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December 6, 2009
Where are The Audit Commission and the Culture Select Committee?
Rachel Cooke writes again perceptively and in a well informed manner in The Observer today.
She tells the, by now, clear and well understood story of the absolute and prolonged failure of the DCMS and all its functions, to perform the role it has been given in the public library service.
But the DCMS, MLA and local councils are not the only bodies to whom the public look (in ever increasing despair) for the care, protection and improvement of our libraries. We have mechanisms which are supposed to operate to make sure these people do their duty. It should not fall to journalists and campaigners alone to ring alarm bells and constantly stamp their feet.
The Culture Select Committee, whose statutory role is to oversee the activities of the DCMS and its quangoes has not stirred for 5 years. At that time it analysed and reported very well, but as has been observed so often, reports are not enough to make people act. Pressure has to be applied more effectively. I think they have failed in their duty by such a long silence and call upon them to take up the matter. I have written (quite often) to the Chair John Whittingdale, MP, but like Lord Palmerston, he does not reply to letters; and I suggest that others do the same.
At the time of that last Select Committee report much hope was held out for what the Audit Commission would do. They, too had written two good reports describing the shortcomings of the service ("Due for Renewal" and "Building Better Libraries"). But they, too, have failed sadly to turn that groundwork into effective and real improvement. Their mechanisms have been too soft and too complicated. Their focus is too vague and unspecific; they have allowed too much poor management to persist. They have not done their job. It is time that this was said publicly and loudly.
Posted by Perkins at December 6, 2009 11:10 AM
Comments
I can only agree with Rachel Cooke's comments as they - again - echo my own. She originally inspired my first article and, like me, is not surprised that most of the essays in this useless new document simply want a national library card, longer opening hours and improved book stock. But the people in power and in jobs simply refuse to do anything as humdrum, banal and - God help us - simple as that. It all has to be digital, RFID, information plinths, Web 2.0, metadata or the latest big idea which amounts to nothing more than reinventing the wheel. Note to all you idiots in power - the wheel is still being made, and so is the book, so will you stop brandishing electronic readers around like overgrown children and concentrate on the basics? Margaret Hodge, you are an idiot, and it's perfectly obvious you couldn't have a straightforward, non-convoluted thought for all the tea in China. Above and beyond the question of Hodge's idiocy, I think all these consultation documents prove is that we now have a ruling-class of mandarins who simply can't do anything except fudge around bureaucratically. They don't decide anything, they merely consult. Unendingly. Well, I'm still up for marching on London if anyone's interested. Anyone want to stand outside Margaret Hodge's office and call her an idiot?
Posted by: James Christie at December 7, 2009 12:08 PM
I will never cease to be amazed at the turns taken by the public library saga after I asked a Public Question at Brighton and Hove Council about the staffing of Music Libraries, and the reply from Councillor David Smith, in charge of "Culture", was that he wished he could challenge me to a duel, and, what's more, that he would win.
With such people in charge of libraries, there is scant hope indeed that we can ever achieve the simple and effective aim of good stocks and long opening hours.
He was described in Private Eye as "choleric".
Posted by: Christopher Hawtree at December 7, 2009 12:34 PM