I have received this response from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport regarding my request for a public inquiry into Brent library closures
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Dear Mr Francis,
Thank
you for your August letter to the Secretary of State for Culture,
Olympics, Media and Sport, the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, expressing concern
about library closures. Your letter has now been passed on to the
libraries’ policy team in the DCMS as they are responsible for
monitoring and assessing all correspondence to the Department on library
services.
DCMS
officials have met with officers from Brent Council and are in the
process of considering all the relevant evidence and all the issues. The
Department will continue to maintain dialogue with the local authority.
Once all the relevant issues have been considered, the Secretary of
State will decide whether or not to intervene, or whether further
actions on the part of Brent Council are required. It may be helpful for
some background information to be provided to you on the subject of
library services.
The
Government is committed to championing the public library service.
Libraries can and do contribute to a range of local and national
government priorities – for example, they can help people access a whole
range of educational materials, find employment or get online support
for many issues such as health and well-being improvement; and libraries
work with parents, schools and colleges to support education and
learning agendas. All these connections can have positive benefits for
communities.
Decisions
about library services, both before and after consultation with local
communities, are a matter for the local authority in the first instance.
The Secretary of State, the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, has several duties
imposed on him under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 this
includes the duty to superintend the delivery of the public library
service provided by local authorities. Developments concerning library
services across England are being carefully monitored and assessed by
officials. The Minister for Culture, Ed Vaizey MP, has written to every
local authority in England to remind them of their responsibility under
the Act to provide a ‘comprehensive and efficient’ library service. In
that letter he repeated the key findings from the report of the inquiry
that was held in 2009 into proposed closures of libraries by Wirral
Metropolitan Borough Council: that when re-organising library services
it is important that authorities have a strategy, that they have
considered the needs of their local communities and that they have
consulted local people.
The
closure of a library does not of itself signal an automatic breach of
the 1964 Act. Sometimes a library authority will close or consider
closing a library to ensure a more efficient service across its
geographical area overall and this will be based on a local assessment
of library needs at the material time.
The
Department takes very seriously compliance by local authorities with
their statutory duty to understand the local need for public library
services and to provide a comprehensive and efficient service to match
those needs. DCMS is aware of the judicial review claim against the
London Borough of Brent. The Department has also received correspondence
in relation to public library services in Brent and is in the process
of considering these.
Brent’s
plans are being considered as part of our monitoring processes for
library authorities across England. No decision to intervene in the case
of Brent has been taken but we are monitoring this case along with
others. Consideration by the Secretary of State of whether or not any
statutory powers should be used to assess an authority’s compliance with
the 1964 Act will be made on a case-by-case basis and after careful
consideration of all relevant facts and issues.
