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July 14, 2007
MLA, Supply Chain and all that stuff
I read again yet another report by council officers to their councillors about the MLA project "Better Books, Better Libraries"
It was grandstanding and the final sentence of the officer's report says "Many questions remain to be answered and it will be interesting to monitor developments"
If councils continue to behave like this there will never be any progress- and many more million pounds will be wasted. It is childish and irresponsible.
What the officer should say is "What WE need this project to achieve for us are the following advantages"- and then he should evaluate where such a programme could provide either economy or improvement which the council are not able to obtain on their own
By doing that we would begin to have some sensible discussion, then we would know what a council can improve and how and when it can be done. We would have an agenda for the MLA to tackle knowing it was working in response to real need. Councillors need to take a stronger hand.
At the moment the MLA programme is nonsense. It is too complicated and the benefits are too small, too distant and too unlikely. There are much simpler improvements readily available - but only for those councils who know what they want to do and will seek improvement with purpose.
I called for this work to be done a long time ago- both in the Audit Commission report "Building Better Libraries" and in "Who's in Charge". I was pleased that the Government decided to take action, but since then they have rambled incoherently and expensively. I offered again last week to advise them what to do and was, of course, turned down. It's a shame because great improvements in public libraries are readily available - we just seem to do everything else but take hold of them
The MLA needs a new direction and new urgency-- quickly. There are already too many committees and partners. It's a faff. Come on Mrs Hodge-- show us what you are made of. If you need, I'll tell you what to do.
This blog has saved a lot of libraries from closing in the past 18 months (and no one in the MLA or DCMS has done that)-- now give us a chance to show that we can make them all into really good ones.
Posted by Tim Coates at July 14, 2007 9:02 AM