Charitable (or not so?) Mutuals, 30% pay cuts and "misled" in Pembrokeshire. (oh! and a 'Conservative Home' contributor)

A 'charitable?' Library Mutual (and a petition)


Libraries Unlimited, one of the flagship library 'mutuals' run by the ex-head of the Society of Chief Librarians and Libraries Taskforce board member, recently announced that it would be cutting 'weekend enhancement' pay for it's staff, but it seems that in the 'Brave New World' of worker owned mutuals not all workers are equal.

"The pay cut will only affect lower-paid staff while the senior management team and those above Grade E will take no share of the cost-saving measures."

Ciara Eastell, a recent OBE recipient, apparently responded to the suggestion that she and the rest of the senior management should face the same cut by saying;

"she 'worked hard' and 'didn't think she deserved [one]'.

Whilst those at the bottom of the hierarchical ladder (who obviously don't work hard enough and thus don't deserve a proper salary) face up to a 30% pay cut;

"A library assistant joining the organisation now would earn £8.35 pr/hr, less than the UK Living Wage, and a relief library assistant would earn even less."

Library staff are so concerned that they've set up a petition which is very brave of them as I've heard they've been gagged from speaking about the cuts.

"But councils are cutting terms and conditions and gagging their staff" I hear you say and yes you're right but councils don't claim to be charitable worker-owned social enterprises do they?

Unison have raised serious concerns that mutualisation often leads to cuts in workers T&C's and the creation of a two-tier workforce;

"UNISON believes that alternative delivery models are not a panacea for cuts and in reality, significant savings would only be achieved through the denigration of workforce terms and conditions and/or the creation of a two-tier workforce"

Optimo

Another day in libraryland and another Libraries Taskforce blog post, this time pushing the governments agenda on spinning out public libraries as mutuals or to give them their full title 'maude's mock mutuals'.

'Could an alternative delivery model be right for your library service?'

The piece was written by Fiona Williams, Chief Executive of Explore York Libraries and Archive and outlines how they became a mutual, plugs some DCMS workshops in March and introduces to us a new consortium, Optimo.

Optimo consists of York Explore, Suffolk Libraries, Inspire (Nottinghamshire), Libraries Unlimited (Devon) and Mutual Ventures.

Mutual Ventures is a consultancy firm fronted by David Fairhurst and Andrew Laird, they claim to;

"support public service commissioners, organisational leaders and front-line staff who are seeking to identify, develop and grow the right delivery model for their services"

not only that but they also state that;

"The missing element from traditional delivery is the power of public service entrepreneuralism"

One the directors, David Fairhurst, in 2012 was appointed by the government as one of its 15 'mutuals ambassadors'.

And the other director, Andrew Laird, is a regular contributor to the 'Conservative Home' website and recently wrote a piece for them in which he states;

"Theresa May has expressed a desire to see a more diverse public service market place with more public service mutuals. The Prime Minister has also spoken of the Government stepping up to repair markets where they are not working. So where better to start than by releasing the inner entrepreneur of our nurses, social workers and librarians? It’s the best way I can think of to kick start public service productivity."

So basically they're just another bunch of neo-liberals who've found a way of making money out of the government's ideological agenda to undermine and offload public services. Just another example of consultants circling the public sector carcass looking for bones.
Doesn't this and the 30% pay cuts in Devon bring the mutuals and co-operative movement into disrepute?

Winckworth Sherwood

"Aren't Winckworth Sherwood just a firm of solicitors?" I hear you say well yes they are but they've also found a way of making money out of the library crisis by advising councils on spinning out their services.

"The team has particular expertise advising on charity options for leisure, culture and heritage projects."
"To date the team have established over 75 arts, leisure and culture trusts operating successfully throughout the UK."

But it looks as if things haven't quite gone to plan in Pembrokeshire with the council asking for it's money back claiming that the firm "misled" them, oh dear!

"The council paid private consultant Winckworth Sherwood £20,000 to advise on how to save money by outsourcing libraries, leisure centres and sports pitches to a charitable trust."
"I think we were very much misled by Winckworth Sherwood and I ask that we make this known to the consultants."

