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July 21, 2006
The Dumchurch letters 21 July
Dear Chrysanthemum
You will recall that in my previous letter on 19 July I showed the expenditure on the Dumchurch library service for 2005-6 in this way:
Employees- 2,983 (53.1%)
Premises costs- 546 (9.7%)
Materials- 528 (9.4%)
Computing - 381 (6.7%)
Other services- 205 (3.6%)
Transport - 31 (0.5%)
Council Support - 433 (7.7%)
Capital Charges- 510 (9.1%)
Total 5,617 (100.0%)
I also showed that this money came from 2 sources:
Revenue funds from the council 5,177
Income from readers (DVD loans, fines etc) 440
Total 5,617 (ie £5.6m)
In their preparation of the budget for 2006-7 the council had requested the service to plan on the basis that the contribution from the council should only increase by 1.0%. At the same time they promised that there would be no increase in the charge that the council levied from the libraries as their share of the cost of the wider council.
In other words, as all good councils should, they were looking to improve the value for money provided to taxpayers. To me that was a very fair request, and from what I have seen already there was no reason why the service to the public should not be improved at the same time as the cost was slightly reduced. It was a question of looking for sensible economy and improvements in productivity.
However, the library service had already noticed that their income from renting DVD's had declined and was likely to do so again and therefore, unless they could stem that, the total funding of the service would be reduced a further amount and their need for economy would be even greater
They predicted therefore that their total funds would be
Revenue funds from the council 5,229 (last year 5,177)
Income from readers (DVD loans, fines etc) 396 (last year 440)
Total 5,625 (last year 5,617)
The challenge they faced in budgetting was to improve their service to the public while confining their total expenditure to this amount. As we both know the three things that our customers want more than anything else are good stock, the buildings to be opened when people want to use them, and the libraries to be kept in good repair.
Therefore I was very surprised to see how they proposed to face their expenditure target. This is the budget for 2006-7:
Employees 3,150 (an increase of 5.6%)
Premises 573 (an increase of 4.9%)
Materials 358 (a reduction of 32.2%)
Computing 386 (an increase of 1.3%)
Other services 184 (a reduction of 10.2%)
Transport 26 ( a reduction of 16.1%)
Council Support 433 (no change)
Capital Charge 510 (no change)
Total 5,625
Even Perkins can see that a reduction of 32.2% in the Materials fund will have a dramatic effect on the usefulness of the libraries. But that is how it comes about that we read in the newspapers that "a library service has slashed its stock fund". No attempt has been made to improve staff productivity and the wage increase has been taken from the budget for buying books
I have a dread feeling that in many councils such a presentation would go through "on the nod" because superficially it complies with that which the service was asked to achieve. Unless the councillors have their attention drawn to the impact it will have, they won't know. But who would draw attention to this matter if to do so puts at risk their own wages and those of their colleagues?
That is what has been going on for years, and of course in the end it has brought the self justifying argument that "libraries don't really need books" - but omits the reason that "otherwise we won't be able to pay ourselves"
Tell Ron that Perkins is fine.
Grimsdyke
Posted by Tim Coates at July 21, 2006 7:49 AM