Clack-handed libraries consultation staggers on

They say that if you tell yourself something enough, you will eventually believe it to be true. This is the hole that Surrey County Council has dug itself into.

SCC has convinced itself, by mantra, that it lost the judicial review on a technicality. This, despite the judge not saying anywhere in his 10,000 word judgment that his was a technical ruling. This group-think denial by SCC is leading it into further trouble.

In an attempt to shore up its unlawful decision, the council is engaging in a quick box-ticking exercise. Hurrying to retake its library decision, it is attempting to consult with too few people and on too narrow grounds.

The council’s consultation asks some library users narrowly what equalities training should be given to volunteers (see previous blogs for details). In its haste it addressed most of the envelopes incorrectly. Recognising its error, it has put back its decision to a later cabinet meeting (24th July) and has sent out further consultation documents, confusing those that received and sent back the first set.

We now know that many have sent in two consultation returns, many have not sent in any, and others have not received either set of documents. Further, SCC has requested that Community Partnership steering group members send in two sets of consultation returns each, perhaps to bump up the numbers and perhaps to increase the number of favourable responses. Who knows?

Quite what SCC is hoping to learn from such a shambolic process is not clear. The information does not seem to be that important to SCC in any case. Helyn Clack, SCC Cabinet member responsible for libraries, gave this response in an interview about the library plans with the Surrey Mirror:

 

Can you envisage being persuaded by further consultation?

Helyn Clack: Probably not.

If that’s the case, why is the council wasting everyone’s time…and money?

Open letters

Mrs Carole Deakins, Chair of New Haw Library Community Partnership Steering Group,  sent an open letter to SCC CEO David McNulty  last week, updating him on progress, but also criticising SLAM for “challenging the decisions of our democratically elected representatives.”

We drafted this open response to Mrs Deakins, congratulating her on her progress and spelling out why we felt it necessary to challenge our democratically elected representatives.

A response to SCC’s library consultation

It looks like Surrey County Council has sent out as many consultation documents as its going to.

Many people have been baffled by the questions in the documents and many have said they won’t send in responses – not out of apathy but because they genuinely have no idea how to provide appropriate answers. We agree that the questions are most peculiar and difficult to answer but, although this may look like we’re trying to help the council, we do think it is important to respond.

We can’t tell people how to respond – that has to be up to you – but many people have told us they have emphasised the importance of paid staff in their responses. One gentleman that kindly shared his response with us, agreed to let us post it here. We have removed his name and library by request.

Questions 2 - In order to offer an inclusive service to all, what training do you think volunteers need? Are there any particular needs of people with protected characteristics as set out in the letter that you think the training should take account of?

Wouldn’t it be more difficult and expensive to train very many volunteers than it would be to train 2 or 3 paid and permanent members of staff? Has this been thought about?

I think training is not as much the issue. It is about permanent staff being in consistent and regular contact with library users over an extended period of time. I’m not sure that volunteers working just a handful of hours every other week could replace that.

I have a difficulty in using the library. It took me a few visits to the library to properly explain to the staff. After that, the librarians treated me with a lot of respect and gave me the service I need without any fuss. I don’t need to ask anymore and it makes everything a lot easier.

It would be embarrassing to explain my needs every single time I went in to the library to a different person each time. It is much better for me if I can tell staff once and then they know and can be discreet each time I come in to the library.

As I say, I don’t think the problems in serving people with “protected characteristics”, or whatever you want to call it, can be solved just by training of volunteers.

Questions 3 - Please could you give any other comments you may wish to make about how the Community Partnered Library proposal might impact on people with protected characteristics.

As I said above, one of the benefits I find most valuable of having paid, permanent staff is that they get to know me through consistent contact.

It’s like when I call up the phone company and have to talk to a different person every time. I tell them that I told their colleague before what the problem is but I have to go through the whole process all over again with a different person every time. It’s infuriating.

This will be the same with the library. I want to deal with one or two people, not a different person every time. It would be embarrassing having to go through my needs every time I go in the library. I use the library a lot and it is important part of my life. I am accepted there. I worry that if I have to explain myself every time I go in, I’ll probably stop using the library, and that will be a real negative in my life.

We think this response perfectly illustrates what we have said for a very long time now, and also reflects the findings of the judicial review. The “equalities” problems with CPLs can not be dismissed as a technicality, as SCC have tried to do. They are real and genuine issues and can not simply be addressed by a bit of training here and there.

Local residents should be able to use their library whilst maintaining their self-respect and dignity. Volunteers have gallantly come forward to stop their library from closing, with the noblest of motives. We encourage the use of volunteers but there are genuine problems with only volunteers taking over the managing and delivery of the library service. SCC need to take them seriously.

