David and I have had enquiries from residents about how to lodge comments in the public consultation on the ownership and management of land managed by the Forestry Commission.
This public consultation will run for 12 weeks until 21st April 2011.
You can see and fill in the consultation document on the Forestry Commission website or on the website run by DEFRA.
Or telephone 0845 3673787 to request a hard copy which you can complete and return to the address below.
A meeting was held this afternoon at County Hall with Cllr Judith Heathcoat, Cabinet Member for Libraries, John Jackson, Director of Social and Community Services, Jillian Southwell from the County Library Service, and Claire Phillips from the Policy Directorate. Representatives from Headington were:
A huge amount of information has been released by the County recently including:
The Director confirmed that a 23% reduction needed to be made from the Library Service budget, a reduction of £2m from the current total of £8.7m, by 2014/15.
The implementation of any discontinuation of funding to libraries would take place at the end of December 2011.
The request for a meeting with the Director and Cabinet Member by the above group would be considered by the County Council as an expression of interest in looking at all options in keeping library services going in Headington, in their current or an alternative form.
The decision of whether to approve bids for transition funding for community library projects is likely to slip to the end of June or beginning of July, details will follow.
The County had considered other options, including a reduction across the board for all county libraries (which would result in a reduction of opening hours and staff costs by 30%) and had discussed the possibility of outsourcing all its services with a UK provider, but neither had proved viable. Discussions on outsourcing are currently underway with a US provider.
The County has not yet released its guidance to community groups on what service level agreements can be offered by the County Library Service as buy-ins by community libraries. Professional services might include access to the library management system and bookstock, infrastructure support and training of volunteer staff. This will be released by the end of this month.
It is likely that bids for transition funding from Big Society libraries would include the cost of installing self-issue systems but criteria are to be decided.
Financial questions are being sent to the Director by our accountant and he will respond as soon as he can.
There was an emphasis by County on ensuring that the funded library hubs would be spread geographically. One of the most significant factors taken into account when selecting which libraries would be retained or cut appeared to be travel time. Another was the proximity of libraries to shopping areas. There was also a mention of “community drop off points” which are under consideration to those areas where library services would be cut.
The County is preparing a local needs analysis for each area and this will give us more information about what each area is like in terms of nos. children on free school meals, nos. people not in employment, education or training etc. etc.
Significant points that were raised included:
Most importantly, it was emphasised that the timescales were unattainable for an effective business case to be built up for the biggest libraries in the existing schedule. This point was understood and taken away for further consideration.
A meeting is being scheduled for the end of March. This will allow the County time to send out guidance and local needs assessments, and will give the group more time to analyse the information, learn about different types of social enterprises and how community libraries can be run, and work out alternative ways in which the County can make the savings without closing libraries.
Here is a snapshot of work in progress
The County Council issued a press release at the end of November on its proposals to discontinue funding for 20 of its 43 public libraries, including Bury Knowle Library. This is due to happen at some point during the 2011/12 financial year
Important dates
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County Council budget is set (proposals include library savings) |
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Closing date for expressions of interest from the community in taking over the running of the library |
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03/11-05/11 |
Consultation period on the proposals |
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Closing date for communities wishing to bid for transition funds from the County pot of £600K (can be for running libraries and/or youth activities with discontinued funding) |
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08/2012 |
End date for Phase 1 of the Future Libraries Programme |
Timescales appear to have been driven by the County’s involvement in a successful bid with Kent County Council to be flagship authorities in the Future Libraries Programme, and the project’s remit is the following.
Delivering Library Services for the Future (Oxfordshire and Kent)
Two large counties are using the opportunity this Programme provides to develop a new long term model for library services provided in rural counties. The model will need to substantially and permanently reduce the cost of provision, while retaining those features which are valuable to customers (good stock, access to information, community spaces and knowledgeable staff). The new model will need to deliver library services fit for purpose in the 21st century, including extensive online services such as e books, e loans and social networking, as well as provision that draws on Big Society principles of locally driven and community based activity.
