I stepped away from this blog for a while, mostly as my all consuming rage at the way in which library services were being broken down, disregarded and generally tarnished by the uninformed vitrol being spouted in the media threated to completely overcome me! But now, with new developments afoot, it is time to pick it up again.
The first stage of the 'restructuring' is now complete, and it seems that little the staff said about the proposals was taken into account. The almost illterate email we received from the acting head of service once the 'consultation' process was closed said it all. The reaction given was that yes, knowlege and expertise would be lost and that was regrettable "but if you always do what you always did you get what you always got". I think the fact that the acting head of service didn't even read the email thoroughly enough to pick up the clanger of a mistake at the beginning in addressing us all by 'God Morning' says everything about the level of care and courtesy extended to staff!
The senior staff have now gone through the process of applying for jobs and redundancy and those who survived are now in post. Performing Arts has been left without a 'Library supervisor', as has Ilfracombe and we don't know what will happen to fill those posts. There are many leaving the service, either through retirement or redunancy and with them go many years of experience and vast swathes of local knowledge and subject expertise. As expected, the gaps left in frontline staffing have not been filled, and nor will they be. This is where the decimation of the service begins.
Showing posts with label Devon "Devon Libraries" "Devon County Council" endangered cuts libraries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Devon "Devon Libraries" "Devon County Council" endangered cuts libraries. Show all posts
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
Friday, 18 March 2011
First cut is the deepest
Now that I have your attention, I'll expand further on what is actually happening in Devon libraries.
I spoke previously of a restructuring that amounted to a demolition of the library service from within but didn't elaborate. The demolition takes the form of staffing cuts, not unexpected in itself, but being implemented in such a way that library staff recongnise that its likely to be the prelude to library closures.
The initial announcement on 3rd March saw a cut of a third in senior library staff while the rest of the senior staff take significant paycuts. This may sound sensible, 'cut some overpaid managers' etc, but there are some serious implications to this move.
What doesn't seem to have been taken into account by the people making the decisions - who I hasten to add aren't library managers but managers for our directorate, Adult and Community Services - is that the staff in question are generally staff who spend at least 50% of their time on the frontline serving the public. It was asked whether the resulting cut in frontline staffing would be made up with more staff hours being provided by library assistants, something which was carefully hedged around by the managers who came to deliver the news of the restructuring. We take this careful avoidence to mean 'no'. The odd thing is that the amount of time spent on the frontline by the staff who are being cut is explicitly referred to in the restructuring document;
"However,this group of managers has tended to find themselves tied into the day-to-day
delivery of frontline services in their base library"
Well, yes of course they get 'tied up' in the day to day running of the service as all libraries have historically been chronically understaffed. The senior staff have to work the on the frontline regardless of what else they need to be doing as there is often no-one else available to do the job! And you're proposing we cut the senior staff down without replacing the time they spend on the frontline?! Actually, scratch that, not 'proposing', you are cutting the staff and not replacing them.
So this is the problem, the staffing at the senior levels is being cut down which actually means that the number of staff serving you over the counter is going down. This is just the beginning as the consultation document we have regarding a second phase of restructuring suggests that staffing at the lower levels, those staff who spend virtually all of their time on frontline work, is also likely to be cut. We have been losing staffing steadily over the last few years, with Exeter Central alone having 16% less staff than the exisiting structure claims we should have. Keeping libraries open is already a struggle with the staff we have, so with even less staff, they won't be able to stay open.
We don't know what will happen next as we're being kept in the dark. It's been insinuated that library opening hours will change - well they're going to have to if we have less staff. We also know that single manned libraries, that is libraries being kept open with only one staff member, are set to become more common again. The problems with both of these 'solutions' is that the service that you, the public, receive will deteriorate. You'll have a library that is open for less time, with less staff in it to serve you, less expertise avaiable (the specialist librarians are being axed as well, there is no longer a Performing Arts or Local Studies librarian and your specialist childrens, reference and lending staff in the bigger libraries also no longer exist) and it is likely to be less reliable. With single manned libraries there is the danger that opening hours will become unreliable as if the staff member is ill or wants to take a holiday, there is no guarantee that there will be a member of staff available from another library to open it instead, particualary with staff being cut back. If a library becomes unrealiable, people stop using it as much. With a drop in usage, the faceless managers beyond the library service have something that they would consider a solid reason to shut the library in question - "people aren't using it".
