Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Transforming Brent Libraries
    Transforming Brent Libraries
    Transforming Brent Libraries
    Ebook104 pages1 hour

    Transforming Brent Libraries

    By James Powney

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Public libraries continue to be an important and much loved public service. There are almost 3,000 public libraries in England run by 150 different authorities and spending about £800 million of public money. Almost half the population hold a library card . Why then is so little attention paid to how and why a public library service should be modernised?

    The transformation of Brent libraries was a successful example of public service reform leading to improved outcomes despite a drop in budgets of almost 20%. As such it has been praised by staff in other authorities as well as in government literature .

    Yet it was extraordinarily controversial. It generated a judicial review fought all the way to the Court of Appeal, attracting condemnation from a number of celebrities and national headlines.

    James Powney was at the heart of this successful library reform to turn a mediocre public library service into one of the most successful services in the UK.

    This book is arranged in four sections. The first is a description of getting the process passed, and through the subsequent Court proceedings. The second tackles some of the themes that came up in that process, in particular the failure of the “Big Society” to take off. The third is about what modern libraries can do and why they are important, contrary to what some people in the government argue. Finally, there is a short list of the lessons. learnt.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse UK
    Release dateOct 23, 2022
    ISBN9781728375533
    Transforming Brent Libraries

    Related to Transforming Brent Libraries

    Related ebooks

    Language Arts & Discipline For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      Auntie Knows Best

      Mar 4, 2020

      IT’S one of the peculiarities of news reporting in the digital age that we can daily find an analysis of any event or issue that answers our own particular sympathies and perspectives. From climate change (or not) to the iniquities of politicians (or

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Finding A Public Voice

      Sep 1, 2024

      Finding A Public Voice
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      What Levelling Up Really Looks Like

      Oct 11, 2021

      When the leader of the opposition, Gary Neville, stood up last week to condemn the government cut to Universal Credit, he made an interesting point. For him, at the core, was the rhetoric of division. The “brutal” slashing of the £20 uplift that was

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Gove’s Plans For Change

      Jul 4, 2022

      Gove’s Plans For Change
      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Sharpshooter

      Feb 12, 2020

      Sometimes people who are concerned that we are not getting our message across to the wider public say things like: “Why doesn’t one of the shooting organisations make a really good film about shooting sports then offer it to the broadcasters?” It is

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      How To Fix Brexit

      Sep 28, 2023

      PETER FOSTER AND I FIRST MET in a Belfast coffee shop. It was to play a minor role in Brexit history. Managing to combine Remainer sympathies with being the Daily Telegraph’s Europe editor, he kindly set out Theresa May’s three-point plan to get the

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Experimental Potholes

      Sep 9, 2024

      Experimental Potholes
      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Poppy Coburn Analyses The Worrying Activities Of The Radical Chic Charities

      Mar 30, 2023

      BROWSING LINKEDIN IS ONE WAY to stalk the lives of half-remembered university acquaintances. There’s the expected glut of management consultants, a mandatory career path for the well-heeled humanities grad. But, for every short-lived stab at a PR-tra

      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Letters

      Jun 24, 2024

      The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW [email protected] @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk @thebigissue On 18 June BBC One’s Morning Live looked at what is being done to address the problem of the one million empty home

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Welcome To The Change

      Sep 23, 2024

      Welcome To The Change
      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Welcome To The Change

      Sep 23, 2024

      Welcome To The Change
      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Food For Thought

      Jan 18, 2021

      We can’t rely on Marcus Rashford to do it all himself. When the free lunch scandal began to unfold last week, it was largely on social media. The photos of disgracefully scant provisions (including, in one, mostly just bottles of water and half a pe

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Letters

      Sep 26, 2022

      The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW [email protected] @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk @thebigissue The question is asked on freezing rents ‘Will Liz Truss follow suit?’ [Issue 1530, September 12]. The short answ

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Why Levelling Up Failed

      Jun 27, 2024

      Why Levelling Up Failed
      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Time To Switch

      Jan 2, 2022

      Time To Switch
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Dispatch

      Feb 13, 2023

      Oil giants BP and Shell recently announced record profits while millions of people in the UK struggle to afford their energy bills. “While bill-payers across the UK are struggling with soaring costs, BP’s shareholders are reaping enormous payouts,” s

      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Editor's Letter

      Nov 15, 2021

      Human beings, said the great Italian writer and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, are biologically built for an activity aimed toward a goal. Work without purpose, he said, gives rise to suffering and to atrophy. I haven’t heard this used as an excuse y

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      So How Did It All Go So Wrong For Liz Truss?

