the evidence that we had from representatives of the Audit Commission that where there were advocates then there were better facilities. You obviously were an advocate in Gateshead and you made the point yourself earlier that Gateshead had good facilities but that is not the picture across the country so maybe libraries and librarians as a profession and as the professional organisations should be getting their act together? Mr MacNaught: I agree absolutely and within the Framework for the Future that is why the marketing activity is essential, not as a superficial, advertising campaign but more deep-rooted in advocating the importance of the public library service in the 21st century. We do need to get much better at that now, I absolutely agree. Chairman: Thank you, Mr MacNaught, you have rounded off a very valuable morning. |