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May 19, 2006
Wasting a lot of public money
On 20 April I wrote about the current government review of inefficiency in libraries. There is £300m of wasted effort per annum and this review was set up in order to identify the detail and get rid of it.
I said then that I suspected that the Society of Chief Librarians and the MLA had hi-jacked the process so that whatever happened the review wouldn't touch them or the jobs they protect.
I was right; I've just been sent the current presentation about the review which is being privately shown by the MLA and Price Waterhouse Cooper to the Society of Chief Librarians. The review has been reduced to a tiny fraction of its original scope and most of that relates to what suppliers do. None of it relates to the waste of money that goes on inside the library service in each local council.
The people who are involved in this review and those who direct them are too defensive, insisting that no one can help them; they will not be told of the urgency and magnitude of what is at stake. There is a need for public, or even parliamentary or judicial inquiry into what has happened to this review. Wasting people's money on this scale is not something any of us should tolerate.
This is the money we need for books, longer hours, redecorating buildings, computers etc. The wastage explains why the service is so poor.
The Chair of MLA is Mark Wood; the chief executive is Chris Batt. The library officers are John Dolan, Andrew Stevens and Sarah Wilkie. The persons responsible for libraries at the DCMS are Paul Kirkman, Jeff Jacobs. Keith Gibbins, Les Pedrick and Vanessa Brand. The members of the board of the MLA who have presided over all this include Lynne Brindley (of the British Library), Bob McKee of CILIP, Neil McGregor (of the British Museum), Sir David Henshaw and Lloyd Grossman of keyhole fame. There are also equivalents of the MLA in Scotland (Elaine Fulton) and Wales (Linda Tomos). The Chair of the project steering committee is Chris White of the LGA. The Minister is, of course, Dr. David Lammy.
The consultants for Price Waterhouse Cooper are David Padwick and Damian Riley.
Questions should be asked of all these individuals about the role they have played in the investigation of public library efficency since the initiation of the study by consultants PKF in Autumn 2004.
Posted by Tim Coates at May 19, 2006 4:21 PM