In Oct 2016 and then again in Nov 17 Herefordshire CC issued a 'Soft Market Test' for their museum, library and archive services. Basically this is to gauge market interest before making a final decision to outsource/privatise.
It now looks as if the council are ready to push ahead with the process with Halo Leisure Services Ltd, The Courtyard Trust, GLL (Greenwich Leisure Ltd) and Vision Redbridge Culture & Leisure Ltd in the running but concerns and doubts have been expressed in a recent article and council submission by the campaign group Joint Action for Herefordshire Libraries and by Cllr Gandy, a Tory, who not only mentioned the Carillion scandal but said;
"What evidence is there that outsourcing will produce the savings required and by how much?"
As far as I can see the council is looking to cut £65k in the current financial year from the Libraries budget so from these figures and the fact that the council has been pushing the community-led model over the last few years it looks as if the decision to privatise libraries will be an ideological and not a fiscal one, which in my experience is more than often the case.
It now looks as if the council are ready to push ahead with the process with Halo Leisure Services Ltd, The Courtyard Trust, GLL (Greenwich Leisure Ltd) and Vision Redbridge Culture & Leisure Ltd in the running but concerns and doubts have been expressed in a recent article and council submission by the campaign group Joint Action for Herefordshire Libraries and by Cllr Gandy, a Tory, who not only mentioned the Carillion scandal but said;
"What evidence is there that outsourcing will produce the savings required and by how much?"
As far as I can see the council is looking to cut £65k in the current financial year from the Libraries budget so from these figures and the fact that the council has been pushing the community-led model over the last few years it looks as if the decision to privatise libraries will be an ideological and not a fiscal one, which in my experience is more than often the case.
