OCC response to my previous blog

I had a email as follows from John Jackson the Director for Social and Community services :

"Dear Mr. Craig,

It has been drawn to our attention that you have made a number of assertions about back office costs. Your assertions have been seen by a number of politicians. We believe that the assertions are incorrect and have provided a briefing note which sets out why. I have attached a copy of that briefing note. In the interests of accuracy, I am asking you to consider whether you should publish this note on your website or alternatively revise the content of the website in the light of this additional information.

Yours sincerely
John Jackson
Director for Social & Community Services
01865 323 574"

To which I responded:
"Dear Mr Jackson,

In the interests of putting the OCC side of the argument I will publish your note in full on my blog. This doesn't mean I agree with its content or as Mr Mitchell has advised I should apologise for misleading people. I believe the issue is that we disagree on what the definition of back office costs is. I still maintain the opinion that the library service will be top heavy, and the back office bigger than front if these proposals go through (especially with the extra costs of volunteer training and self service annual costs). I am also of the opinion that OCC have made a hash of the entire process and have done the taxpayers a great disservice with these proposals. Other library services around the UK spend a far smaller amount on these "other expenditure" costs and management and professional/service support. Yet I believe these are being protected and the mainly rural libraries are being penalised. To borrow a phrase, turkey's are never going to vote for Christmas.

All the confusion and anger around these proposals would have been mitigated in part by OCC being open and transparent from the start on these proposals.

I will post the letter later tonight on my blog after I have visted my local library that you propose to cut the staffing funding to by 66%

With kind regards,

Trevor Craig"

So here is there letter in full:





This note has been prepared by Oxfordshire County Council to respond to assertions made on the blog of Trevor Craig who is an individual concerned at possible changes to Oxfordshire libraries.

Mr. Craig incorrectly asserts that library budgets are currently split £6.2m front office and £4.8m back office and that, after the implementation of the savings plan, the front and back office costs will both be £4.5m. This note sets out the full position to ensure that the public is not misled.

All of the costs that he has described as ‘back office’ are integral to the functioning of the library service and the provision of that service to its customers. Within ‘back office’, he has included for instance:

• The staffing and transport costs of the mobile library service
• The pay costs of professional librarians
• The cost of maintaining the library management system
• The running costs of the library buildings including business rates and repair & maintenance

Using an accepted definition of ‘back office’, the cost of providing support services to libraries such as payroll, finance, ICT and legal advice would total around £0.9m or 8% of the total Library Service budget.

Mr Craig tries to demonstrate that after the budget has been reduced following the restructure of the service, front office and back office budgets will be equal in size. This is incorrect. Spending on library management, professional and service support (all of which he classes as ‘back office’) will fall by £273,000 as a result of the reorganisation already announced. Spending on other support services will also reduce over the next three years.

There is an assumption in the blog that front line services are being cut and back office services are being protected. This is not correct. Oxfordshire County Council has a continuing programme of efficiencies for its central support services which will reduce costs by at least £8.6m per annum by 2014/15.

The next two pages sets out the detailed financial analysis that supports what we have said above.


ANNEX

Table in Mr Craig’s Blog:

Before Cuts
£ After Cuts
£
Management / Service Support 1,700,000 1,400,000
Internal Head Office Costs 3,100,000 3,100,000
Libraries 6,200,000 4,500,000

Total Back Office 4,800,000 4,500,000
Total Front Line 6,200,000 4,500,000


Analysis of what is contained in the £4.8m ‘back office’ costs:

£000
Library service costs
Management 620
Professional librarians 540
Service support 270
Transport 130 Employee costs of the mobile library and delivery services
Library management system support 140 Galaxy book issuing and record system
Computing 320 Galaxy third party support & other IT costs
Supplies & services 260 Miscellaneous non book purchases, most of which are of direct benefit to library users e.g. photocopiers, printing & stationery.
Transport 155 Running costs of the mobile library fleet and delivery vehicles
Total direct costs to the library service 2,435

Costs incurred elsewhere and recharged to the Library Service
Property Recharges 1,729 The property budget is recharged to directorates on a rate per square metre of floor area occupied. It includes repair & maintenance, business rates, rents, service charges, insurance, facilities management and professional property fees.
Directorate Recharges 110 Directorate management and support