SCC latest consultation attempt in tatters

Mr Justice Wilkie passed his final Order in the Judicial Review on 1st May, quashing SCC’s decision to proceed with setting up Community Partnered Libraries in ten communities across Surrey. The final Order is here (Final JR Order).

In response, SCC has announced its intention to retake the decision at a cabinet meeting on the 19th June 2012. Ahead of that date, and to inform the cabinet, SCC also announced that it will be consulting with library users over its CPL proposals.

SCC’s decision to consult with library users is welcome news. We have campaigned for such a consultation for a long time. A proper consultation with library users is entirely appropriate given the serious nature of what is being proposed: the removal of all paid staff and making volunteers take over the management and delivery of a vital public service. Even the Council admits this is a “radical” proposal.

The Council has already begun its consultation. The first batch of consultation documents landed on some library users’ doormats last week. We attach here the documents – these sent to parents of children in the affected areas, but all consultation documents are very similar (Cover letter, Consultation document, Equalities/Diversity form).

So we should be pleased, yes? No. Consultation is good, of course, but only if done properly, comprehensively and in an open-minded way.

We looked up HM Government’s “Code of Practice on Consultation”. It has seven consultation criteria. It is worth checking SCC’s attempt at consultation against these criteria to see how the Council matches up. Criteria quoted verbatim below:

Criteria 1 – When to consult

Formal consultation should take place at a stage when there is scope to influence the policy outcome

How does SCC match up?

It is clear from the consultation documents that SCC has already made up its mind and that these documents are being sent out solely to shore up its previous unlawful and quashed decision.

Indeed, Cabinet Minister in charge of libraries, Helyn Clack, was recently interviewed by David Farbrother of the Surrey Mirror newspaper (Helyn Clack interview with Surrey Mirror), and gave this response:

DF: Can you envisage being persuaded by further consultation?

HC: Probably not

Criteria 2 – Duration of consultation exercises

Consultations should normally last for at least 12 weeks with consideration given to longer timescales where feasible and sensible

How does SCC match up?

The first batch of consultation letters started to arrive last week and users have been asked to return forms by 6th June. Many library users have still not received their documents. Let’s be generous and say the consultation began on 1st May. That’s a 5 weeks consultation period. Woefully short of what would be considered good practice.

Even if SCC dismiss the Government’s code of practice, it is still fanciful to suppose that it can properly consult, consider and analyse the results, and then present them to the Cabinet by 19th June.

Criteria 3 – Clarity of scope and content

Consultation documents should be clear about the consultation process, what is being proposed, the scope to influence and the expected costs and benefits of the proposal.

How does SCC match up?

Helyn Clack has already said she will “probably not” be influenced by the consultation. So why bother consulting at all? The answer can only be that SCC are simply trying to tick the right boxes.

Nowhere in the consultation documents does it explain the costs of the proposals. It is understandable that SCC does not want to reveal these costs, of course, because they are considerable and have by far outstripped any hoped for financial benefit.

Criteria 4 – Accessibility of consultation exercises

Consultation exercises should be designed to be accessible to, and clearly targeted at, those people the exercise is intended to reach.

How does SCC match up?

We believe that, of the documents sent out so far, most (yes, most) have been sent to the wrong recipients or to the wrong address. We are collecting envelopes as evidence and are finding more examples than not that have been sent to non-existent people.

We also have an example of a letter that was sent to a real person but at the wrong address. It just so happens that the person that received the letter knew the person that it was supposed to be sent to so could send it on. We have no idea how many other letters were sent to the wrong address in this way, but it is likely to be many.

Criteria 5 – The burden of consultation

Keeping the burden of consultation to a minimum is essential if consultations are to be effective and if consultees’ buy-in to the process is to be obtained

How does SCC match up?

The questions in the consultation document imply that the survey-taker has not only a full understanding of the Equalities Act 2010 and the Council’s specific obligations under its Public Sector Equalities Duty, but also that the survey-taker is experienced and highly knowledgable in assessing training needs and devising training programmes.

We are sure that the occasional Surrey resident will have this knowledge and these skills but to expect all residents to respond in a meaningful way to these questions is unrealistic and over-burdensome.

Criteria 6 – Responsiveness of consultation exercise

Consultation responses should be analysed carefully and clear feedback should be provided to participants following the consultation

How does SCC match up?

As stated earlier, we fail to understand how SCC can receive the replies, analyse and consider them properly in order to present a coherent report to the Cabinet by 19th June.

Criteria 7 – Capacity to consult

Officials running consultations should seek guidance in how to run an effective consultation exercise and share what they have learned from the experience

How does SCC match up?