Issues
The County Council is currently developing guidance for community groups who may be interested in running library services but this has still not been released. Information that we need as a priority includes:
Action taken so far
Local councillors and HA have agreed that this will be a cross-Party/”non-Political” campaign
We have done some desk research and found information on other authorities who have taken similar action, most notably
Richard Stevens and Emma Chamberlain have written to Joanna Simons Chief Executive, Oxon County Council with a 6 page letter of objection / concerns that OCC is not fulfilling its duties under the 1964 Act and in light of the findings of the Public Inquiry in the Wirral
Save Headington Library campaign group has been set up and will meet for the first time this evening, members include: Sarah Eddie, Alex Babkevich, Lynda Hayward and others
There are a number of sites, including
http://www.headingtonlibrary.org.uk/
http://saveheadingtonlibrary.blogspot.com
and a Facebook site
http://www.facebook.com/SaveHeadingtonLibrary
A meeting has been arranged for 2.30 on Wednesday 2 February with Cabinet Member for Libraries Cllr Mrs Judith Heathcoat and senior officers, hopefully including Caroline Taylor, the
Cllr Roy Darke as Chair of the NE Area Committee
Cllr Ruth Wilkinson as Vice-Chair, NE Area Committee
Fiona Mackenzie (accountant, has prepared a cost benefit analysis)
Tanya Field representing Headington Action
Tony Joyce representing the Co-ordinating Committee of Headington RAs
Sarah Eddie representing Save Headington Library campaign group
We are hoping to persuade the Cabinet Member to reconsider her decision to discontinue funding for Bury Knowle Library, but need to keep all options open, including outsourcing the running of the library. There have been a number of suggestions from residents for income generating and/or community activities at Bury Knowle House. We would welcome more!
Many of our residents were at Area Committee last night to voice their support for keeping Headington Library open. County Officer Simon Kearey was there to explain the process. Expressions of interest from communities to retain libraries earmarked for closure must be in by the end of February 2011, and can be registered on futurelibraries@oxfordshire.com. The “consultation” on whether libraries will have their funding discontinued will happen from March – May 2011. Bids to continue a local library service in a different way will be appraised at the end of June but we don’t know who is doing the appraising and what criteria they will use. There will be guidance for community groups but it’s not ready yet. There is a £600K pot of money which groups can bid into to pay for setting up the alternative management arrangements for both libraries and youth activities.
It is hard to see how the Cabinet member can reassure our residents that these proposals are not yet set in stone, as there will be a Cabinet meeting on 25 January to agree the budget and the budget sign-off will happen on 15 February by the Full County Council, over which the Conservatives have full control. The cuts to the Library budget are already included in the Tory budget proposals.
This means that by the time the “consultation period” takes place, the funding from libraries will have been cut so dramatically that it will be almost impossible to argue a case for funding to be continued for the libraries on the ‘hit list’.
People at the meeting showed their frustration about (a) lack of consultation (b) lack of information and (c) the impracticality of timescales given by the County. It was resolved that the Chair and Vice Chair of NEAC (Cllr Darke and Ruth) will arrange for a group to meet the Cabinet Member for Libraries, Cllr Mrs Judith Heathcoat and other senior officers to find out more information and discuss the options for a fallback plan if our efforts to save the Library in its current form do not succeed. We are asking for representatives from community groups including Headington Action and Save Headington Library to go with us to ensure that the views of local residents are discussed fully.
In addition to this the four county councillors from NE Area are asking for ten days consultancy time to be spent on community development in the area – including public library provision
Simon Kearey from Oxfordshire County Council will be attending Tuesday’s Area Committee meeting to explain the proposals concerning proposed closures of libraries and to answer questions.
This is your chance to tell a County Officer what you think of the proposals to discontinue funding for Bury Knowle Library
North East Area Committee
Date: Tuesday 18 January 2011
Time: 6.00 pm
Place: Sandhills Primary School, Terrett Avenue
It is item 4 on the agenda
This may be one of the last area committees held as the Labour group wants to abolish them. But we feel it is the best local forum available for residents to air their comments, raise important local issues, and speak about local planning applications at a local venue.
