Protecting and Developing Croydon Libraries A Paper by Councillor Timothy Godfrey. Labour & Co-operative Party Councillor for Selhurst Ward
Key Principles: • • • •
Keep all Croydon Libraries Open Improve staffing levels on the front line Engage and involve the Local Community Tackle the obscene inefficiency of spending 44.78% of budget on the back office
Introduction On working through the full budgets for Croydon Libraries, it becomes clear that the Current Council consultation was only looking at the very front line costs and how to reduce them. The savings achieved or achievable from the proposals are small in comparison with the overall budget. The question therefore is why? The answer is that 44.78% of this budget has been allocated to the back office. Much of it has been allocated to the large corporate contracts for IT and Facilities Management. I have not been able to look at the whole Council, as I do not have the internal budget sheets that are necessary to see the full breakdown of how the Council spends its ‘top line’ budgets. However IF that back office figure of 44.78% was repeated in other council departments, it becomes quite frightening. The inefficiency is staggering. The Merton Council Briefing paper that is attached to this document sets out just how bad Croydon Council is in a simple comparator based on population, user numbers, costs per visit etc. Since Croydon is to be working with Wandsworth, another high cost borough, it might have been better to look at the lower cost model operated by neighbouring Merton Council. Privatisation / Market Testing The Conservative Council has announced an exercise to market test the delivery of the Library Service by other providers. These providers could be charities, companies or other councils. This completely misses the point. It misses the fact that it is our Councils duty to be efficient and spend our Council Tax in an efficient manner. Logically the
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Council should be doing this first before any market testing of the service, otherwise it is an open invitation for false comparisons to be drawn between an inefficient council model and an alternative provider who instantly strips out all the obvious wasteful contracts. It is not good enough to say that the Libraries will be available to any willing provider including residents associations or other community groups because the level of capacity to produce meaningful, long term solutions is not there. The Council needs to lead on this, to provide the capacity which in term will strengthen the local community as well as the reputation of the Council. If the Council can not manage to bring forward a scheme that builds positively on the public anger at the plans and the clear public commitment to our libraries, then it is not worthy of running any public service in Croydon. It has in effect already declared that it has failed and is on the path of privatising all Council services. You can not be shocked at the plans to privatise our Libraries when they are privatising our Care Homes to Care UK, based on saving money on the back of cutting pay and therefore the skills and experience of the staff that have worked in Croydon Council Care homes for many years. The for profit sector creams off a minimum of 5% of contract value and a usual 10-15% of contract value to cover operational profit as well as bid costs and ongoing contractual negotiations. That is profit that should be used to improve public services and maximise front line delivery. The Alternative This is a perfect time to harness the commitment, energy and the community spirit brought about by these closure plans by devolving the running of the Libraries to the professional staff and their community. I set out below how to do this. I set out the efficient model of operation that is Upper Norwood Joint Library and why an amended version of this model could work so well across Croydon. I set out how to involve local people, staff and library members and use Libraries as a way to strengthen local communities. A model that is both empowering as well as inspiring.
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The dead weight of Contracts and other back office expenditure on the Library Budget Below is the table for back office charges. Read them carefully because they are illuminating. These are the sums of money that the Council thinks necessary to spend in order to run 12 branch libraries, a home library service and a central library. Under normal accounting rules, you account for the actual costs of the services provided. This is necessary because if you decide to outsource this service (or another) to a private company, or stop running a service altogether, you need to know what that service is actually costing you. Not just the front line staffing figures. Total for all of these back office functions £3,327,822. The Total budget for Libraries is £8,563,022 including a depreciation charge of £1,132,616 In other words the library service has actual funds available of £7,430,406 Of available funds, the council spends 44.78% of its budget on back office functions and contracts. Let us look in detail at some of those areas of spending Support Services BVACOP charges: Corporate Finance Financial Governance Financial Services Customer Focus Human resources Payroll Accommodation AFM Legal Strategy and Communication Customer Services Intra Community Services
33,282 51,574 9,163 1,385,526 111,577 21,401 239,300 821,570 1,467 21,437 224,537 406,988
Customer Focus This is the provision of integrated computer systems, including the call centre at Taberner Houser, the web site and all the individual computers and printers in the Libraries. That charge is £1.385million. Customer Services That is the call centre – presumably for answering highly complex questions like where my local library is, or renewing a library book over the phone. £224,537
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Payroll This is the day to day arrangements needed to service the 115.2 Full Time Equivalent posts in the service – so that is a charge of £185.77 per person. A little high compared to what a small business would pay, but not too extravagant. Human Resources Includes recruitment, training etc. £111,577 is £968.55 for each employee. Accommodation This charge relates to provision of office accommodation for non library based staff. £239,300 AFM Asset & Facility Management – this is mostly bundled into a huge contract with Interserve PLC. The cost to look after 12 branch libraries and one main library is £821,570 that is a separate charge to the £23,500 for repairs and maintenance of buildings. Strategy and Communication £21,437 – presumably this is the cost of putting together the consultation to close our libraries down. Intra Community Services £406,988 – the charge for running the department. However this is also supplemented in the Council accounts by a charge for ‘Cultural Central’ £377,000 which includes the senior management of the department (3.4 FTE posts) Finance Charges Corporate Finance Financial Governance Financial Services
£33,282 £51,574 £9,163
Total recharge for Finance £94,019 Supplies and Services Including the book fund of £277,376 Croydon spends £541,515 on everything from security to postage. Transport Croydon Libraries spend £12,169 on transport services for the library service each year.
