At the most recent meeting of Bury Council’s Cabinet, the main item of discussion was the ongoing consultation on the future of Bury’s Library Service.

Anyone who took part in the consultation (and 3537 people did) may recall that the Council was consulting on five ‘principles’ :

Principle 1 – To provide a Library Service across the borough which provides all residents and those working or studying in the borough with access to libraries and to electronic services sufficient in number, range and quality to support reading for pleasure, lifelong learning, the development of new skills and the effective use of information.
Principle 2 – To ensure that the needs of more vulnerable residents and groups protected by Equalities legislation are taken fully into account in the review process.
Principle 3 – To ensure that the resources committed to the Library Service are used as efficiently as possible by exploring options to reduce running and maintenance costs and to share premises with Council and other services.
Principle 4 – To explore options for investing in technology to improve access to the Library Service, for example by extending opening hours, increasing our digital offer and enhancing provision for those with sensory impairments.
Principle 5 – To welcome the contribution that members of the community can make to the Library Service as volunteers, supporting both traditional and digital services.
Principle 6 To meet local aspirations for a network of community spaces across the borough in which the Council and local communities can work together as partners in meeting local needs.

When the consultation started, we raised concerns that the questions were too open, almost impossible to disagree with. Perhaps not surprisingly the vast majority of people did agree: (These percentages are for Strongly Agree/Agree)
Principle 1 – 98%,  Principle 2 – 94%, Principle 3 – 73%,  Principle 4 89%,  Principle 5 70%,  Principle 6 81%.

A separate study, undertaken by an independent company, sought views from the wider public, but with similar support for the six principles.

1163 chose to provide further information in the space provided for additional comments. These additional comments were not published in the report presented to Cabinet, but were revealed (with the names removed) to the Bury Times newspaper following a Freedom of Information request. We’ve seen these comments which include a significant number of people with concerns. The three that sprung out most to us were:

• people concerned that using more volunteers would mean staff losing jobs
• people concerned about the reduced library space at Bury Central Library
• people concerned about the consultation questions themselves.

The Report presented to cabinet What come next is ‘Phase 2’ of the consultation. The Council noted that the “first part of the consultation has secured a positive response and a baseline agreement from library users and residents around the 6 principles. We will now use these principles alongside the commissioned reports from Mott MacDonald as a basis on which to build a review of the library service”.
We are now proposing to move to the next phase of public consultation. There is a write up of the discussion in the BT here.

One workshop “with a group of stakeholder representatives” will take place at each library to discuss the priorities they have for a library service in the future. Each library will publicise these events to ensure community groups, regular library users and partners are involved and representative of service users. A report will be developed outlining a number of potential models / options for library provision in the future, presented for Cabinet discussion on 18 January 2017.

The dates of the workshops are:
Thursday 17th Ramsbottom 6.30-8pm
Thursday 24th Prestwich 6.30-8pm
Monday 28th Tottington 2.15-3.45
Thursday December 1st Whitefield 11.30– 1pm
Thursday December 1st Brandlesholme 2.15-3.45

Your views on this process would be much appreciated.

‘Liberal Democrat councillors in Bury have accused the Government of ‘Half truths and less than half the cash’ after it emerged that the Government is giving the NHS less than half of the £10 billion it pledged before last year’s General Election.

Parliament’s own Health Committee has written to the Conservative chancellor to say claiming the Government is giving £10billion gives the “false impression that the NHS is awash with cash”.

The group said that, far from the £10 billion promised the actual figure was closer to £4 billion.

The cross party Health Committee says a substantial part of the extra funding for the NHS comes from cuts to other areas, such as public health.

Local Campaigner Councillor Tim Pickstone said: The NHS is vital and it must be funded properly. Local residents will be really angry that the Government are trying to pull the wool over their eyes again. It is time local Conservatives apologised ñ this is one trick too many.

With winter on its way our NHS is heading for a crisis and local residents must demand that the Government stops with the cutbacks and instead concentrates on fixing the serious problems before it ís too late.

The intervention comes as a poll found almost half of NHS authorities are planning to cut hospital beds while a third have proposals to close or downgrade accident and emergency departments.