A fighting response over libraries

Jane says the following:

At last years budget setting meeting Councillor Catherine West vowed that there would be no library closures. Instead they would explore the option of  Trust status. Apart from being contrary to UNISON policy. It was clear that councillors had done little or no research into what this could mean for the service.

Staff and buildings would have been transferred out of the council and this would have had far reaching implications for the service and the terms and conditions of Libraries staff. Staff also had concerns that a Trust could impact on their professionalism in terms of policy and stock selection. I arranged a series of departmental meetings and along with Library stewards we did our own research and attended the public consultation meetings. I raised a number of questions and points that clearly could not be answered and we used the local press to highlight these issues.

Some slight pressure was applied from one or two local Labour party members for me to drop our campaign against the Trust option but UNISON members were very clear and I had a clear mandate.

It was also clear that the public were not keen on going down the Community Library route and certainly did not like the idea of volunteers. The cost of volunteers did not appear to be taken into consideration when the council prepared its public consultation document. However, this was another area that we researched and the expense along with that of CRB checks should make use of volunteers prohibitive.

A previous restructure twinned or paired up Libraries and management are currently looking at staff rotas, proposals on opening hours and self service machines,

I have met with members in Libraries to discuss the implications of these cuts on staff and services and a number of site meetings are planned over the coming weeks. We are currently proposing to hold a public meeting (details to be confirmed at a later date) on this prior to any changes to opening hours and the introduction of self service machines which are scheduled for later this year.