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How reasonable are all of these charges onto the Library Service? The sums involved are significant. The amount paid over to large multi national contractors is huge. 44.78% of this budget. The real question is, could this service be delivered in a different way that removed the need for the expensive senior management, large contracts for IT and so on and managed to put the majority of the budget onto providing the front line service? This is not an abstract comparison, because in Croydon we have an alternative model that operates within a fully contained budget and with all the necessary charges applied to it in order that it can operate. It even publishes its own audited accounts. Upper Norwood Joint Library – a joint library authority between the London Borough of Croydon and the London Borough of Lambeth. That library receives a budget allocation from Lambeth and a budget allocation from Croydon. Croydon Council acts as the ‘agent’ for this joint authority and makes a recharge to the budget for corporate services including clerking the formal committee and running its finances. The Joint Library is also fully responsible for building maintenance, computer technology, book purchasing etc. The Upper Norwood Joint Library does this for a total sum of £397,483 (according to its accounts on Croydon.gov.uk web site). Croydon Council will contribute £189,297 in 2011/12 Financial Year. Less than half the running costs because Croydon Council claims the difference in funding between Croydon and Lambeth is because Croydon provides support functions (such as accountancy and clerking the committee) with a value of £20,000 - £30,000 according to the Upper Norwood Library Campaign. So, let us break the costs of Upper Norwood Library Down. £30,000 for accountancy and clerking claimed to be spent by Croydon Council. £315,616 for employees – 75.15% of budget to the front line of staff £26,701 for buying books – 6.35% of budget to book buying £77,655 for general running expenses The Library manages to bring in approx £40,000 in earned income each year. A note of interest is that this is at least double any Croydon branch library. Selsdon brings in £18,778 and Norbury brings in £14,182. The Central Croydon Library brings in £212,252.
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What are the unique characteristics of Upper Norwood Library? • • • • • • • •
All staff are front facing No highly paid senior management. More staff than a Croydon branch library, but many more users and no senior management. High use of the Library, including Children’s Library, Archive, Reference etc. Costs transparently contained within an annual budget A bigger annual spend on book buying than any other Library in Croydon Book buying to building maintenance responsibility of the staff in the library Community committed to their library including a dedicated campaign group ‘Upper Norwood Library Campaign’
Why the negative pressure on Upper Norwood Library? If you set out to deliberately mislead, you first of all strip out all of the expensive back office costs that Croydon spends from the Library budget, then you make the cost comparison with Upper Norwood Library. In those terms, Upper Norwood Library costs about twice what a Croydon Branch Library costs each year. Yet if you include all the back office costs, this shows clearly that Upper Norwood Library spends less than 20% of its budget on back office, building, IT and other costs. It therefore makes an easy, perhaps cheap, political point that Croydon Council is pumping far more money into an ‘inefficient’ library that it does not directly run. Having this easy comparator on its doorstep is an inconvenient fact that in the long term, officers and Cabinet members would rather do without. The Council officers and cabinet members have vested interests in keeping their internal empires and protecting headline budgets. Senior Council staff and Council Cabinet members don’t like the idea of not having the day to day control of a Library (despite the rhetoric of ‘community involvement’ or ‘the big society’). The Costs of contracts for IT / Building management etc has all been outsourced and is out of the control of the staff within the library department. Corporately the Council has lost control of its own expenditure from outsourcing too much of its everyday operation into long term contracts. The Library is not a branch library; it offers many different services and is very heavily used, but Croydon continue to make that (inaccurate) comparison.