I spoke previously of a restructuring that amounted to a demolition of the library service from within but didn't elaborate. The demolition takes the form of staffing cuts, not unexpected in itself, but being implemented in such a way that library staff recongnise that its likely to be the prelude to library closures.
The initial announcement on 3rd March saw a cut of a third in senior library staff while the rest of the senior staff take significant paycuts. This may sound sensible, 'cut some overpaid managers' etc, but there are some serious implications to this move.
What doesn't seem to have been taken into account by the people making the decisions - who I hasten to add aren't library managers but managers for our directorate, Adult and Community Services - is that the staff in question are generally staff who spend at least 50% of their time on the frontline serving the public. It was asked whether the resulting cut in frontline staffing would be made up with more staff hours being provided by library assistants, something which was carefully hedged around by the managers who came to deliver the news of the restructuring. We take this careful avoidence to mean 'no'. The odd thing is that the amount of time spent on the frontline by the staff who are being cut is explicitly referred to in the restructuring document;
"However,this group of managers has tended to find themselves tied into the day-to-day
delivery of frontline services in their base library"
Well, yes of course they get 'tied up' in the day to day running of the service as all libraries have historically been chronically understaffed. The senior staff have to work the on the frontline regardless of what else they need to be doing as there is often no-one else available to do the job! And you're proposing we cut the senior staff down without replacing the time they spend on the frontline?! Actually, scratch that, not 'proposing', you are cutting the staff and not replacing them.
So this is the problem, the staffing at the senior levels is being cut down which actually means that the number of staff serving you over the counter is going down. This is just the beginning as the consultation document we have regarding a second phase of restructuring suggests that staffing at the lower levels, those staff who spend virtually all of their time on frontline work, is also likely to be cut. We have been losing staffing steadily over the last few years, with Exeter Central alone having 16% less staff than the exisiting structure claims we should have. Keeping libraries open is already a struggle with the staff we have, so with even less staff, they won't be able to stay open.
We don't know what will happen next as we're being kept in the dark. It's been insinuated that library opening hours will change - well they're going to have to if we have less staff. We also know that single manned libraries, that is libraries being kept open with only one staff member, are set to become more common again. The problems with both of these 'solutions' is that the service that you, the public, receive will deteriorate. You'll have a library that is open for less time, with less staff in it to serve you, less expertise avaiable (the specialist librarians are being axed as well, there is no longer a Performing Arts or Local Studies librarian and your specialist childrens, reference and lending staff in the bigger libraries also no longer exist) and it is likely to be less reliable. With single manned libraries there is the danger that opening hours will become unreliable as if the staff member is ill or wants to take a holiday, there is no guarantee that there will be a member of staff available from another library to open it instead, particualary with staff being cut back. If a library becomes unrealiable, people stop using it as much. With a drop in usage, the faceless managers beyond the library service have something that they would consider a solid reason to shut the library in question - "people aren't using it".
There may be trouble ahead....
I admit as library staff we all thought this when Devon County Council, who I'm just going to refer to as the council from now on as its less to type, made the 'no libraries will close' announcement. We all felt a sense of disquiet as libraries are traditionally a soft target for spending cuts and we expected that the suggestion of no closures would come with some sort of enormous 'but' attached to it. We were right.
The first sign of the impending storm was the decision over the Devon Record Office staffing. It was announced in January that the Record Office would lose a third of its staffing, something which stirred up anger and apathy in equal measure. Amongst those who knew the service and understood what it provided, anger was widely expressed at the seeming disregard that the council had for the preservation of Devon's historical record. Apathy reigned elsewhere with comments such as 'surely this is something which should be pushed as far into the voluntary sector as possible?' and 'how many of us have ever had cause to contact a record office?' being made. Sadly the latter view is the one which is likely to prevail.