£000
Human Resources 243 Payroll, health & safety, Human Resources support & advice, recruitment, learning & development. The recharge is based on the number of full time equivalent employees within each service.
Finance 80 Accountancy, accounts payable, income collection. The recharge is based on the size of budget, number of invoices processed, the invoices raised.
ICT 190 System support & development, help desk, data management & storage, licensing. The recharge is based on the number of users.
Legal 3 Legal advice
Other 10 Customer services, corporate services etc
Total Recharges 2,365
TOTAL 4,800



Obviously this has wonkied up all the formatting, if you want to read it as intended you can here:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=1vQcbFhmNGe45WQ1z8xX2GmRkDBBx2KM2ZcBdcKlqURLIa3ipXHjgGG71bTSc

Plenty of #fail to go around

Finally some good news that at least someone in Westminster is listening to the library groups and taxpayers. Ed Vaizey and Jeremy Hunt have both completely failed to exercise their duty under the law in my opinion, I personally think they are a pair of useless morons. My left big toe with a little face painted on it would make a better culture minister. The other big fail apart from the DCMS and the now defunct MLA is the LGA. At a time when the budget cuts to councils mean they do have to look for savings, the LGA (local government association) should have been bringing the councils together and helping them set up ways of working together. Nearly all councils belong to the LGA, it is paid for via subscriptions from councils and in its own words is a "voluntary lobbying organisation". It spends millions every year (27 million in 2010) on consultants and contractors yet seems to do very little to actually help taxpayers or protect services. It seems to exist to issue press releases rebuking press releases from the taxpayer’s alliance or when Eric Pickles goes off on one. I hope the select committee will come up with some sensible recommendations that will protect front line library funding and the LGA brings some of its vast taxpayer funded resources to bear to help the councils work together to achieve it. We don't need any stupid "initiates" from the government or the LGA, just find a way to stop closing the libraries.

In Oxfordshire the Conservative group will be meeting soon, no doubt Keith will think he can dazzle them with his "Social care or cuts" argument. I hope the councillors of Oxfordshire really understand how very ill-conceived and badly thought through the proposal is. I don't know if Keith is pushing this "Big Society" nonsense because he wants it to fail to embarrass Cameron. If voted through, it will fail. Lots of people will be miffed, the Tories will lose loads of seats and they will in all likely hood lose the seat Nicola Blackwood won by the skin of her teeth over Evan Harris. If any wannabe councillors need any help leafleting or need some donations to help fund their campaigns in 2013 let me know. I can point you in the direction of the councillors seats who have let their libraries close.

The Aftermaths: The epic failure of epic epicness

I had a FOI come back today that confirmed the other expenditure figures. If Keith and his Conservative colleagues vote this proposal through it will represent everything Tories say they are against. The back office cost of running the library will be the same as the front line if not higher. If a chain of retailers had 42 shops that cost them 4.5 million to run. You can be sure the costs of management, HR, IT etc in head office wouldn't cost 4.5 million. But this is the library service if the proposal goes through:

This really is an EPIC fail. There is no other words to describe it. If OCC keep making efficiencies like this we will have to all join the party and start referring to each other as comrade. The service is suppose to exist for the benefit of the taxpayers who pay for it not as a jobs program that provides a limited service to users.

Don't forget this hasn't factored in the 1000 volunteers, they all have to be trained and coordinated by their volunteer coordinator on 60-70k a year. This is going to cost in total 438k pa.
http://questioneverythingtheytellyou.blogspot.com/2011/09/for-keith-and-dave.html

I am so very, very angry. This proposal is a complete and utter failure in every single way. No wonder the county is in the state it is in if public services and regulation are managed by politicians in this way.

