Issue - meetings

The minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Board meeting held on 12^th February 2024 will be published in a Supplementary Papers pack.

The minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Board meeting held on 12^th February 2024 were considered.

It was requested by a Member that, in relation to the minute record for item 72/23 – Libraries Unlocked – Worcestershire County Council Presentation, the following verbatim record of questions asked by Members and responses provided, be appended to the minutes record for the meeting of Overview and Scrutiny Board on 12^th February 2024:

Question: “You talked about positive customer response [to Libraries Unlocked]. How did you go about getting that information? How many people were surveyed? I would also like to know how you are going to work through the detail of the future of the Libraries Unlocked as you will be aware that Alvechurch Library is under PFI arrangement and any change in the opening hours would be a cost to the County Council and [the Libraries Unlocked] will actually mean a decrease in some of the groups that are very successful and very well respected in the area”

Response: “You are absolutely right about Alvechurch and whilst I cannot provide a definitive yes or no in terms of Libraries Unlocked, bearing in mind the PFI limitations of what we can do, it feels it is more likely to be a no in terms of Libraries Unlocked perspective. As part of the business case that we did to identify the 12 potential libraries going forward (for implementation of phase two of Libraries Unlocked), there was a return on investment for each library where we introduce Libraries Unlocked as there is a capital investment to introduce the new technology. We have to assess the return based around staffing reductions, then obviously taking into account increasing revenue, costs, usage, etc. [The libraries are] examined in turn to make sure that return on investment is still valid. It may well be that at Alvechurch there is no return on investment because of the PFI aspects, but we have not finalised [return on investment assessment] yet.” [Response was also provided about customer satisfaction: that a survey of Libraries Unlocked customers was undertaken in October 2022. Officers undertook to provide a response to Members about the results of this survey in a separate communication once information were retrieved.]

Question: “…My concern at the moment through is the staff, because when they go to work, they are trying to be really positive. They are superb. They are not just librarians. They are knowledge managers. And what they are finding is they get into work, and they have builders or surveyors come in working around them. I mean, it is an appalling way to treat people.”

Response: “We have run staff engagement sessions, staff awareness sessions as part of implementing libraries unlocked and so staff are aware of the situation. We have also held on to so many vacancies. We are pleased that up to this point there have been no need for any staff redundancies or anybody losing their job and we would look to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 86