---

Dorset Library Service

I thank the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) for this debate and for the manner in which she made her remarks. She has for some considerable time been a keen advocate of services to young people in particular. As she said, she raised the issue of proposed closures in Dorset with me some time ago, and I am grateful that she put on the record my intervention at that stage. Like the hon. Lady, I was the first person in my family to go to university, and that was largely due to using the local library service. I entirely understand why she has taken up the issue as she has, and why she continues to be a strong advocate for her constituents. As the hon. Lady said, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport leads on public library policy for the Government. Through the Department and delivery bodies such as the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, the Government have encouraged significant national improvement in our libraries, including the extension of opening hours across the country—the hon. Lady will recall that that was a significant problem just some five or six years ago—an 8 per cent. increase in book acquisitions, and visits rising to more than 290 million a year. Libraries are hugely popular with the general public. We published a framework for the future—the first national strategy for public libraries—and we continue to deliver a range of capacity-building programmes under that banner, particularly for librarians in our libraries. As this debate is taking place, right across the country there are young people in our libraries, Sure Start schemes in our libraries, and librarians serving pensioners. Our libraries are providing the sustainable resource that the hon. Lady described. It is right to say that public libraries are, fundamentally, a local service. The White Paper, ““Strong and Prosperous Communities””, has set out the Government’s vision for future relationships between central and local government. There will be increased autonomy for local authorities, which will give them the maximum freedom to use their resources to respond to the needs of their local communities and to involve those communities in the design and running of services. A new, outcome-based performance framework will be in place from next year that will cover all local authority activities. Local authorities have a statutory duty in relation to libraries, and my Department has a duty to oversee that, to benchmark performance, to share best practice across the country, and to describe a national minimum standard. Dorset has proposed significant changes to its services, and it is legitimate for interest to be taken at a national level in those changes. However, it would not be right for the Government to be prescriptive about any proposed changes. The hon. Lady will understand that library services can differ hugely in different parts of the country. In my constituency, libraries provide services to a hugely ethnically diverse community in an urban context, which provides challenges that are very different from those faced in her constituency. It is right that local authorities take a view and are able to adjust services to meet their particular needs. As the hon. Lady has said, Dorset library service is highly rated, scoring level 4 in the comprehensive performance assessment and meeting seven out of the 10 library standards. It is in the top quartile of library services in England, with user satisfaction of 94 per cent. for adults and 93 per cent. for children, and it is in the top six English counties for libraries per capita. That is a high-performing local authority, and for all the reasons that she mentioned, Dorset will want to ensure that that continues. Dorset library service is innovative and has pioneered the simple use of e-mails and text messages to communicate with users. It is working to re-engage young people through out-of-hours sessions, and projects with young Travellers in their communities. Later this year it will introduce a youth café as part of the Reading Agency’s ““book bars”” programme. It also provides a free reading group service for 210 groups around the county. Nevertheless, significant changes have clearly been proposed, and I recognise the public concern about some of those changes in Dorset. I wrote to the chief executive of Dorset to express my concern and views about the valuable contribution that libraries make to their communities. I asked my officials to remain in close contact with Dorset, and they have been in regular contact over the past year about the nature and detail of the review. The Government have given local authorities the funding to deliver tangible improvements to their services, with a real-terms increase of 39 per cent. since 1997. The authorities have delivered on that, but there are always competing pressures for funding. I have provided a small list of what is happening in the Dorset library service, but more is always possible, and Gershon has encouraged authorities to focus on the detail of their expenditure. I am pleased that Dorset has not taken the easy way out chosen by some authorities and simply cut the book fund. It has taken stock of the whole library service, reviewed its costs and benefits, and has sought to evolve the service. The focus is on creating a sustainable and balanced base budget for the service in the medium to long term, and on providing a service that is appropriate to the needs of the county’s demographically diverse communities, which are rural, suburban, and in particular elderly as against young. The Dorset review identified ways to hone procurement and stock management processes, to refine staffing structures and maximise the use of skills, to rationalise opening hours, making them clearer to understand and extending them in some areas, and to improve the library buildings. All of that is good and sound business management, although much of it lies behind the scenes. The review also sought to provide a different means of service provision for 13 communities that are currently served by small libraries that experience low levels of use and have cost-effectiveness issues. As the hon. Lady has said, the process is not complete and that consultation and discussion continues. I know that she has played an active role in making her views known, but there is still a risk that some of the libraries may be closed. There is no doubt that library closures can engender great passion in any community. That strength of feeling is valuable, and should be harnessed to help deliver a collective approach to the future of a service, but controversy does not negate justified change, and it may well be that it is right for some of Dorset’s libraries to close in order that others may flourish. That is for the council and its communities to decide and to determine over the coming period. They have a difficult decision to make. It is true that more than 80 per cent. of library traffic in Dorset occurs in just 15 of the 34 libraries. However, libraries provide important services to rural and urban communities alike, and those needs cannot be abandoned. In advance of the council’s decision, the most important factor is that the aim of the review is to improve the overall quality of the library service. Libraries do sometimes need to close or be replaced, which can be because of a number of common-sense factors, including demographic change. I have said before that any library closure is, of course, regrettable for that particular community, but I am pleased that discussions are taking place with communities in Dorset about other means of delivering the services. Cambridgeshire has 10 fantastically successful community-run libraries that are delivering good and appropriate services to their locality. Taking that leap of faith has enabled Cambridgeshire to keep those 10 sets of doors open and to harness the enthusiasm of their communities, while also freeing up resources to invest in the whole network of libraries in Cambridgeshire. The cabinet of Dorset county council will make the high-level decisions about the future of the 13 libraries this summer, and I am sure that the hon. Lady will join me in watching for news with interest. If community ownership is agreed as a viable option, some local areas are ready to take on that challenge, while others need further assistance to establish whether it will suit them. If there are absolute closures, I am keen to hear Dorset’s explanations of how, through different means, it will meet the needs of those communities that will no longer have access to that library service. The process will run until March 2009, and of course I encourage the hon. Lady and her constituents to play an active role in it. I expect that she will do so. I also encourage Dorset to continue to be involved, to consult its communities, and not to take decisions in a complacent manner. I appreciate that it is a difficult decision, but the Government have been clear about the standards that are expected and about the investment that is needed. The hon. Lady was right to emphasise programmes such as Bookstart and the summer reading challenge, which we have supported and invested in. I hope that Dorset will continue to have a comprehensive and efficient library service in the months ahead, although I recognise that some change may be necessary.