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July 6, 2006
Efficient operation of the Public Library service
Readers of the blog will know that I believe that the public library service doesn't fail because it is short of money; it fails because most of the money it receives is ill-directed.
A year ago the Government engaged consultants called PKF and they identified the areas where money is wasted. Their recommendations were accepted. They fell into two camps: "Quick Wins" and "Longer Term". The issues that fall in the second category were passed to yet more consultants, who have reported, limply, that the first consultants were right and that work will be sorted out.
However, the bulk of the wastage and lost money falls into the list of "Quick Wins". What PKF meant was that this inefficiency is simply caused by ineffective management in councils and no great wisdom or philosophy is needed to correct them- just better management. For example, if a council currently employs nine people to do a job that can be done by two-- or even that doesn't need to be done at all, there isn't much more that can be said, except that the council should stop "quickly".
In fact councils find that kind of action very difficult. It is completely alien to local government to pursue efficiency, especially if it affects the number of people they employ. If you told someone in local government that a job that currently occupies nine people could be done by two, the answer you would receive would be "why?: it is better for us to employ nine". That completely foils consultants like PKF, who like the rest of us, do not normally come across that approach.
Therefore it is not surprising that the response to the PKF report, by the managers of the library service, although it was accepted and endorsed by the government was "It is a very poor report; they don't understand how local government works, and, even, these consultants couldn't add up" (which I have heard several people say)
Nor is it then surprising that a year after publication of the report, not only have none of the "Quick Wins" been attempted or achieved, but people have stopped talking about them. A potential saving of £200m at least per annum, has been completely forgotten. This is the money we need for more books and longer opening hours, as PKF observed.
It will come as no surprise to readers of this blog to be told that the two bodies who agreed to be held responsible for helping councils to achieve these "Quick Wins" were the MLA and the Society of Chief Librarians, neither of whom were a wise choice, in my view. In an egg and spoon race between the two of them, I wouldn't back either of them to finish. In a three-legged race against themselves, which is what was proposed, I wouldn't bet on them crossing the starting line.
The Quick Wins listed by PKF (who are nice, clever people and very good at adding up- it is their job, they are accountants) are:
- All authorities should adopt NAG standard servicing (without any variation whatsoever). This simply means all councils using the same sticky labels on their library books.
- There should be external scrutiny of library services procurement processes to make sure they are completely efficient (as described in the report) and surplus staff re-deployed to customer- facing roles
- Libraries should review their support functions and where possible share them across local boundaries
- Councils and groups of councils should work with suppliers to streamline operations
- All posts within all library operations should be reviewed to make sure they contribute to the targets that have been set; as many as possible should be customer facing - and these changes should be managed to make sure they achieve results.
- Management structures should be reviewed to make sure they are not too large.
I have visited two of the large library suppliers in the past few weeks and asked if councils now use "NAG standard servicing without any variation" and in both cases was greeted with cheery laughter. Some councils are even still asking for books on approval before they decide to buy them.
Every council seeing this report should have engaged professional neutral outside scrutiny to achieve these results. They are obviously worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, if not millions in the larger councils. Did they? No - most councils were told the report was of no significance and required no action. This message was given to councillors by library officers along with the soothing message that there are longer term benefits which will be indentified (in the longer term) by another round of government employed consultants.
Keep paying your taxes.
Posted by Tim Coates at July 6, 2006 1:12 PM