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August 2, 2008
A symbol of Labour
In 1997, when the Labour Government came to office and the Department of Culture Media and Sport was born, there was just one civil service official for public libraries in the whole of central government. Peter Beauchamp was (and still is, I'm sure) an amiable voice for public libraries who followed dutifully in the footsteps of a number of ministers. There were a number of initiatives, lots of conference speeches, but while nothing useful was done in terms of analysis or action, it didn't cost too much.
By last year, just ten years later the central government structure had grown from it base responsibility which resides among a number of now nameless officials in the DCMS to the largest part of a large national quango called the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. This large, unrepresentative body has a chair, a chief executive, a board, and a substantial complement of officers in a large block in Holborn (now split to two offices, one in Knightsbridge and one in Birmingham). In addition there were 12 regional offices of the MLA all with permanent employees of considerable number. Of course there are websites, press offices, development managers, HR experts and all the rest.
As this blog has continually reported - and nobody actually denies-- this vast structure and expense has actually achieved roughly the same as Peter achieved, which is absolutely nothing. That is because libraries are run not by central government, but by local councils and those local councillors who are resoponsible work without any training or advice about how to do the job properly. But it is also because this organisation has never been managed by anybody who could make any sense of what it was for. Budgetting, each year, as it is in most government, is not an analysis of how best to spend taxpayers money, but how to secure the largest increase over the year before. So advocacy to like minded people has meant increase in public spending, to huge proportions, without any visible public benefit being achieved or sought.
It has just been horrid to watch-- and until a Cameron or a Milliband or anyone else grasps the stupidity of it all and faces down the people thus employed-- it will go on, whichever party is voted for in a general election. There is no sign whatsoever of such enlightemnment, but there needs to be.
Posted by Perkins at August 2, 2008 1:20 PM
Comments
Well said. This is precisely the kind of profligacy that needs to be identified and chopped.
Posted by: Roger Pearse at August 8, 2008 11:58 AM