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Co-operative Community Library Trusts The need to exploit Libraries as the centre of local communities and ensure that they reach out and develop is very important. We don’t want to go through this painful closure process in 10 years time. We need to enable libraries to be different in each locality. In some areas, ‘just’ being libraries, in other areas running the local community hall as well. In other areas being part of a school or running a community café. One size does not fit every community and it is important we enable communities to be distinctive, with high quality libraries as an essential and popular ingredient. In the longer term, the ideal solution would be to transfer land and buildings to new local ‘Community Library Trusts’ that would be multi stakeholder cooperatives: • • •
Local Councillors representing the interests of the borough, the tax payer and their own locality, staff representing the professionalism of Librarianship, User members being the active voice of the ordinary Library user. Trust members to be elected from open user meetings, for instance held twice a year in the Library.
This approach is not new. 20 years ago, every school was run out of the local council. Today each school runs its own affairs. Buys its own books. Has its own governing body. Most employ their own staff. This has, in the main, been good for those schools and has had the knock on effect of being good for the local economy. Schools employ small firms to undertake building works, they employ local people to clean their schools, they order stationary from local companies. They arrange their own IT (often through partnerships or network organisations to ensure they have the necessary skills and professional advice). Risks and Rewards: there is obviously a risk that by devolving and empowering front line staff that you risk a range of different standards to exist. You risk a library being closed because staff are sick. You risk users not being familiar with the IT provision in different libraries. These are all risks that are worthwhile, if you can manage to cut costs and boost the front line of service delivery within existing budgets or within smaller budgets. You can further mitigate those risks by ensuring staff remain employed by the Council, but directed by and a key part of each Community Library Trust. Employing Chief Librarians at each Trust. At Upper Norwood Library, the Chief Librarian is not on a ‘big’ salary, but manages the whole service they are responsible for. The reward is that they are the public face of that Library and a point of contact for the local community. They act as ambassador as well as manager. They command respect and loyalty from the local community. You could also insist that each Library Trust had a duty to Co-operate with other Library Trusts. An example could be when staff were sick at one, lending staff to cover.
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The biggest reward would be a better, lower cost service with more users and more community involvement. Indicative budgets? Upper Norwood library costs the taxpayer approximately £400,000 per year to run within a fully contained budget. It is a large library. Many Croydon libraries are far smaller. Economies of scale might be needed by running a community trust for the whole of a geographic area. For example, Coulsdon, covering both Bradmore Green Library and Coulsdon Library. Similarly pairing other libraries together might make management sense. The Central Library would make sense to be run in association with the remaining budgets from the cut Arts & Heritage programme. It makes sense to run one building, including the closed David Lean Cinema, the closed Clocktower Arts, the closed Museum, the cut local studies library. One Community Trust for the whole of the Clocktower Complex makes sense. Similar back office costs are spent on this area by the council in addition to the costs set out in this paper. • • • •
If you allocated an average of £300,000 per library across Croydon you would end up with a spend of £3.6million on the 12 libraries. £150,000 for the home library service £1.5 million for the Croydon Central Library (actual spend this year, excluding central overheads £897,297) £200,000 for Upper Norwood Library
Grand Total: £5,450,000 Current spend: £7,430,406 Saving at least: £1,980,406 These figures are just an outline of what could be achieved. Cutting at least £2million from the annual Library budget should leave plenty of scope for increased front line staffing, a bigger book buying budget and greater community ownership of their local library.
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The next steps •
The Council needs to take these ideas and work up a detailed budget for making this possible in a short period of time. Cross Party support will be needed and should be easily obtained.
•
The need to exit the expensive Central contracts for IT and Facilities Management Contracts are obvious. The first stage in ending these contracts should be to negotiate a swift exit for the Library Service.
•
Make it clear to the existing library staff that they will remain as Council employees (with full protection of terms and conditions) but will be working for and reporting to the new Community Library Trusts. The Council will act as ‘Agent’ for the new Community Library Trusts, just as they currently do for Upper Norwood Joint Library.
•
A Borough Chief Librarian will remain in post to co-ordinate the work of the Library Service in a light touch way, more akin to a professional network. Responsible for co-ordinating, training and knowledge sharing.
•
To help the Council work through these issues it should put all internal Council Budgets on line so that good ideas of staff and residents can be properly informed.
•
A commitment to use local companies and local contractors in the new Trusts. This is an ideal opportunity to encourage local builders, cleaning firms, electricians, plumbers etc to play a leading part in their local community at the same time as improving reliability, response times and keeping Council Tax Payers money in the local economy and providing local jobs from local peoples Taxes.
