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Service Information

Directorate: Community, Environment, Adults and Health Services
Service: Libraries

Dates

Consultation Starts: 23 November 2011
Consultation Closes: 24 February 2012
Areas Affected: All Areas
Groups Affected: All sections of the community

Overview

The Government is reducing funding to local authorities and as such all services will need to reduce how much they spend. The Library Service’s contribution to these savings is a minimum of £900,000 out of a total budget of £3.5 million. Savings have been achieved in the past by redesigning what we do and this will continue. However it is very likely that the number of libraries we provide will need to be reduced.

Key Principles

The Council has devised a set of key principles for the Library Service review. These are:

Larger libraries provide a wider range of services to the community and in turn a more comprehensive offer.
Libraries situated in the centre of towns are more accessible to a wider population.
How close users are to alternate libraries should be a key factor. This will be measured by analysing the catchment area for each library and assessing the overlap with users of other libraries.
The review should seek to minimise any detrimental impact on those people that need the library most.
It is very likely that the service will be delivered through less buildings in the future, however the council will work with partners and communities to look at all reasonable proposals to retain library buildings in the community.