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May 29, 2009
Unison
Thanks to Unison for their contribution to Lyn Brown's review.
I am very grateful for the highlight they gave to the project in Hillingdon, which continues to go well. I am surpised that other councils haven't asked for more information about how the work was done and how they can do the same things. In anticipation of budget difficulties in the years to come, there is even more reason why the lessons learned there would be useful to others. But I have had almost no approaches to talk about it and I am told that council themselves have had very few. Even Rachel Cooke in the Observer was unable to obtain an answer as to why this programme does not feature among the list of MLA so- called Best Practice. When I asked the MLA to include this work, they didn't even answer the email.
As has been well reported there has been a reorganisation of staff roles, which, of course, causes some problems. One might have expected the union to object to such activity, but both in this report and in their report earlier this year, Unison have taken a balanced and sensible approach. These things have to be done-- but they must be done properly, seems to be their point of view. This is what Unison said
" Re-vamping old libraries is also cost-effective in the long-term. In the London Borough of Hillingdon, seventeen of the borough’s existing libraries are being refurbished, to include computers and improved book stock. Negotiations with suppliers have resulted in better deals and reduced costs through delivering to the libraries individually, rather than bulk delivery to the central library. £260,000 has been saved by the local authority in the process."
Posted by Perkins at May 29, 2009 8:51 AM