If officials did seek guidance on how to run an effective consultation, we would be very interested to know where they looked. We found the Government’s “Code of Practice on Consultation” by doing a simple online search. We think that, as an absolute minimum, SCC officials could have done the same.

Conclusion

There is a final sentence underneath the criteria in the “Code of Practice on Consultation”. It reads, “These criteria should be reproduced in consultation documents”.  The criteria are not reproduced in SCC’s consultation documents.

SCC was taken to the High Court by Surrey library users and residents, and was found to have acted not only “unlawfully” but “significantly short” of what is required by the law. It would be reasonable to think that, given another go, SCC would make every effort to get it right this time around.

Not content with the hash it made of its first attempt at passing its CPL plans, it seems, if anything, to be doing an even worse job on its second attempt. It is perfectly obvious to any reasonable person that the Cabinet will not have sufficient information in front of it to make a decision on June 19th. If it attempts to make that decision in spite of the serious shortcomings of the current consultation attempt, it will be seriously misguided.

More and more Surrey residents are now saying enough is enough. The Council has already spent too much money on this library policy and it continues to burn money on it – far more money than it ever hoped to save. Common sense must now prevail.

Kenny Rogers sang in his song, The Gambler, “you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, and know when to fold ‘em.” For Surrey County Council, it’s time to fold.

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In our next blog – how people are  emphasising the benefits of paid staff in their consultation returns

High Court quashes volunteer-run library decision

PRESS RELEASE -

The High Court has today handed down its final Order in the volunteer-run library case, declaring that the Council is guilty of a full breach of its Public Sector Equalities Duty and ordering a quashing of the decision to make 10 libraries across Surrey volunteer-run.

This latest Order is a crushing blow to Surrey County Council which has until now tried to claim that it lost the Court case on a technicality and that it could continue with its plans. But now the issue has been put beyond doubt – the Judge has ordered that SCC is in full and substantive breach of the law and cannot implement the decision to proceed with volunteer-run libraries taken in September 2011.

The Council must now revert the libraries to the way they were prior to September 2011, including a return of all paid staff, a return of the Library Management System and the return of staff counters. All ten libraries are once again part of the Core Managed Library Network.

The Council recently announced that it hoped to retake the decision in June and carry on regardless, but this latest Order means that a simple retaking of the decision would not be enough.

Lee Godfrey, spokesman for SLAM, said: “The County Council put a gun to the head of local people over this policy: ‘run your library for free or we will close it.’ It is good news that the High Court has finally put a stop to that nonsense.

Surrey County Council has been sent a very clear and strong message. Its library plans were ill-judged, unwanted and illegal. The Council had a good run over its library plans but it’s now over.

We wait to hear from SCC after this latest Court Order, but any attempt to continue with the policy would be an affront to decency and the law. The Council has spent a fortune on these library plans for no benefit – it’s now to time to cut its losses and not waste any more taxpayers’ money on the folly.”

The lawyers representing the Claimants have also issued a PRESS RELEASE here 20120502- Surrey Libraries Press Statement

Surrey County Council to retake library decision

Surrey County Council has today announced that it “will take a decision on its libraries plans again, following a judicial review.”

We welcome this announcement – finally, some common sense. Mr Justice Wilkie ruled earlier this month that SCC’s plans were “unlawful” and that the plans fell “substantially short” of what was required by law. Despite SCC’s initial defiant reaction that it was “pleased” with the Judgment and that it intended to “carry on regardless” it has now recognised that its initial reaction was wrong and must now act within the law, with respect to the Judge’s detailed ruling and that it must reconsider its decision.

David Hodge said at today’s cabinet meeting that SCC’s lawyers were agreeing a High Court Order with the Claimant’s lawyers, although he did not say what that Order would contain, leaving the contents of the Order open to speculation.

One New Haw resident said today upon hearing the news:

“It sounds like the County Council has capitulated. Clearly they didn’t rate their chances at the next hearing and so they’ve thrown in the towel early.”

Whilst not necessarily and wholly concurring with that view we would say that SCC has come to the right decision in not committing more good taxpayers money after bad – Lord knows the Council has wasted enough money on its library policy already!

We wait to see what the Court Order says.

Council leader, Hodge, has said he will attempt to take the decision again at the Cabinet meeting on 19th June. We will be looking for evidence at this meeting that the Council has evaluated the benefits of paid staff to library users so that it can then understand the impact of losing them. Once it has understood this impact it can only then decide whether training of volunteers can mitigate the loss of paid staff, whether something other than training is required, or indeed whether the gap is too big to be filled by a rota of volunteers.

