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April 23, 2006
The Cost of your library service
The cost of a TV licence last year was £121. The cost of the public library service for a family of 4 in central London in the same year was £119.
If you live in Camden, the public library service cost £156 and in Islington £148 for the year.
I have to justify those figures by explaining how I have calculated them- so I have put that explanation in a footnote to this table. The full list of costs for the central London boroughs is
For a family of four, the cost of their library service last year was:
Camden £156
Greenwich £87
Hackney £114
Hammersmith/Fulham £87
Islington £148
Kensington/Chelsea £126
Lambeth £83
Lewisham £88
Southwark £102
Tower Hamlets £139
Wandsworth £99
Westminster £109
When you compare these costs with that of a BBC TV licence, do you think your library service is providing value for money?
Calculation :
The source of the data is CIPFA (Chartered Institute of Public Finance) figures for 2004/5. The total costs expended in the year are (with Greenwich as the example)
Revenue cost (excluding capital charges) £4,376,416
Capital charges £665,661
Visitor payments (fines, fees, rentals etc) £435,029
Capital items £nil
total £5,477,306
Population of Greenwich 225,700
'Enhanced' population- London Boroughs 250,527
have an additional 11% daytime population
(Westminster has an extra 68%)
Cost per person = £5,477,306/250,527 = £21.86
Cost per 4 people = £87.45
75% of visits to libraries are for books*. The use of libraries for finding and reading books is therefore its most important use. If book borrowing declines that is a reflection of the quality of the collection of books available and the whole service. It also indicates whether the resources available are being used correctly.
In the past 5 years, book issues, or loans, in central London fell by 12%, but decreases are not inevitable.
The change in book lending in the central London boroughs in the past five years was
Camden fell by 22%
Greenwich fell by 32%
Hackney fell by 22%
Hammersmith/Fulham rose by 8%
Islington fell by 17%
Kensington/Chelsea fell by 19%
Lambeth rose by 7%
Lewisham fell by 17%
Southwark fell by 17%
Tower Hamlets fell by 10%
Wandsworth fell by 10%
Westminster rose by 8%
I apologise in advance and sincerely for any errors in these figures, which I shall correct immediately if needs be. The data has been taken in good faith from CIPFA statistics.
*This figure was quoted by the minister responsible for libraries at the launch of Love Libraries on 22 March 2006
Posted by Tim Coates at April 23, 2006 9:10 PM
Comments
Great value for money compared with a TV licence! I live in Kingston upon Thames which is not covered by your figures. But books are pearls beyond price compared with TV.
Posted by: Maxine at April 24, 2006 3:27 PM