Public Library System

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, on securing this debate, which provides a timely opportunity to acknowledge what public libraries mean to their local communities. I will say at the outset that noble Lords have posed quite a number of questions. I will work through some of them but it would probably be more productive if I study Hansard extremely carefully—important points have obviously been made—and reply in a substantial manner.

I am sure that the noble Lord would expect my reply to look to the Government’s response to the report of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. I remind your Lordships that the Government have transferred responsibility for supporting and developing English libraries to Arts Council England specifically so that libraries are more closely associated with cultural institutions. We have worked with Arts Council England to establish £6 million of funding to encourage cultural activities in libraries, and continue to fund the Reading Agency and Booktrust, two charities that undertake a great deal of work about which I will speak more fully.

We are also working with Arts Council England and the Department for Education to pilot automatic library memberships for children and young people, to encourage them to use their library. I was particularly struck by the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, about other vulnerable parts of the community. I will consider and reflect on that, which is also important. We are piloting different approaches, in both the previous academic year and this, to test the most effective ways of supporting children and their families to use libraries and read more widely. We are also co-ordinating and working with Arts Council England and the Local Government Association and others to encourage library authorities to reform and look at new forms of delivery to suit local communities.

The appointment of a specialist adviser on libraries to the department will be valuable and important. The commissioning and publishing for the first time of the detailed comparative analyses by CIPFA of the performance of all library authorities in England and Wales in 2011-2012 will, again, furnish the debate and help us more readily address some of the problems. Launching an independent review of e-lending in libraries is also a factor. I was particularly struck, having been to a number of libraries, by the increasing number—from a small start, inevitably—of e-books. I suspect that e-books will be a feature of the future.

The noble Lord has set us the task of discussing particularly the contribution and importance of voluntary staff in the public library system. This is fully recognised by the Government and other stakeholders. I have read the reports from the Society of Chief Librarians and the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. All acknowledge the part that volunteers play, although I will place a caveat on that in my speech.

As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, and the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, stated, every local authority in England is required to provide a “comprehensive and efficient” library service under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964. Public libraries are run by local authorities, which receive their funding from three main sources: grants from central government, council tax, and other locally generated fees and charges for services. It is for individual local authorities to determine how best to provide that public library service to their local community within available resources, including the use and role of volunteers.

Having sensed some concern in what the noble Lord said, I will say straightaway that professional librarians are at the core of any local authority-run public library service. These highly qualified and skilled people play a key role in delivering the public library service to the community, including literacy and information services, as well as providing support and information for small businesses and homework classes for children who need extra support outside school hours. Those are obviously key examples that highlight why professional librarians are very important and, indeed, essential to the library service.

The origins of the public library service date back more than 150 years, and volunteers have been a feature of most library services for decades. There is nothing new in that, whether it is local volunteers running educational activities within a library, a “Friends of” group raising funds for new projects or a library run by the community. The involvement of volunteers in library services is not new, but their role and numbers have changed over time as library services have responded to many drivers of change.

Those drivers include—I do not hide the fact—financial challenges, which no one can ignore, as well as the Government’s localism agenda, which has prompted local authorities to look afresh at the public library service they provide and at what role communities might be able to play. In recent years, library service reviews have been undertaken by many local authorities, which have resulted in a reshaping of library services with significantly more community involvement and a subsequent increase in the number of volunteers. The growth in numbers is reflected in the annual survey of public libraries conducted by CIPFA for 2011-12. The survey indicates that more than 22,000 volunteers were involved in England’s 3,243 public libraries, an 88% increase since 2006-07.

The role of volunteers may vary in each local authority. In some community libraries, volunteers provide support to local authority professional staff. In others, the community library is completely run by volunteers or may be fully funded by the council but delivered by a not-for-private-profit community or social enterprise or mutual organisation. Roles traditionally undertaken by volunteers that may add value to library services are numerous. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, raised a number of examples, and I will mention some. There are the “Read to Me” volunteers, who provide reading services, often to the infirm, visually impaired and physically disabled. There are children and young persons volunteers. While researching for this debate, I was particularly struck by the number of young people who wish to help and volunteer in their local libraries. That, I hope, will encourage many to go on and become professional librarians. Those young people assist library staff and promote reading to younger children. Then there are volunteers who organise extra activities for all age groups and assist new and unconfident internet users with online resources. I experienced that myself in the Diss local library. I pleaded ignorance as to how this worked and was very quickly gathered up and given some very important instruction. Finally, there are home book volunteers delivering books to housebound readers.

Noble Lords can see that volunteers help in many ways and add value, working with professionals in so many places. More recently, there has been a notable growth in public libraries that are either community-managed or community-supported. A community-managed library is largely delivered by the community. It rarely has paid staff but often has some form of ongoing local authority support and can be part of the public library network. A community-supported library is led and funded by the local authority, and its paid professional staff are supported by volunteers. There is a place for both in our communities, although the Government continue to believe very strongly in the importance of professional librarians.

Some library authorities have embedded community libraries as a core part of their service. Indeed, in Buckinghamshire, the 14 community-managed libraries are a significant part of the statutory network of 34 public libraries across the county. Based on some discussions with residents in Buckinghamshire, I am assured that those community-managed libraries are providing a very strong service to their local communities.

Research undertaken by Arts Council England in July 2012 indicated that the number of operating community libraries was 178, with the number rising to more than 250 by the end of the year. One such example is the library service in Croxteth, Liverpool, which was taken over by the Alt Valley Community Trust. It receives funding from the local authority.

There is no doubt that libraries are changing and innovation is going to be extremely important as new technologies come forward. I want particularly to refer to the Summer Reading Challenge. The Reading Agency runs this annual programme to encourage children aged four to 11 to read six books during the long summer holiday. Last year, it saw 98% of libraries involved, with 780,000 children participating. Moreover, some 4,382 young volunteers were involved in and supported the Summer Reading Challenge. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, raised the issue of literacy rates. The promotion of a love of books from the earliest age is essential to a child’s life, and I think that the success of the Summer Reading Challenge has been immense.

We should applaud volunteers for giving up their time freely and for their dedication and support, and I hope very much that they in turn derive satisfaction from all that they are doing. There are more than 3,200 libraries in England, and the Government invested £820 million in 2011-12. Libraries remain very popular, and three-quarters of all children visit a library. There are many strong links between schools and libraries, and local authorities continue to invest significantly in public libraries. These include facilities in Birmingham and The Hive in Worcester, as well as community-run libraries such as Wilsden library in Bradford. It is a service that remains hugely important to so many, it is a part of the fabric of our society and the communities within it, and it is down to the dedicated professionals and volunteers to whom we owe so much.