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Cornwall Council is not axing all Library Managers as claimed. 

On Saturday, Cllr Alex Folkes emailed me to ask about the proposed changes to the management structure of Cornwall’s Libraries. Yesterday, I was attending the funeral of a close family friend and so had not been able to reply to his email. I was then very surprised to find that yesterday morning he had sent out a press release without waiting for my response. However, here is my response to his statement.

Earlier this year the Council took the decision not to close any of its libraries, as other local authorities have had to do, but to maintain the current network acrossCornwall.  However, in order to achieve this and meet the current budget restraints, some tough decision have had to be made.

The budget set by the Council called for approximately £1m of savings to be made from within the Face to Face service, which includes Libraries. These savings were outlined in a report discussed by the Council’s Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee last month.  Cllr Folkes is a member of this committee and, indeed, took part in this debate so I am not sure why he is suddenly raising this issue now.

The Council is bringing its face to face services together into one service.  A series of formal and informal consultations have been held with library and other face to face staff and the unions, as a result a new staffing structure has been developed. The key priority at this time is to maintain our current number of libraries and, where we can, to co-locate other council services into our local libraries. We are also committed to ensuring that we maintain the number of staff we have available to deal with the public day to day. It was clear from the consultation that the majority of staff felt it was crucial to have a supervisor in each library / one stop shop. The only way of achieving this within the current budget is to make savings within the management and back office staff – something the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government have continually encouraged local authorities to do.

The current proposals will ensure that an experienced member of staff is on site in every library, whilst providing a senior management structure to oversee the service to ensure quality and efficiency. There will also be a central specialist team of managers who will provide support in particular areas, such as youth or IT. This will help ensure consistency of service delivery across all areas.

I am confident that the current proposals are the best way of achieving the savings that need to be made whilst maintaining the best possible level of service within our libraries.

Far from wanting to ‘strip our libraries of our best staff’ as Cllr Folkes suggests, I am seeking to ensure that we get the best out of our staff and the greatest value for money for the Cornish tax payer. I believe that the vast majority of library users will not notice any decline in the service they receive. However, I will ensure that this is monitored and have asked for a review after these changes have been in place for 6 months.

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