Letter to Councillors.

Here is the text of a letter that I have sent to the councillors who will make the final decision about the future of the Herts Schools Library Service on Monday 19th December. 

Dear Cllr.,

On 19th December you will be making the decision to either save or close the Hertfordshire Schools’ Library Service.  Having looked carefully into the process to this point, I have several concerns that I would wish you to consider.

Firstly, that the process has come this this far without consultation with the stakeholders in this service: the schools.  Before Tuesday 6th December there was no notification that the service was even running at a deficit, let alone in danger of closure.  That it had come as far as the Local & Libraries Panel without consultation is disturbing.  Having spoken to some of those who attended that meeting, I understand that they believed consultation had taken place, through the Schools Forum.  Sadly, this is not the case.  The Schools Forum is charged with making decisions on behalf of the county’s schools, but there is no consultation.  Headteachers and School Librarians were unaware of the proposed closure.  Staff have been shocked. 

The last consultation with schools on this issue took place in 2007, when schools were in a very different position.  Reductions to their budgets have taken place since.  The statistics provided in the report show that there has been a corresponding decline in the numbers of schools subscribing to the service.  This can hardly be surprising when Heads and department leaders have had to make the choice between staff or resource reductions.  Many librarians put off their subscription for this year, intending to buy back in when budgets had stabilised.  At no point was there any indication that the service was in danger of closure. In addition, the statistics show that last year there was in fact an increase in the number of schools subscribing: 14% from primaries and 19% from secondaries in 2010-11.  This has been put down to effective marketing and offers from the SLS, which shows very clearly that there is demand for its services.  Basing a ‘developing trend’ on one year’s decline, particularly when that one year coincides with dramatic budget cuts, is misleading.  It is a Traded Service and therefore commercial, and good commercial sense insists that your stakeholders be kept abreast of any financial difficulty.  This has not happened. 

Some believe that schools have been consulted through the option to subscribe and have ‘voted with their feet’, but this is inaccurate.  Schools have never been given the option to subscribe or loose the service.  The choice they made this year was not to drive it to closure, but to save money in their immediate futures, believing, as we all did, that the service was safe.  The two choices are very different.  I was told that no schools have subscribed since the announcement of the service’s imminent closure. It can hardly be a surprise that schools are unable to invest in a service that they have been told should close. It will also have been very difficult for relevant departments to make arrangements for a new subscription this close to the end of term. 

The timing of this process is of deep concern.  The news only found its way to us, through Twitter, on the 6th December, barely 9 working days before schools break up for the holidays.  The run up to Christmas is an intensely busy time for everyone and for schools to have so little notice that a valued service is under threat, with the final decision to be made after the end of term, is worrying.  The process had already gone so far that many felt that they were already too late to take action, protest, or subscribe in time to save it.

The initial report (Murphy, 2011) into the future of the funding of the service recommended that the ‘SLS would require the existing level of funding from the education budget to be at least maintained.’  The Schools Forum voted in November to do just this.  Funding from the education budget has been guaranteed until 2013 and yet the recommendation was carried forward to close the service (Bignell & Murphy, 2011). This simply does not follow.  The initial report also mentions the potential for running costs to be reduced following the relocation from the New Barnfield site.  This does not appear in the report presented on 7th December. 

The potential impact of the closure has not been fully explored. CILIP (Chartered Instituted of Library and Information Professionals) and the SLA (School Library Association) can provide advice and guidance to schools and librarians, but they are ill equipped to do so, as the structure has traditionally been that they advise the SLS and the SLS advise the end user on a local level.  Problems such as a detailed question on copyright, the licensing of DVDs or the legality of access to information need swift resolution from professionals who are well placed to assist.  The SLS is the source of this for Hertfordshire.

The 7th December report is also contradictory in its assertion that the closing of Schools’ Library Services is a nationwide trend, while suggesting that schools and libraries would be able to buy into similar services from nearby counties. Hertfordshire Schools’ Library Service is ‘one of England’s largest and most respected’ (CILIP, 2011) and is often referred to as the SLS flagship.  Surrounding counties will be taking their lead from the decision made by Hertfordshire.  Closure of this service could create a domino effect of similar closures across the country. The closure of these services may be a nationwide trend, but is it really one that we want to be a part of?

There are no practical alternatives for the services provided by the SLS.  They are a hub for resources, advice and training.  They are a powerful buying group and have negotiated substantial discounts on otherwise unaffordable e-resources which will be lost to schools if the service is closed.  The Equality Impact Assessment (Bignell & Murphy, 2011) details the potential for negative impacts, with no action suggested to equalise this.  If the SLS is closed, over one third of secondary schools and nearly half of primary schools in the county will loose access to resources, and these are only the fully subscribing schools.  This represents thousands of children, thousands of learners.  An additional 15% of schools buy Pay As You Use services.  An recent poll by the Literacy Trust revealed that 1 in 3 children does not own a book.  Access to these resources has never been more vital.

Funding from 2013 is uncertain, as new school funding structures come into place.  Changes in the way that the SLS is funded and structured are necessary and inevitable.  The move to a new site should surely be seen as an excellent opportunity to make these changes and show the country an efficient, streamlined service that offers enough to be valued by schools to the extent that Headteachers are willing to invest more of their directly allocated funds.  I believe Tricia Adams, the Director of the School Library Association, has already offered consultancy in this matter.  To simply close such a wonderful resource because of an uncertain future runs counter to good sense, business logic and investment in the most important aspect of all: education.

Hertfordshire County Council have already shown that they value libraries and learning through an admirable refusal to close a single public library, despite the need for heavy cuts.  A Schools’ Library Service may be non-statutory, but this does not mean that it should be thrown away.  Please consider giving the Hertfordshire Schools’ Library Service the support it deserves and encourage a new direction in which it can prove its value and save itself.

With hope,

Miss Nicky Adkins

Librarian

Roundwood Park School