Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how much funding the Leadership for Libraries Task Force has received from the public purse; and what the purpose of that funding is.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) provided £250,000 funding to establish and support the Libraries Taskforce in 2015/16, and is providing further funding of £500,000 per year from 2016/17 to 2019/20. This covers the costs of five core staff and Taskforce administrative costs. Furthermore, in 2015/16, Arts Council England provided £100,000 to the Taskforce to fund their secondment of library staff and £74,000 to provide consultancy support for the Society of Chief Librarians (SCL) in developing their bid to become a supplier on the Digital Training and Support Framework and to support the Taskforce in gathering specific evidence on the financial and other benefits that libraries deliver.

The Taskforce’s role is to provide leadership and help to reinvigorate the public library network in England. It enables the delivery of the recommendations from the Independent Library Report for England and builds upon and adds value to existing good practice, partnerships and other activities that are already supporting public libraries.

Additional information about the Taskforce’s funding and its activities is published in the six month progress reports on gov.uk and can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/progress-reports