We knew in libraries that this initial insight into the way in which cuts were to be implemented didn't bode well. We waited for the storm to break.
On 3rd March, a month later than initally intended, the new structure for libraries in Devon was announced. It became clear quite quickly that this wasn't a restructuring, it was a demolition. The worst part was that it was being done in such a way that from the outside it wouldn't seem that bad, that if we complained we could all too easily be branded as 'whining public sector workers who need to get real'. We were also told that we were not allowed to discuss the restructuring with the public. The library service looked like it was being brought down from the inside, and we were being told that the very people who used the service and gave it a reason for being there weren't allowed to know the changes that were to be made and how it might affect them. Why? Because the council remember all too well what happened last time it tryed to shut libraries - the public spoke up and made it such a huge issue that the council was forced to back down and only four of the proposed libraries were shut, with one being forced to close due to condemned building and one due to a site redevelopment which didn't allow for a new library.
We need your strength again to help the service through the lastest threats and the only way we can work together is if you, the public, know exactly what is happening.
The first sign of the impending storm was the decision over the Devon Record Office staffing. It was announced in January that the Record Office would lose a third of its staffing, something which stirred up anger and apathy in equal measure. Amongst those who knew the service and understood what it provided, anger was widely expressed at the seeming disregard that the council had for the preservation of Devon's historical record. Apathy reigned elsewhere with comments such as 'surely this is something which should be pushed as far into the voluntary sector as possible?' and 'how many of us have ever had cause to contact a record office?' being made. Sadly the latter view is the one which is likely to prevail.
We knew in libraries that this initial insight into the way in which cuts were to be implemented didn't bode well. We waited for the storm to break.
On 3rd March, a month later than initally intended, the new structure for libraries in Devon was announced. It became clear quite quickly that this wasn't a restructuring, it was a demolition. The worst part was that it was being done in such a way that from the outside it wouldn't seem that bad, that if we complained we could all too easily be branded as 'whining public sector workers who need to get real'. We were also told that we were not allowed to discuss the restructuring with the public. The library service looked like it was being brought down from the inside, and we were being told that the very people who used the service and gave it a reason for being there weren't allowed to know the changes that were to be made and how it might affect them. Why? Because the council remember all too well what happened last time it tryed to shut libraries - the public spoke up and made it such a huge issue that the council was forced to back down and only four of the proposed libraries were shut, with one being forced to close due to condemned building and one due to a site redevelopment which didn't allow for a new library.
We need your strength again to help the service through the lastest threats and the only way we can work together is if you, the public, know exactly what is happening.
The power of one
So here I am, one lone voice shouting into the wind and hoping that someone out there will hear and start shouting with me. And that from there we can go from one lone voice to a whole multitude shouting in unison to get the message across - "Your libraries are not safe, act now to save them!"
Devon County Council had put out the message that "none of its 50 libraries would close, but some branches could have opening hours reduced" and we all made the mistake of believing that our beloved repositories of knowledge were safe from the programme of cuts, that they would survive intact. But this is not the case, your service is being attacked from the inside in a 'restructuring' campaign that looks like it intends to destroy the service we know, and close your libraries. You won't find this in the press, or on the Local Authority's web pages or in their press releases, you won't know its happening until its too late, but your libraries are on the endangered list and only you, the public, the borrowers, can save them.
Devon County Council had put out the message that "none of its 50 libraries would close, but some branches could have opening hours reduced" and we all made the mistake of believing that our beloved repositories of knowledge were safe from the programme of cuts, that they would survive intact. But this is not the case, your service is being attacked from the inside in a 'restructuring' campaign that looks like it intends to destroy the service we know, and close your libraries. You won't find this in the press, or on the Local Authority's web pages or in their press releases, you won't know its happening until its too late, but your libraries are on the endangered list and only you, the public, the borrowers, can save them.
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