When all three parties agree, something must be wrong

The SCL are now thinking about stepping in to help the volunteer libraries. In SCL stakeholders meeting, I made the point that there's still no evidence to support the sustainability or effectiveness of libraries ran completely or supported by volunteers. They seem to want to help keep them going, as once a library closes its going to be harder to open it. It seems this vital piece of research on if they actually are a good idea isn't needed, all the parties seem to think this is the solution to the funding cuts to local government. You volunteer to run the library and pay for it twice, if you live a area with a volunteer library, you're likely to get a different level of service to another area, despite having paid the same tax. The whole thing is loaded with jargon and new speak to try and make them sound like they're actually a good idea. One thing is clear to me, if a volunteer library somehow manages to keep going for a couple of years and the library service gets a bit of extra budget for staffing, the last place they'll put it is back into the volunteer libraries. They'll waste it on whatever the current fad is.

Having a skim through the meeting notes on the SCL website, it seems the role of libraries advisor is to continue. Someone called Colin Gibson has taken over the role temporarily as libraries advisor. I presume once they've rubber stamped the closure of the Advisory Council on Libraries this will be a permanent role. It would be unthinkable for someone paid by us the taxpayer to have a independent public view outside of the department. The ACL should be brought back and users given a say on what is happening and if the minister is failing to enforce the act or not, the civil servants have failed us.

The SCL website has had a redesign, lots of new areas like position statements (currently empty). I thought they didn't take positions on issues, perhaps they'll give their official view on volunteer run libraries?

With the Sieghart report seemingly showing very little positive, the SCL considering wading in to support the failing idiocy of volunteer libraries and the main parties all in complete agreement on it being a great idea then its very grim times indeed for public libraries in the UK. I feel sorry for the librarians that remain that are tasked with making a success of the volunteer libraries. The huge back office recharges remain off the table as does the clearly obvious approach of having less library authorities to drastically reduce these huge recharges.