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. 
Sir Winston Churchill

Save the back offices at all costs

I was thinking about the back office costs and why they aren't shared with other authorities. I thought to my self, it must be political. Then I checked and actually every single county that surrounds Oxfordshire has a Tory administration. This is very disappointing because I presume via the LGA and the party all of the county leaders actually know each other. The MLA has suggested that authorities sharing the back office can save up to 25% of costs to the library service. I think in borough's this is probably true as they sit right next to each other. In shire counties I appreciate that because of the distances involved not all back office functions can be shared. The fact remains though, if you don't physically touch the books as part of the role there is no requirement for that role to be within the actual area of the libraries you manage. I don't know the full situations or have the detail on the other authorities but to get a rough idea I have used the OCC back office costs and did a few calculations on how much the savings would be if Oxfordshire became a back office hub for the surrounding counties. The officers would argue that the counties are too big and the distances are too great. I'm sorry but for office based jobs this point doesn't hold water. Some back office functions do require a physical presence, for this reason I have pushed the library hub cost up to a generous amount so the percentage savings would be 15%. This coupled with the self service savings in large libraries would mean Oxfordshire would save 30% of the cost of running the library service. I am aware there would be start up issues and it would take a while to setup but I am certain it would be easier than trying to manage a thousand volunteers in Oxfordshire alone. Obviously these are all based on the spend in our county, some may have higher some lower but its worth further looking into further. I suspect the officers haven't consulted with their colleagues in the shires on this and give a "no it won't work" when asked by their political masters. The services are provided for the benefit of the taxpayers not the staff. If this is the case then they are destroying the library service to save their own skins and I find that very sad. If councils were FTSE250 companies as they keep telling me, there is no way they would be so close together in the private sector and not have shared staffing costs, Sir Humphrey wouldn't like this though, his empire is only allowed to grow.

 Below is the data:

Officer leaves, gets 110k pay off

It has been widely reported that a strategic director at West Oxfordshire District Council parted ways with the council and was given 110k for loss of office.

The latest twist here is that in minutes from a meeting it was said that she had decided to leave of her own accord. Obviously because of this it is very peculiar that a staff member can leave of their own accord and also receive a hefty financial payment.

http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/9357393.Council_official__left_job_of_her_own_accord_/

Without transparency on this people have been making up their own conclusions about a cover up to protect councillors.

I emailed the leader of WODC Cllr Barry Norton and put the question:

"Again I have to ask why if someone leaves of their own accord do they have to be paid off? If you still cannot tell me can you give me your assurance that no elected official was involved in the reason for her leaving? Its all very murky and taxpayers have a right to know."


And to his credit he did come back with a straight answer:


"I can assure you that to the best of my knowledge no elected member was involved in the reason for Miss James leaving the council.

Best wishes

Barry Norton"

Since he has categorically said it isn't anything to do with a elected member then I think that is probably fair enough not to push further. I am of course annoyed about the 110k which could have been put to better use. I hope that if another officer(s) has acted in a inappropriate manner that necessitated Cath James having to leave then that person or persons has been disciplined appropriately. 

Letter to Keith

Dear Keith,

As per my constant stream of tweets, will you please set out the reasons why this proposal is the only one on the table? I agree completely on the need for cuts within the library service but obviously disagree with the way the cuts are being made in the mainly rural libraries. I have no idea if you have been reading my blog or not but I have tried to show other areas that I don't personally thing have been explored. I want to understand the real arguments for this proposal. The QA isn't worth the paper it is written on, it is misquoted and the data derived from it uses a faulty premise that is biased against rural areas.

I cannot speak for the library groups but the feeling I get is there isn't the volunteers to sustain this, even if they tried all the other good work they do which makes Oxfordshire's library service one of the best in the country would be lost. Not only that, the nonsense of health and safety would mean the training costs would cancel out any savings by making staff cuts, on top of that the volunteer coordinated on 60-70k salary would further erode any savings.

There are plenty of other arguments that I could list but don't want to send you a email that would run to pages and pages. Not only is it obvious the cuts could be made in the management and support and the internal recharge, a back office share (full or partial) with other authorities could easily make the savings required. Other things unanswered are why the good work in Hillingdon that has seen massive improvements to the service (and increased issues and visitor numbers) within existing budgets been ignored? They have half the libraries of Oxfordshire and have made 250k savings alone on letting the local libraries purchase the books they want directly from the suppliers. I don't know all the detail, I presume you do. But this way forward has been completely pushed aside. The other avenue where we weren't given detail on was why it wasn't pursued to get a private company to run the service, I have no issue personally with this but would imagine your "leftie" friends in Oxford City wouldn't be pleased. 

