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April 9, 2009
Swindon
On this blog there hasn't been much mention of the situation in Swindon. This has been because I have been involved trying to help open discussions so that there might be freedom to express and exercise common sense..
However for all the incredible efforts being made, particularly by Shirley Burnham in Old Town, Swindon, the reality is that at present 4 libraries are faced with either closure, or reduction to the absurd, within a couple of months.
More will be revealed as time goes by, but one of the questions that has arisen is about the 'Central Service Charge' made by the council .
Anyone with the least noddle could see from the figures that, whatever the ingredients, the sum of the central overhead charges in the council is too high.
There has been a battle royal, some of conducted in ships of the fleet, to try and avoid this issue, and to say all kinds of things about it to distract the councillors from examining the problem properly, but nevertheless, like the Rock of Gibraltar, this matter dominates the seascape. We have come to expect officers of both local and national government to hide from the real questions of how money is spent, and here they have done that with all flags flying.
Simply put, because council overhead costs are so great, there is no money left to staff the libraries or to buy books for them.. Many councils have this problem, but Swindon is a bad case.
In the past few days, into this wine dark ocean has steamed a noble organisation called the 'Taxpayers' Alliance' .. And to the matter, they bring not only words of wisdom, but some very interesting facts :
In Swindon council last year the 8 people who earn over £100,000 averaged an 8.5% increase in remuneration, four times the government guideline for pay rises. Swindon also saw a 61% increase in the number of people employed at over £50,000 pa.
Riots and debagging of councillors and officers? Well Swindon is now frequently being reported as the town in the country which is suffering more from the recession than any other-- and needs its set of public libraries like at no other time in its history.
At this time the council is about to close 4 libraries and cut the book fund.
Posted by Perkins at April 9, 2009 9:00 PM
Comments
I have been puzzled about how Swindon was going to function with no stock supply/bibs services department, when I discovered that they were going to close it. The answer is clearly that they aren't going to put any new stock into the non-existing libraries.
Posted by: Helen McNabb at April 11, 2009 8:28 PM