I
sent my last blog post about the Newcastle and Gateshead situations to the leaders of Newcastle and Gateshead
Council. I didn't expect a reply from either but did get a reply from
the office of Mick Henry from Gateshead. It contained a lot of the
factual information about what is happening and a thank you for
getting in touch and my comments had been added to the consultation.
What I found surprising is that they have discussed joint sharing but
they won't because:
"As
part of a service review, opportunities for shared services were
considered and detailed discussions held with officers from Newcastle
City Council. A range of service areas were considered for
sharing. It was concluded that the areas of service that could
be considered for sharing were not feasible owing to the very limited
capacity that now exists in these areas across both Councils. "
Which
if you have limited capacity that is exactly the reason you pool
resources not a reason not to do it! And anyway, both within the
library service and the service support/ other expenditure there is
still plenty of duplication and expensive back office support going
on as I wrote about here.
Politics
as always buggers everything up though, why cut up your little empire
when you can blame the other side and cut services to make a point.
It more clear than ever that the Tories are closing libraries by
stealth by handing them to volunteers and Labour are openly closing
them but blaming the evil coalition for making them do something they claim they don't want to do. And in some cases it looks like certain politicians
are using the cuts to give themselves a national platform, no doubt
with a eye on a future safe seat.
The
Newcastle 90 million figure is a nonsense and has been clearly torn apart
by Lee Hall and his brilliant analysis of the figures put up by
Newcastle:
I
think its time for Mick Henry and Nick Forbes to go back to their
officers tell them to merge the management and back office spending
of the two library services and that no library should have its hours
or low paid library managers/assistants cut otherwise the tail is
wagging the dog. Libraries more than pay for themselves in hundreds
of ways, sadly very few councillors understand this and its not
something that appears in their budgets but you cut the libraries and
watch literacy decrease, watch the elderly need extra care because
they have lost their one lifeline, watch the job seekers fail to get
re-employed because they have no access to a computer or books on how
to find work or re skill. None of that appears on the budget sheet
for the financial year so to these people it doesn't matter.
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