See http://dontprivatiselibraries.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/winkworth-sherwood.html for more on Winckworth Sherwood and their lead partner on spinning out public services, Joanna Bussell.

The feeling's not mutual and Staffless in Calne?

 Library Mutuals

In case you missed it another big library service spun-out from public control recently, Devon Libraries is now 'Libraries Unlimited'. And according to their website 'Libraries Unlimited' is;

"a new and independent staff and community-owned social enterprise, established in April 2016 with the support of Devon County Council. We are a company limited by guarantee with charitable status pending. Our formally registered name is Libraries Unlimited South West."

They were widely congratulated on social media, by the government and members of the Taskforce mainly, and will now join Suffolk, York and Dudley (2016?) in the brave new world of spun-out library services.
But it appears that not is all what it seems in 'Maude's Mock Mutuals Bargain Land', my Voices for the Library colleague Ian Clark, in response to a tweet stating that the Suffolk 'mutual' was "thriving", recently found out via an FOI that Suffolk (much touted by Sieghart etc) has seen a decrease in usage and by just looking at York's performance figures (issues & visits) anyone can see that there's been a decrease in usage in nearly all of York's branches, the Central Library and the Mobile service seem to be propping up the stats. I'll admit that it's still early days and usage stats aren't everything but I'm sure you'll agree that a drop in usage is hardly a definition of thriving.
Mutulisation in the public sector is really no more than a gun to the head for most employees, the "run it or we'll close it" blackmail threat unloved of most library 'volunteers'. I wish staff and users well but really can't endorse or approve of this risky & unaccountable method of privatisation. For more on the governments mutuals agenda see my earlier post
http://dontprivatiselibraries.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/mutuals.html

Staffless in Calne 

Well done to Calne Labour Party et al for putting up such a spirited fight against the introduction of staffless opening hours in their local library. 

"Members of the newly formed Calne Labour Party handed out leaflets outside the library on Saturday (Feb 13) to protest the reduction of staff hours.
Oliver Boaler, co-founder of the party, said: “Staff are essential to the library’s smooth running. They not only help library users choose books, use the computers and deal with queries, their supervision means the library always feels safe and is kept tidy.
“I worry about someone having a fall or somebody causing damage. A response to this wouldn’t be quick enough with the use of CCTV.” 

Similar concerns have also been raised by Unison and library campaigners in Barnet, see;
http://www.barnetunison.me.uk/wp/2016/03/31/unstaffed-libraries-unsafe-and-unproven/#more-4543

see also;
http://dontprivatiselibraries.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/unstaffed%20libraries






 

Barnet, Lambeth, Devon & Bryant.

Barnet

An extraordinary council meeting took place in Barnet recently where the council barricades where stormed and the Mayor voted the wrong way and did a runner, anyway Mrs Angry describes it a lot better than i ever could so here's her account of the proceedings;

http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/to-redeem-work-of-fools-or-diversion.html
"The proposals to cut libraries, shut libraries, shrink libraries, squeeze them until the last book jumps off the last shelf, into a waiting skip, and they can sell a collection of vastly profitable properties for development - all this has, predictably to all but said Tory councillors, caused uproar in Broken Barnet, even unto the very heartland of their own natural born voters - a consequence now leading our three Tory MPs, Theresa Villiers, Mike Freer and Matthew Offord to be quivering with fear, on the brink as we are of the general election, and forcing them on to a desperate, unprecedented course of actually forming an opinion on a local political issue - and then expressing it.
Villiers, Freer and Offord have now, at the end of the consultation period, weighed up their chances of being re-elected and realised that they are now, and have always been, dedicated defenders of the library service about to be destroyed by their Tory colleagues. We therefore arrived at the Town Hall, last night, wondering if this declaration of concern would hold any weight with our councillors."