      Nov 24, 2022

      FROM CHEVENING TO CHEQUERS. FOR ME, two weekends, eight weeks apart, will forever bookend my friend Liz Truss’s time as prime minister. The first, a wash of August Bank Holiday sunshine over the Kent countryside. Walking the grounds of the Foreign Se

      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Transforming Brent Libraries

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Transforming Brent Libraries - James Powney

      cover.jpg

      Transforming

      BRENT LIBRARIES

      JAMES POWNEY

      AuthorHouse™ UK

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403  USA

      www.authorhouse.co.uk

      Phone: UK TFN: 0800 0148641 (Toll Free inside the UK)

      UK Local: (02) 0369 56322 (+44 20 3695 6322 from outside the UK)

      © 2022 James Powney. All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

      transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

      Published by AuthorHouse  10/20/2022

      ISBN: 978-1-7283-7552-6 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-7283-7553-3 (e)

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

      and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

      this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

      expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

      views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      To My Parents

      About the Author

      Elected as a Labour councillor in 2006 the author, James Powney, was the Lead Member for Environment and Neighbourhood Services in the London Borough of Brent. He oversaw the successful transformation of Brent Library service in raising both the total number of loans and visitors to become one of the most successful public library services in the UK. This is his first book.

      Contents

      Foreword

      Acknowledgements

      I The Transformation

      II Themes

      III Why are Libraries Important?

      IV Lessons

      Appendix: What the Libraries Transformation Actually Consisted Of

      Foreword

      Public libraries continue to be an important and much loved public service. There are almost 3,000 public libraries in England run by 150 different authorities and spending about £800 million of public money. Almost half the population hold a library card¹. Why then is so little attention paid to how and why a public library service should be modernised?

      The transformation of Brent libraries was a successful example of public service reform leading to improved outcomes despite a drop in budgets of almost 20%. As such it has been praised by staff in other authorities as well as in government literature².

      Yet it was extraordinarily controversial. It generated a judicial review fought all the way to the Court of Appeal, attracting condemnation from a number of celebrities and national headlines.

      Quite a lot for one North London Borough.

      This book is arranged in four sections. The first is a description of getting the process passed, and through the subsequent Court proceedings. The second tackles some of the themes that came up in that process, in particular the failure of the Big Society to take off. The third is about what modern libraries can do and why they are important, contrary to what some people in the government argue. Finally, I draw up a short list of the lessons learnt.

      ¹    Public Libraries, the Case for Support (2019 CILIP Report)

      ²    CIFPA Statistics and the Future of England’s Libraries, Joan O’Bryan 2018 (page 21)

      Acknowledgements

      In writing this book, I should acknowledge some debts, possibly including the Friends of Kensal Rise Library (FKRL) who through sheer determination and litigiousness stretched the whole saga out to make enough material for a book. I am also particularly in debt to Tim Daniel and Ann Reeder, who helped review it for me and suggested improvements. I would also like to thank the users and staff of Brent library services for making it what it is. Any errors or faults remain my responsibility.

      I

      The Transformation

      On 11 April 2011, I found myself in the middle of a baying mob. The person they were shouting at was me.

      This was because I was speaking at a Brent Council meeting in favour of reforms to Brent’s library service that were to result in a substantial rise in users and loans by reducing the number of buildings used and extending the quantity and quality of service from the Borough’s libraries. It was the equivalent of a twitter pile on in real life and part of a campaign lasting several years to firstly intimidate the Council from backing down on its reforms, then trying to wreck any financial savings to the taxpayer and then to force the owners of one of the properties into handing over their building to the campaigners for free.

      It involved an expensive High Court Action which the litigants lost comprehensively followed by more attempts to stretch out the whole debate by a series of manoeuvres through further larger hopeless legal appeals, attempts to use the planning system to block developments at one site in particular, and attempts to denigrate all Brent library activities in order to deny the success of the policy.

      The whole thing was principally led by a small number of single issue campaigners, many of whom were not from the area, and various more politically orientated people often from fringe ideologies, as well as a few individuals who might best be characterised as odd.

      During the controversy the then fashionable idea of Big Society solutions was tested to destruction, and it was demonstrated that in the right circumstances public services could be improved at lower cost to the tax payer. For central government it also functioned as a convenient distraction which devolved the axe in Francis Maude’s phrase.

      The Axe Falls Locally

      The onset of austerity and the severe budget cuts that followed may need recounting. Arguably, it was not so much a necessity as a policy choice by an incoming Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition that was inclined that way anyway. There is a plausible case that the way and the speed with which budgets were cut was actually damaging to the budget and to debt reduction.

      In local government it was immediately clear that Eric Pickles had decided he wanted local government to be in the forefront of budget cutting. Part of this may have been a prejudice by government ministers that saw local government as inefficient, although local government has good claims to be one of the most efficient parts of the public sector. I suspect another part was designed to create turmoil in local services as a useful distraction from what was going on in central government. This was certainly in line with the message trailed by Tory sympathising stooges like Toby Young³.

      This is because Eric Pickles, who was himself a Local Authority leader in the 1980s, saw places like Brent (which in 2010 had just elected a new Labour administration after four years of Tory/Liberal Democrat rule) as a potential base from which the Labour Party could rebuild. Giving such authorities a hard time avoided them being able to serve as a platform to attack the government. Hence not only were the cuts borne especially by local authorities, but Labour authorities in particular were targeted. Given the

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1