School library service will be axed

The motion, put forward by the council’s Labour councillors, called for £90,000 to be reserved from the library budget in order to give officers 18 months to engage with schools and businesses and develop a new business case.

It was announced the school library service would be scrapped at the end of October after only three of 22 schools in the county agreed to sign up to the new model and costs.

Councillor Chris Bloore, put forward the motion, saying he was not surprised schools had rejected the new model because costs had risen by as much as 442 per cent. He said the service could be improved and likened the current system to Betamax in a time of Blu-ray.

He said; “We could save this service, we could improve this service and we could turn it into a service that is profitable.”

Cllr Lucy Hodgson, cabinet member for communities, and the person in charge of overseeing a review of county libraries, said there had been a long decline in the use of the service and it was now making a loss.

Cllr Hodgson said 216 schools used the service in 2001 compared to just 52 schools in 2017.

Cllr Liz Tucker, who voted against the motion, said: “It’s too late to turn things round quickly for the school library service. Maybe if it was four or five years ago we could have done something about it.” She said trying to save the school library service was like “flogging a dead horse.”

Cllr Kit Taylor said he could not support the motion because the school library service was already “bleeding to death” and there was no need to throw money at it.

Cllr Marcus Hart, cabinet member for education, said whilst he had visited many schools in the last few months, concern over the school library service had not been raised with him once. He said: “It is simply not used or respected as it once was. Numbers have substantially reduced.”

Cllr Adrian Hardman said granting £90,000 to the scheme would push pressure elsewhere. The motion was rejected by 36 votes to ten.