Also why do the city libraries not have to join the big society? They are densely populated and it would be a lot easier for them to find volunteers. Not only that the CRB, first aid, fire marshal etc wouldn't be required because professional staff would always be onsite (unlike in the case of the small libraries under this proposal). Most of the existing volunteers in the rural libraries are retired, I don't think it is fair for retired people to have paid taxes all their lives to then be asked to provide front line services to themselves.

I think I and the other library groups would welcome you setting out the position on why OCC are pressing ahead with this proposal and ignoring other possibilities. Since most of the cuts in the proposal are to rural libraries I would imagine it is going to be a hard sell to your own side, in quite a few seats where libraries are being cut your colleagues have very slim majorities. Cllr Fateman, Cllr Heathcoat and Cllr Rose in the cabinet alone look very vulnerable come 2013.

With kind regards,

Trevor Craig,

p.s good luck with whatever you decide to pursue after May, maybe you can get your piano grades up and audition to join the Oxford Philomusica? :D

p.p.s you are welcome to put this on your blog, I am going to put it on mine.

p.p.p.s you could get volunteers to do the cleaning instead of Quest and save more money than under this proposal

Yet more places to look for savings

There was a Oxfordshire County Council good news story in the Oxford mail today:
http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/9361573.A_bright_idea/
The basic gist is they have spent some money on replacing schools lights new energy saving LED lights. This has saved them (or in fact us) 40% on their electricity bills. 


In a totally unrelated article, Keith the other day quashed any suggestion of spending the five million released from the Icelandic banks on libraries saying:


“It could go into a capital project such as a school or a road scheme, but it will not fund youth services or library services because it is one-off money.

“Given the current state of the finances, if there is a bit spare we have to hang onto it for a rainy day, because it is going to pour down for the next years as far as I can see.”

Now here is a mad idea: why don't you use the five million and put those same lights in all the libraries? That way you could save money each year on the library budget and would be using the money in a way you suggested. This one off money would make savings each year and decrease the councils carbon output. The prices are only going to continue to rise so it is a very sound investment. Here is a link to the data:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6dU0yhpP-MUZjYzMzY3ZTUtY2YxMS00OWJhLWJkZWQtOTFiNGNhZDFlNjI4

If the 40% figure is correct, the actual savings on electricity costs would be £51,721.09, this is based on 09/10 data . Since then electricity has gone up quite a bit. If their electricity has gone up as much as most peoples has, the saving could be up to 60k. Since OCC have the cash, why not put these lights into as many other buildings as the 5 million will stretch too? Obviously I don't know the electricity costs for all the buildings but I would imagine with a initial one off investment of our cash from the Icelandic banks then the 350k to save all the rural (and one city) library would be easily achievable. 

The problem is are they listening at OCC? Yes it is a representative democracy but they are supposed to listen to our views not just ignore them. You are allowed to change your mind Keith, Thatcher once famously said "The lady is not for turning" but in reality when the facts change she saw reason and changed her mind, don't try and push this through. It won't save money, there isn't the volunteers and you are going against your own policies.  

Replacing staff with volunteers isn't what the big society is supposed to be. The big society stuff we already do and it will be lost because we will be too busy stacking the shelves and trying to teach the elderly how to use the stupidly expensive self service machines. 

There are lots of other options, if one of the assistant county librarians left and wasn't replaced for example, that would save around 70ish, depending on the pay grade, pension and other perks.

There are 32.11 staff in the management and professional, the top 15 of them are on 700k salary between them.  Below is the structure:

No leaning out here? Or do you need every one of the customer service people or all those principle librarians? They cannot be shared with another county? It wouldn't take much sharing to save the front line. Then there is the 3.2 million internal recharge, this cannot be leaned out either? The only option is the one on the table, take it of leave it? I will leave it if its all the same. When the volunteer thing doesn't work and you come to close my library down,  I will be the one handcuffed to the heating pipe in the toilet in our library. You send your boys down and try and move me.