The abolition of area committees would also mean that your local councillors will no longer be deciding planning applications in your ward. The proposal is to have 2 centralised committees to do this at the Town Hall, and will mean that councillors without knowledge of your local area will be making decisions on Headington planning applications.
If you feel strongly about this, please write to the local press and sign the petition to
SAVE LOCAL DEMOCRACY!
As previously reported, new parking tariffs will come into force shortly in the Headington (Old High Street) and St Leonard’s Road car parks. The new tariff is likely to be implemented in 5-6 weeks time.
We are grateful to the residents and businesses who have worked with us to identify and propose a different time slot in the parking charge tariff to Scrutiny Committee and to City Executive Board. There will be a new time slot of 0-2 hours. The charge for this will be £1.20 and it will be reviewed (to make sure it works) in 6 months time. It will be good for businesses because it encourages some shoppers to stay for longer in Headington on their shopping trips to visit more shops and restaurants. It will be good for shoppers because they won’t now have to worry about rushing back to the car park to feed the meter when they’re in the middle of buying something.
The original charge for the 1-2 hour time slot had been £1.50 so we are pleased that we have negotiated this down on behalf of residents and businesses. There will also be a limited business permit scheme similar to the one in operation at Westgate and more work will be done on this very shortly.
We know that many residents would like to retain a lower rate for very short term parking, and another option we put forward was for two slots of 0-30 minutes, and 31 minutes-2 hours. The Scrutiny Committee felt there was not enough data on how long people park for this to be a viable option at this stage, so we will fight for more accurate data to be recorded
We are also very concerned about Sundays being included in the weekday tariff. Normal rates will apply on Sundays and the Board member stated to Ruth yesterday that any concession to keep Sundays fixed tariff cannot be afforded in the current financial climate. This means that a family parking for 4 hours stay on a Sunday to use the Park’s facilities would be faced with a £12.50 charge, and we think this is unacceptable. We will continue to fight this!
We are aware that this Sunday tariff issue may cause problems for Old High Street residents in particular; they sometimes park their cars in Headington car park and let their visitors use the spaces in front of their houses, because of the lack of resident parking in their area. We are seeking alternative ways of achieving this, possibly by making a business case for allowing OHS residents to park there and display residents’ parking permits as is already the case in another car park. But we will need better data to justify this. Watch this space!
Ruth is attending a Scrutiny meeting on Monday 10 January to present a paper to councillors on car park tariffs at Headington car parks
Those of you who braved the snow and came to the last NE Area Committee meeting will know that many residents’ groups and businesses have huge concerns about the proposed increases which even the officer calls “significant”
The paper outlines some alternative ways to raise car parks income so that rises don’t have to be so severe. Here are just some of our concerns:
We have worked with members and officers of local residents groups and businesses to come up with an alternative plan which will generate as much income but encourage shoppers to stay for up to two hours. We shall see how much support the Labour councillors will give to these ideas and will let you know the result. You can find the relevant papers here.
In the recent past, these tariff charges have been decided by local councillors at Area Committees but a decision has been made by the City Executive Board that they will be made centrally now and in the future. We’ll know tomorrow whether that change is for better or worse!
The County has proposed to discontinue funding for 20 of its 43 libraries, but has not indicated clearly the criteria determining which libraries to cut. One reason that has been given is because there is a good bus route to Westgate Library
Full sets of figures for the County Library Service in terms of income, expenditure and usage county-wide are being obtained. We have details of income and expenditure for Bury Knowle Library.
Bury Knowle House is a grade II listed building, and the space within it is leased to the County Council. The lease was signed last year, and we have now obtained a copy of it. It appears that the County Council has the ability to terminate the agreement upon the giving of six months notice. The annual rent passing is in the sum of £16,300 per annum. Effectively the County has paid rent in advance up to March 2016 from which date annual rental payments would again commence, so the rent would be subject to review on 25th March 2016.