Lambeth

https://savelambethlibraries.wordpress.com/2015/02/26/author-statement/

"Libraries change lives. They are magical portals to worlds of wonder, replete with possibility, especially for poor, working class, black and ethnic minority people, they offer a hope of rising above the limiting circumstances of our birth. For the shy, isolated and excluded child, they offer companionship and a chance to rehearse bravery, for poor, working class, black and ethnic minority people the chance to meet their full potential. Libraries are more than a material resource; they are the commitment of our community to its future. They express a faith in the power of shared imagination. Lambeth Council, one of the poorest boroughs in the country, is stopping funding to half of the borough’s libraries. Two will be immediately sold off to cash in on the rising property prices locally. Others they hope will be taken over by fantasy big society community groups, or replaced by bookshelves in pubs. Threatening half the borough’s libraries with closure is a short-sighted and irresponsible plan, public libraries are an essential part of a functioning literate nation. This is an act of vandalism against the community, signalling the death of hope that anything can ever get better. UPDATE 1 March 2015: @SaveLambthLibs have been gathering support from authors on Twitter. The following authors have retweeted the following “please show your support for #SaveLambethLibraries by RT or commenting on our author statement”:
David Almond
Philip Ardagh
Tim Atkinson
Margaret Bateson-Hill
Jag Bhalla
Elizabeth Buchanan
Cathy Cassidy
Mark Chadbourn
Marika Cobbold
Jane Costello
Jackie Collins
Cressida Cowell
Bobbie Darbyshire
John Dougherty
Stella Duffy
Katie Fforde
Catherine Gault
Alan Gibbons
Andrea Giles
Daisy Goodwin
Jeremy Hardy
Joanne Harris
Kate Harrison
Ian Hocking
Milly Johnson
Caroline Jowett
Bernadine Kennedy
Lia Keyes
Tim Lebbon
Toby Litt
Val McDermid
Anthony McGowan
Sarah McIntyre
Paul Mason
Fiona Pitt-Kethley
Bali Rai
Ian Rankin
Jay Rayner
Zelda Rhiando
Michael Rosen
Meg Rosoff
William Ryan
Marcus Sedgwick
Caroline Smailes
Irvine Welsh
Alex Wheatle
Jamie Zubairi
We are incredibly grateful to all of them for the support they have offered.

 
Local user groups add criticism to Lambeth Council Cultural Consultation as impact of proposals starts to be understood
http://www.brixtonbuzz.com/2015/03/local-user-groups-add-criticism-to-lambeth-council-cultural-consultation-as-impact-of-proposals-starts-to-be-understood/
"The Friends group then poses some questions for Lambeth Council and Cllr Jane Edbrooke, the Cabinet member who has put together the horror of the Cultural Consultation:

“Can it afford to replace all the services the libraries now provide (on the cheap)?
Does it realise that libraries support its own priorities in health, education, digital access, business, employment, family support, literacy, and more?
Is it happy to deprive its residents of all this – and pay for the consequences?
Does it have any idea what it is doing?”

Perhaps the most cutting observation from the Friends group is:

“The financial plan to support so-called ‘community libraries’ simply doesn’t add up. They are being set up to fail.”

 

Devon

Francis Maude and the Cabinet Office will be overjoyed as yet another public service spins out after all it's all just part of the governments wider agenda to offload the public sector and open it to the rigours of the market. This is not a 'road to Damascus' moment where Devon Council has suddenly decided that it wants to hand more control to its workers and communities it's a tax break.

http://www.exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/Mutual-approach-Devon-libraries/story-26117683-detail/story.html
"A mutual service with charitable status could be eligible for up to 80 per cent relief on its business rates and could also apply for grants and funds which are not available to local authorities."

For some background see; http://dontprivatiselibraries.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/mutuals.html



Chris Bryant

And last but not least Chris Bryant MP, Labour's spokesperson on libraries, recently visited Barnet where he outlined what some of us already new, that Labour's policy on libraries is weak, non-committal and substantially mimics that of the Tories. For an excellent analysis see;

http://leonslibraryblog.com/2015/03/04/labour-and-libraries-the-shape-of-things-to-come/
"It’s official, the Shadow Culture Minister has confirmed that not only does he prefer a non-interventionist approach, that Labour will not legislate to protect public libraries, but volunteer libraries are also acceptable. In the interview Chris Bryant accuses the Government of a “dereliction of duty” but then states that he will do exactly the same.
So a hands-off, localism-centred, volunteer approach to libraries is the wrong path for the current government to pursue but if elected Mr Bryant will do precisely that. Only in politics would you get away with such blatant double-speak and expect the public to believe it! It’s a sad indication that some communities are so desperate to save their libraries that they do."