•
Longer term Set up costs would include the legal structure of the new Trusts, but this could be done by specialist lawyers over time. It certainly should not be a hindrance to starting to put this plan into action.
•
Stand behind the new devolved structure to enable it to thrive and develop. No new structure can be left to its own devices. It will need active support and management
•
The Council to continue to provide the key support services of employment and accountancy services to the new Community Trusts.
•
Committed to get local councillors to lead on new ‘Community Library Trust committees’ alongside library users, staff and residents
•
A new level of trust and support by the Council in the new Community Library Trust Committees to know what is needed for their local library and their local community.
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2010/11 Initial Budget Base - Adjusted for current budget changes 1V618
Libraries Division Total Employees related expenditure
Premises related expenditure Repairs and maintenance of buildings Electricity Gas Rents payable Rates payable Water services Cleansing services Grounds maintenance services Premises insurance
Transport related expenditure Direct transport costs Vehicle hire and operating leases Transport insurance Car allowances Car allowances NI
Supplies and services Equipment, furniture & materials Clothing, uniforms & laundry Printing Stationery Books, publications and resources General office expenses Professional services Security services Insurance Computer hardware Postage Travel & subsistence Grants and subscriptions Bank charges IT Network Photocopying (covered by charges to public) Waste removal services Telephony Misc expenses (project costs)
Third party payments Upper Norwood Joint Library Gross expenditure
Income Sales
3,357,361
23,500 58,268 26,846 58,597 171,999 5,800 95 2,530 12,993 360,628
1,646 4,000 924 5,305 294 12,169
1V720
V0630
V0631
V0632
Bradmore Central Library Ashburton Green Coulsdon 1,041,531
0
31 2 33
V0633
V0635
Broad Green
New Addington
V0636
V0637
Norbury
V0638
Purley
V0639
Sanderstead
Selsdon
V0640
V0641
V0642
V0643
Shirley
South Norwood
Thornton Heath
Home Library Service
116,000
116,000
116,000
116,000
116,000
116,000
116,000
116,000
116,000
116,000
116,000
116,000
5,128
3,691
3,917 2,097
2,725 1,838
3,494 2,150
6,603 5,147
5,646 3,083
2,473 1,934
3,200 2,818
5,148 1,248
7,510 1,611
45,670 15,278 2,000
7,906 110
11,010 180
15,180 180
13,968 240
17,363 120
18,430 339
10,234 241
8,733 4,920 12,927 22,674 1,683
10,525 219
11,931 296
1,143 69,219
250 702 12,659
500 813 18,517
724 20,647
150 855 20,857
771 30,004
250 1,019 28,767
400 676 15,958
500 829 52,266
180 728 17,670
945 19,568
17,500 192 95 300 1,100 28,308
0
0
1,646 3,250 924 2,610 144 8,574
35 0
0
0
0
35
0
0
0
0
30 2 32
400 616 510
150 610 410
150 810 420
150 896 255
100 150 677
302 479 418
301 796 408
208 452 384
301 411 397
250 137 306
301 228 306
18,000 1,300 10,059 18,500 277,376 20,700 21,500 11,909 154 3,000 29,615 2,000 5,835 1,014 38,171 20,432 5,894 6,056 50,000 541,515
67,985
1,526
1,170
1,380
1,301
927
1,199
1,505
1,044
1,109
693
189,297 0 4,460,970
1,109,549
186,745
129,829
135,897
137,948
137,819
147,203
146,272
133,002
169,375
-43,906
-17,109
-273
-262
-364
-199
-404
-500
-477
-478
-1,115
51 2 53
125,115
16,000 1,200
600 1,014 38,171 11,000
256
835
301 309 409 50,000 51,019
134,395
136,456
195,327
133,945
-580
-258
-338
256
Fees and charges
-314,480 -358,386
-195,143 -212,252
-7,272 -7,545
-7,436 -7,698
-10,441 -10,805
-3,844 -4,043
-6,563 -6,967
-13,682 -14,182
-9,580 -10,057
-10,730 -11,208
-17,663 -18,778
-10,243 -10,823
-9,611 -9,869
-8,224 -8,562
0
Net expenditure
4,102,584
897,297
179,200
122,131
125,092
133,905
130,852
133,021
136,215
121,794
150,597
123,572
126,587
186,765
133,945
Support Services BVACOP charges: Corporate Finance Financial Governance Financial Services Customer Focus Human resources Payroll Accommodation AFM Legal Strategy and Communication Customer Services
33,282 51,574 9,163 1,385,526 111,577 21,401 239,300 821,570 1,467 21,437 224,537 406,988 3,327,822
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
4,767 4,767
Capital Charges Depreciation
