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April 20, 2006
Non governmental
I referred yesterday to the Ministry of Common Sense, and the Minister of Story Telling. Today it is time to reveal the Department of Libraries and Archives, DLA, or Delay as it properly known. Their role is, as their name says, to delay progress for as long as they possibly can. Of course they are experts.
They embarked on their programme to renovate the library service 5 years ago and so far their achievement is completely zero. Out of three thousand libraries, as the Minister of Story Telling would say, we can count the progress on the finger of one hand.
I have in mind particularly today, firstly, the review of efficiency and methods, which was certainly called for four years ago by the Audit Commission (more about them in a separate piece!) and then again and again by successive ministers, from which not one jot of progress has emerged anywhere. And secondly the review of the state of library property, which one would have thought was prerequisite to the whole programme, but they forgot to do anything about that until Parliament asked them last year. Nevertheless, in their true style, using all the skill and huge amounts of money at their disposal, they have still not managed to produce the report-- the answer to which anyone of us can guess -- will say we need "More than £600m" I bet you.
Posted by Tim Coates at April 20, 2006 4:34 PM