Our current information is that the City pays for maintenance/repair to the outside of the building and for the foyer and that the County pays for repairs to the interior of the library space – repairs to listed buildings can be expensive. We are checking this out.
Additional to the library space, the County rents a large staff workroom and a staff rest room.
The Library stock has been RFID security tagged ready for the introduction of a self-issue machine. This would mean that potentially the Library could be run using fewer staff if the linked RFID computer software is implemented. We have requested further details on this from County.
IT facilities are oversubscribed, and the children’s workstations are in high demand in the summer holidays. It is odd that this library has been earmarked for discontinuation of funding as its customer base and transaction statistics are very healthy. Local residents use it as central point for information on activities and events within the area (it is currently displaying the new play area equipment to be installed in Bury Knowle Park).
The income from overdue books and charges more or less pays for many expenditure items such as utilities, stationery, but not the £31K on books and £128K on staffing recorded in the most recent set of annual figures that we have available to us.
We are awaiting a response from County for information on the following:
The nature of any prospective ‘takeover’ is up for debate: could the City take over the running of the County libraries on a not-for-profit basis, for example? One hitch is that there is no wheelchair access to the building.
Ruth has approached the Bodleian, Oxford Brookes University and Ruskin College for possible help. The County Librarian is moving jobs in the spring of 2011.
There will be a public meeting on 11/1/11 at 20.00 at St Andrews School and there is a public petition which you can sign here
Clearly we would like to make a case for the County to reconsider its decision to discontinue funding for Bury Knowle Library. But we also need to have a Plan B, and before we can decide what that Plan B can look like, we need to have a greater understanding of what local people want from the Library and how they would like the space at Bury Knowle House to be used most effectively. We’d appreciate your comments on this!
Ideas about more creative use of the use of space at BKH given to us by local residents and staff so far include:
Another option that has been mooted is to move the library to another location so that it is cheaper to run, and Barton has been mentioned in this context, although our latest information is that the library is well-used by Wood Farm School too. Access to another venue using public transport might prove more difficult though.
If you have any comments, feel free to click on the comment button and add them here!
A new website has been set up to give no-nonsense information to the British public about what the EU is for and what it does for them. It’s called The EU and Me, and it’s available here. There is an interesting section identifying and dispelling common myths that have been circulated by the press!
This is the concluding post in our series on the Lib Dem manifesto in action
Lib Dem manifesto p.94
“We will scrap the intrusive ContactPoint database which is intended to hold the details of every child in England.”
The ContactPoint database was switched off on 6 August 2010
Lib Dem manaifesto p.92
“We will implement the recommendations of the Calman Commission to give significant new powers and responsibilities to the Scottish Parliament.”
The Scotland Bill had its first reading on 30 November. It implements the recommendations of the Calman Commission, devolving landfill tax and stamp duty, and introducing a Scottish Income Tax and new borrowing powers.
Lib Dem manifesto p. 89
“We will introduce fixed-term parliaments to ensure that the Prime Minister of the day cannot change the date of an election to suit them.”
The Fixed Term Parliaments Bill is in the process of going through Parliament.
Lib Dem manifesto p.87
“We will give people a real say in who governs the country by introducing fair votes.”
The Parliamentary voting system and constituencies Bill is currently before Parliament. It provides for a referendum on the alternative vote, a new fairer electoral system, most likely to be held in May.
Lib Dem manifesto p.92
“We will scrap the Government Offices for the Regions and regional ministers.”
We have scrapped the Government Offices for the Regions and regional ministers, devolving some of their powers and resources to local government.
Lib Dem manifesto p.92
“Give the National Assembly primary legislative powers so that it becomes a true Welsh Parliament. We also support passing on a greater number of responsibilities to the National Assembly.”
A referendum on extending the law-making powers of the National Assembly of Wales is to be held on 3 March 2011