1,132,616
538,602
8,217
9,677
9,917
14,167
15,639
24,533
19,352
7,371
135,168
8,914
14,101
69,539
1,269
Total Net Expenditure
8,563,022
1,435,899
187,417
131,808
135,009
148,072
146,491
157,554
155,567
129,165
285,765
132,486
140,688
256,304
139,981
Number of visits (10/11 projected)
2,193,245
1,167,037
106,808
71,590
77,626
60,977
89,773
95,265
77,080
49,800
135,340
66,579
62,533
131,217
£2.03 £1.87 £1.52 £0.52 £3.90
£0.95 £0.77
£1.75 £1.68
£1.81 £1.71
£1.75 £1.61
£2.26 £2.20
£1.54 £1.46
£1.55 £1.40
£1.90 £1.77
£2.67 £2.45
£1.25 £1.11
£2.02 £1.86
£2.18 £2.02
£1.49 £1.42
£0.46 £1.23
£0.08 £1.75
£0.14 £1.84
£0.13 £1.74
£0.23 £2.43
£0.17 £1.63
£0.26 £1.65
£0.25 £2.02
£0.15 £2.59
£1.00 £2.11
£0.13 £1.99
£0.23 £2.25
£0.53 £1.95
Intra Community Services
Cost per Visit: Gross expenditure Net expenditure before support costs Support costs Capital Charges Total net expenditure
London Borough of Merton Benchmarking Data CIPFA 09/10 Benchmarking Data – Comparison to Neighbouring Authorities
Resident population Visitor figures Active borrowers Budget (Net expenditure) Cost per visit Total no. of libraries/sites Libraries open 10 - 29 hours per week Libraries open 30 - 44 hours per week Libraries open 45 - 59 hours per week Libraries open 60 hours + per week Staff FTE
Merton 205,200 1,202,048 38,375 £2,559,583 £2.13 7
Sutton 192,200 1,434,629 45,833 4,684,460 £3.27 10
Croydon 342,800 2,039,027 40,257 £8,355,894 £4.10 14
Lambeth 283,300 1,280,952 37,455 £7,335,491 £5.73 11
Wandsworth 286,600 2,087,474 61,105 £6,746,268 £3.23 11
Kingston 166,700 736,698 29,358 £3,046,030 £4.13 9
Richmond 189,000 1,418,148 46,243 £4,725,396 £3.33 13
0
2
0
0
0
0
5
4
3
7
5
0
7
4
3
4
7
6
10
2
4
0 54
1 81.5
0 120.5
0 117.5
1 113.1
0 69.1
0 95.9
2010/11 – London Borough of Merton CIPFA data Merton 2010/11 Resident population 207,800 Visitor figures 1,143,680 Active borrowers 37,036 Budget (Net expenditure) £2,494,946 Cost per visit £2.18 Total no. of libraries/sites 7 Libraries open 10 - 29 hours per week 0 Libraries open 30 - 44 hours per week 4 Libraries open 45 - 59 hours per week 3 Libraries open 60 hours + per week 0 Staff FTE 52 * Based on projections of extended opening hours
Merton 2011/12 (projected) 210,300 1,212,301* TBC £2,725,000 £2.25* 7 0 2 5 0 48.47 1
London Libraries Change Programme: Cost → Performance Table (based on analysis conducted by Mott McDonald, working with Eighty Twenty Insight consultants during Phase 3 of the London Libraries Change Programme) London Borough of Merton league placing in results in comparison to 32 other London authorities Measure Ratio of expenditure on staff to annual number of books & AVEO issued Ratio of expenditure on premises to number of books & AVEO stock Ratio of expenditure on premises to number of books & AVEO issued Ratio of expenditure on staff to number of active borrowers Annual Book & AVEO issues per staff FTE
Table placing 1st (out of 33) 2nd (out of 33) 3rd (out of 33) 4th (out of 33) 5th (out of 33)
2
Annual Residents Survey 2010 – Overall Satisfaction
3
Annual Residents Survey 2010 – User Satisfaction
4
London Borough of Merton Library & Heritage Service Briefing Paper The London Borough of Merton has the most cost efficient library service of any London authority. For further benchmarking data please view the separate attachment but based on the 2009/10 CIPFA statistics we have: • • • •
The cheapest cost per visit of any library service at £2.13 The lowest staffing numbers of any library service Lowest budget of any library service in London Middle to upper quartile usage of libraries compared to other London authorities
Our improvements in the last five years speak for themselves with our residents’ satisfaction in library services increasing by 17% to 66%. Resident satisfaction now matches the London average. During this five year period we have also made £844,500 of efficiency savings. Indeed the quality of our service outweighs the investment provided and we feel that this is down to a combination of strong management and innovative approaches to service delivery. In these challenging times for authorities our library service has not only made significant savings of £232,000 this year but we have also extended library opening hours whilst retaining all of the current library sites. This has been developed due to an innovative model of service delivery which we feel could be rolled out amongst other authorities. The key components to our delivery model are: • • •
