Agenda item

Members asked for an agenda item at Overview and Scrutiny on the current Your Neighbourhood Consultation. Neighbourhood and People Scrutiny have examined the consultation. It is felt that it is important to improve member involvement in the consultation and to assist members with engagement. OSM must decide if it wishes to submit anything to Cabinet and a response to the consultation itself. OSM will take note of the next steps in the consultation which closes on 5 September 2017.

Cllr Asher Craig, Deputy Mayor with responsibility for Communities (Public Health, Public Transport, Libraries, Parks) has been asked to attend this meeting.

During the discussion the following points were made:

• The community links element of the consultation is more acceptable and this model would lead to less concern from OSM members. This will be raised at Cabinet.

• Some ward members have made a lot of effort to involve citizens and encouraged them to make a response to the consultation.

• The way questions are laid out is felt by some members to be prescriptive. If people respond online they have more space to respond. It is possible to make lots of comments or enter “None of the above”, to ensure that a response is not counted as supporting one of the closure options. A view was expressed that this could lead to some residents to vote for options which preserve their library and then it may be claimed that there’s a mandate to close a number of libraries.

• There are a lot of questions regarding the management of neighbourhoods directorate which are not covered by the consultation.

• The Executive instructs citizens to communicate with councillors but the support to councillors has been removed at the same time; this is unhelpful. Budgets are shrinking but councillors are being asked to take on more.

• People may not feel inclined to engage, which is not at all desirable.

• Many people have been attending local meetings with the Mayor and officers regarding the consultation.

• There is a statutory duty to consult (which is separate from any drive for cuts) and there is also real dialogue necessary on a case by case basis, particularly where the library is one of a number of services / users in a particular building. The Executive is trying its best and the consultation is progressing well. Although the written part of the process may not look as good as it should be, the process as a whole is going well.

• There was no reference to the previous libraries consultation. It had a good response, but there is no acknowledgement in the current consultation of the previous one. Many people volunteered to help to keep their library open at that time, and these offers were not followed up at all.

• It was felt by some members that communication has been a problem with this consultation.

• People with learning difficulties are experiencing great difficulty responding to the online questionnaire. This excludes many people who feel the cuts the most. ACTION - email from Learning Difficulties Group to be sent to Consultation team.

• The Mayor’s budget docs published in November 2016 stated that documents from both stages of the previous consultation must be visible and available. Experts from the Carnegie Trust, the House of Commons inquiry into libraries, community practitioners, librarians and others made contributions, but it is felt by some members that this has been ignored in this recent consultation exercise.

• The problem has arisen because the current consultation is a statutory requirement, but there is also a requirement to make savings to a schedule.

The Strategic Director Neighbourhoods made the following points:

• The current consultation is trying to cover several areas at the same time. That has not been done before.

·         This consultation has not been entirely well received but there has been an attempt to consult in a more sophisticated way; the objective was to try to examine the overall impact on a geographical area.

• The team have worked to make the response options as simple as possible.

• Contributions from councillors indicate that this has not been entirely successful, but there has been an attempt to do something different.

• None of the original libraries consultation work is lost.

• There is a sincere attempt to be clear with people. Giving upfront options helps pull proposals together. Having attended all consultation meetings, there has been a good turn out, so many are contributing via face to face conversations as well as in writing or online.

The Executive Member made the following points:

• There have been many well-attended meetings.

• People have criticised the consultation and the proposals but also debated and discussed the options.

• Invitations for further presentations have been received from various groups.

• Previous consultations took place.

• Feedback received so far has been focused on bricks and mortar issues.

• A number of alternative options and proposals have been made which will be considered.

• Savings must be made.

• At the end of the process the final version will be presented to the public, it will be a combination of statutory and community-led services.

• The Chief Exec of CILIP has praised the consultation, specifically the fact that the consultation is not trying to pretend that the changes are transformation of services; there is honesty that the changes are driven by finance.

• CILIP have offered to provide support to officers when the council starts framing the final outcomes.

• It is not possible to keep all parties fully informed of all contributions at all times.

• Some interesting contributions have been made, for example the university has shown some interest and other community groups are interested in developing community hubs.

Further comments were made as follows:

• The Executive welcomes further alternatives.

• The wording does not invite further alternative suggestions.

• The consultation is a legal process. Therefore options and alternative options must be set out so that people can make intelligent comment; this is different to an engagement process which may develop other suggestions.

• The consultation is open until 5 September 2017. All options and responses will be reviewed. If as a result of the responses the options change, then there may not be time to consult again.

• The point of a consultation is to receive the views of local people and allow them to influence the outcome, in the light of the funding and the needs identified.

• OSMB concluded that as Neighbourhoods Scrutiny were submitting a statement to Cabinet that OSMB would not do so.

• It is positive that there are many options coming in to the consultation and that the Executive has an open mind. OSM wishes to play a proactive role in that process.

• Many variations and solutions for different areas would appear to be the most likely outcome.

• Although many would like to keep all 27 libraries open this is not likely.

• When closures were proposed two or three years ago, a number of very engaged community groups were provoked into action.

• The Head of Libraries has been clear that there is a limited budget with constrained options, if a library continues but is not operated by the Council’s Library Services, then it will not be a library as we currently know it: supported by the Council and connected to Libraries West.

The Chair thanked all those present for attending this long meeting where a number of serious matters had been discussed. Thanks were given to the Executive Member for attending the meeting.

Meeting Closed at 9:32pm

8. Date of Next Meeting.

31^st August 2017

Meeting ended at 9.32pm.

CHAIR __________________