The Chief Cultural and Leisure Officers Association very much welcome the independent review of English public libraries and look forward to working with partners across the cultural sector to further the aims and ambitions of the review.  We have written to Lord Parkinson and Baroness Sanderson to express the points below and have requested that Chief Officers/Directors are more formally involved.

Baroness Sanderson’s review appears to be comprehensive, identifies a number of areas for improvement and puts a spotlight on the strength and potential of public libraries. CLOA members recognise only too well the many positive outcomes library services can have for their communities; this formal recognition is welcomed.

We are however disappointed that the review does not address the artificial separation of libraries policy from wider local government and cultural policy that has been evident in recent years.  The separation of the area within both DCMS and ACE, and the separate funding of Libraries Connected, is problematic in this regard. 

CLOA members are, in most local authorities, the senior manager responsible for the strategic management of public libraries and provide line management to the Head of Libraries or equivalent.  We urge that the role of libraries within wider cultural provision is addressed within the structures, funding and support provided by ACE, and we very much wish to offer our support and advice in realising this objective. This would much better support a placebased approach.

We know that Library management and staff are very passionate about their services. The report recognises that many services in the last few years have broken down barriers and work across communities and local authority services. Indeed, it is not uncommon that activities taking place in libraries, or offered by a library service, are therefore now widely drawn; they are as much related to wider service provision (including cultural provision) as their historic remit.  Indeed, increasingly they are integrated with other local government provision (e.g. family hubs, leisure, public health, business support) and library policy needs to be seen through the lens of the wider management of Council services serving residents in their place.  Libraries often end up working in silos because this simply isn’t recognised, and this limits their potential.

CLOA believes sector-led improvement is a vital part of ensuring fitness for purpose.  Whilst public libraries remain a statutory function of Councils, nationally Arts Council England is the body designated by government to support their development; but engagement is often focussed at service level, rather than through dialogue with senior strategic leaders in the sector.  This misses important opportunities for collaboration and creates a confusion in the system that is a potential barrier to delivering the priorities set out in the review.  CLOA therefore calls for a stronger acknowledgement of the role of local government senior officers in libraries policy.

We recognise that there is significant under-investment in the public library network. Over 100 Councils are on the verge of bankruptcy with implications for Cultural services as a whole, including Library Services. Clearly for libraries the DCMS superintendence function is now involved in many live conversations. Unless the structural funding of Local Government is addressed, we foresee many Cultural services, including Library services, all which are critical to communities, and will suffer a spiral of decline as resources are directed to alleviate pressures in Adult Social Care, Children’s Services and temporary accommodation.

CLOA urges that proposals for a national Library data hub take a more strategic view.  We are working with LGA and others (including the DCMS ALBs) to collaborate to implement the recommendations of the national Commission on Culture and Local Government, which included the recommendation for a joined up approach to cultural data; it’s really important that library data should form part of a coherent and comprehensive data set.

We welcome an approach to data that enables benchmarking and scrutiny, but should avoid unnecessary reporting burden, or delay between collection and publication; and ideally allow local tailoring and variation to local delivery and need.  We recommend that library data is considered fully as part of the existing programme of collaboration on a new model as referred to above.

Iain Varah & Val Birchall on behalf of the CLOA Executive Committee