•
• • •
Innovative approach to recruiting volunteers who support the trained library staff and run services such as the Home Visits Library Service. Enabling partners and/or volunteers to deliver added value activities such as reading groups, IT training, children’s activities and storytimes. Utilisation of the latest technologies to support customers. All our libraries have self-service technology with other 90% of transactions being completed by customers themselves. We also use integrated systems for our stock management which have seen backroom processes reduced significantly. We are working with other library services to develop our web services further. Focusing staff on the core professional aspects of their roles such as stock management and enquiry work to provide the highest quality of service for our customers. Developing a core set of service standards and encouraging and nurturing staff buy in and ownership of the standards. Recruiting a security guard presence to work alongside library staff that ensures the safety of the building and the reliability of opening hours. A flat management structure. We have leaned our management structure and frontline teams to ensure they represent a modern library service. We have a one team approach and whilst we support professional expertise we also feel that many of the traditional structures of library management are not fit for purpose in this day and age and do not present good value for money for authorities.
LONDON BOROUGH OF CROYDON PUBLIC LIBRARY SERVICE
Tim Coates June 2011 Data from CIPFA Prepared for the Croydon Commission on Public Libraries
20
/9
/8
/7
/6
/5
/4
/3
/2
/1
/0
/1 0
08
07
06
05
04
03
02
01
00
99
09
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
19
Library visits per resident
10
8
6
4 London Croydon
2
0
Council funds for libraries per resident £30.00 £25.00 £20.00 £15.00 £10.00 £5.00 £0.00
19 99 /0 0 20 01 /2 20 03 /4 20 05 /6 20 07 /8 20 09 /1 0
London Croydon
Library Books for lending, per resident 2 1.5 London Croydon
1 0.5
0 09
/1
/9 20
20
08
/8 07
/7 20
06 20
20
05
/6
/5 04 20
20
03
/3 20
02
/2 01
/1 20
20
00
/0 99 19
/4
0
99 /0 0
20 01 /2 20 03 /4 20 05 /6 20 07 /8 20 09 /1 0
19 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 20
0
/9
/8
/7
/6
/5
/4
/3
/2
/1
08
07
06
05
04
03
02
01
09
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
0
/1
/0
00
99
20
19
Book loans per adult resident
7
6
5
4 London
3 Croydon
2
1
0
Book loans per resident child
London Croydon
Active library membership % residents 40.00% 35.00% 30.00% 25.00% 20.00% 15.00% 10.00% 5.00% 0.00%
09 /1 0
8
20
20
20
07 /
6 05 /
4 20
03 /
01 / 20
19
99 /
2
0
Croydon London
% of library budget spent on recharges 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00%
London
2009/10
2008/09
2007/08
2006/07
2005/06
2004/05
2003/04
2002/03
2001/02
2000/01
1999/00
Croydon
% library budget spent on books 14.00% 12.00% 10.00% 8.00% 6.00% 4.00% 2.00% 0.00%
London
2009/10
2008/09
2007/08
2006/07
2005/06
2004/05
2003/04
2002/03
2001/02
2000/01
1999/00
Croydon
Conclusion: These figures show clearly that for anyone watching the public library service in Croydon over the past decade and listening to the pronouncements of its officers and councillors there have been four things that have marked it out 1. The council have never understood the importance of the book collections in public libraries 2. Their pervasive idea that a central library can replace the need for community libraries has been shown to be nonsensical 3. The council overhead costs have risen to the point of being ridiculous and give the appearance of an operation that does not have proper financial controls. 4. What was, in London, a reasonably good library service just a decade ago, has lost contact with the public need and become very poor. These therefore are the priorities for action which the council should address in its commission of review.
