Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Stuart Cross.

None.

Members of the public wishing to take part should notify the Head of Legal and Democratic Services  in writing or by e-mail indicating the nature and content of their proposed participation no later than 9.00am on the working day before the meeting (in this case 5 June 2014).  Enquiries can be made through the telephone number/e-mail address below.

None.

(previously circulated)

The Minutes of the Meeting Held on 21 March 2016 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

The Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Localism and Communities and the Head of Service for Communities attended the meeting to discuss the County Council's proposals around the reduction of public opening hours and in turn, the reduction in front line staffing hours.

The Libraries and Learning Service had £3.7m savings to deliver from 2012 through to 2018/19. Progress against this target had largely been achieved through innovation and transformation without the need for closing Libraries or additional day closures. However, proposals had been developed based on usage figures to reduce opening hours in some libraries which would contribute approximately £200k towards the Future Fit savings target during this financial year. 

To date savings have been delivered, primarily through re-negotiating contracts, property remodelling, transforming service delivery, increasing the use of technology and the creation of community led libraries. Staff numbers particularly at Management level had also been reduced.

In order to further reduce costs, the service had identified a number of approaches. These included:

·         Increasing income generation to achieve a target income of £65k through a range of initiatives.

·         Identifying additional co-location opportunities and work with Place Partnership to identify new opportunities to reduce premises costs by sharing library premises with internal and external organisations.

·         Introduce un–staffed periods in libraries.  This approach would be scoped out during 2016 to test the feasibility of this approach.

·         Review and reduce staffing to reflect usage patterns in Libraries.

The Libraries and Learning Service were proposing to reduce library opening hours by 76.5hrs in total across the County (excluding The Hive).  Libraries performance data indicating daily patterns of library transaction levels and public computer bookings had been analysed and formed the basis of the proposals. Discussions with local library managers had taken place, and using local knowledge of daily patterns of visitor levels and visitor activity the proposals had been reached with the view to minimise disruption to customer service and co-located services and partners.

The total of 76.5hrs included the re-introduction of a closed day at Stourport Library.  Wednesday opening was introduced when the library re-located to the Civic Centre in March 2015, but feedback from the local Library Manager and performance data revealed that activity levels on a Wednesday did not meet those of other week days for the 12 months to end March 2016.

The proposals to reduce the opening hours were part of an overall approach to achieve the necessary savings, without the need for Library closures.

The formal staff consultation was launched on 13 April 2016 and was run for 30 days until 13 May 2016.

Consultation with key stakeholders, including those partners who are co-located within some of our libraries and our community partners was continuing throughout May 2016.

Informal public consultation would take place at individual Libraries during May/early June 2016 with a view to implementing the proposals in July 2016.

During the discussion the following main points were made:

·         Although the data for the existing opening times compared to the proposed reductions was unavailable at the meeting,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 172.

The Panel considered and noted the Overview and Scrutiny Work Programme 2016/17 agreed by Council on 12 May 2016.

In addition to the items specified on the Work Programme, the Panel agreed to add to its Programme Worcestershire County Council Information Technology and review whether the Hewlett Packard contract was fit for purpose.