Monday 2 April 2012

Croydon Council spends £40,000 on library consultant - Croydon Today - 02/04/12

http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/Croydon-Council-spends-40-000-library-consultant/story-15693695-detail/story.html

"CAMPAIGNERS have criticised Croydon Council's hiring of a £40,000-a-year consultant to oversee the cost-saving outsourcing of the borough's 14 libraries.
The authority told the Advertiser it had employed the "highly specialised" worker since the end of January to ensure "quality control throughout the life-cycle of the project".
But library preservation campaigner Sally-Ann Voak, from Old Coulsdon, said: "I am appalled; £40,000 would have paid for about six months' worth of Bradmore Green Library's costs, staffing and maintenance.
"How can they possibly justify creating another job when the department already has staff to do this?"
Fellow campaigner Elizabeth Ash, from Sanderstead, deemed the hiring "outrageous".
She added: "If the council is incapable of running its own library services, how can it be in a position to decide who can accurately oversee the process?
"It is doing it on a wing and a prayer. It should be going back and doing a proper consultation about the libraries' futures – with all library users."

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