The only way to analyse the benefits of paid staff to library users is to ask the library users themselves, by way of a full and open-minded user consultation.  We would expect to see evidence and results of such a consultation presented to the Cabinet meeting on the 19th June.

Our view, as explained in this open letter, is that it would be extremely difficult to replace the benefits of paid staff with only volunteers but, if David Hodge is as insistent on the policy as he seems, then we expect to see “substantial” evidence at the Cabinet meeting to justify it.

An Evening with Norman Willis

We have a new tab on our website called “Upcoming Events”. Please check here regularly as we have a number of events planned over the next few weeks.

The first two are:

SLAM Open meeting

Wednesday 18th April 2012 at 8pm

Byfleet Village Hall, Byfleet, Surrey

SLAM will discuss recent events, the legal challenge and the future.

All welcome.

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Fundraiser

An Evening with Norman Willis

Monday 30th April 2012 at 8pm

St Mary’s Hall, Byfleet, Surrey - Doors 7.30pm

Norman Willis was the TUC General Secretary between 1984 and 1993, an interesting and controversial period in modern history during which he met and negotiated with most of Britain and Europe’s leading political protagonists.

Norman is an entertaining and engaging raconteur with a wide range of other interests, including being an authority on embroidery and is President of the Arthur Ransome Society.

Norman will speak on a variety on topics, followed by a question and answer session.

Want to know how Norman and Arthur Scargill got on? What happened when Norman first met Margaret Thatcher? The secrets to great embroidery? Come and find out!

Tickets: £10 to include Tea/Coffee and light refreshments. Contact nick.flux@virginmedia.com for tickets

Minister for Culture may launch enquiry into SCC’s library plans

Things happening apace at the moment. Hot on the heels of our open letter to Surrey County Council, Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture (including libraries), weighs into the debate in an interview with BBC Radio Surrey this morning.

BBC Radio Surrey was interviewing SLAM Chair, Mike Alsop, about SLAM’s open letter to the Council when the presenter, Mark Carter, suddenly introduced Ed Vaizey to the interview, to the surprise of SLAM’s Chair.

Ed Vaizey said that he would expect there to be a “discussion” when an authority attempts to reconfigure its library service, in direct contrast to SCC’s non-consultative approach.

He went on to say that he “fully supports” SLAM’s right to campaign against SCC and to change their mind over the library plans.

The most telling part of the interview, though, was this:

Mark Carter: “You are quite happy with the direction Surrey County Council is taking?”

Ed Vaizey: “Hold on. I don’t want to get too pedantic because I don’t think your listeners are interested in, sort of, me dancing on the head of a pin…”

Mark Carter: “But from what you’ve heard and what you’ve read, you are happy with the direction Surrey County Council is taking?”

Ed Vaizey: “If the local population and the local campaigners think that the County Council has taken a decision in the wrong way they are entitled to Judicially Review it, which is what SLAM has done to Surrey County Council. They won that Judicial Review and the County has been asked to look at the way it made its decision again… I can’t say whether I am happy with Surrey’s plans because I have to wait until I’ve seen the final shape of them before I make a decision about whether it’s appropriate or not to have an enquiry into whether or not they are providing a comprehensive library service.”

There are three very important points raised here by Ed Vaizey.

Firstly, he accepts that the claimants (supported by SLAM) won the Judicial Review. SCC has, absurdly, yet to accept this and has said it is “pleased” with the judgment and that the judge did not criticise its plans.

Secondly, Ed Vaizey says that the judge has asked the Council to look at the way it made its decision again. This is clearly the Minister’s expectation, too. Yet SCC has said that it intends to press on with its plans regardless of the High Court ruling and without reviewing its decision.

Thirdly, the Minster for Culture says that he “can’t say whether he is happy with Surrey’s plans because he hasn’t seen the final shape of them,” before deciding whether to hold an enquiry. It is very clear that Ed Vaizey expects the Council’s plans to change, which chimes with the Judge’s ruling that the plans fell “substantially short” of what is required by the law. The Minister also makes it clear that he is holding the threat of an enquiry over SCC’s head.

It can not be clearer that SCC needs to mend its ways and to fundamentally change its plans to run 10 libraries with volunteers only. Our letter sent this morning spells out how this process of change may be started.

The ball is firmly in the Council’s court. Will it defy Surrey residents, the High Court and, now, the Minister for Culture (risking a full-scale enquiry) or will it see the error of its ways?

We say the easiest way for SCC to get out of the tremendous mess it has made for itself is to drop its library plans and have a fundamental rethink. But if it really does “insist on this policy” then it has an awful lot of hard work and expense ahead of it.

Over to Surrey County Council.