| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Save the libraries | |
| Posted by: | Phil Andrews | |
| Date/Time: | 25/01/11 16:23:00 |
| What makes me uneasy Vanessa is the indecent haste with which these proposals have emerged when measured against the negligible savings involved. A few weeks ago I attended a meeting at Isleworth Public Hall which was addressed by Hamish Pringle (Head of Cultural and Leisure Services at LBH) and attended by two of the Isleworth ward councillors. It transpires that the saving to be achieved from offloading the community halls around the borough is in the region of £288k. Divide that by five community halls and we are talking about £57k or so for Isleworth. Per year. That is the saving to be made if LBH were to wash its hands of IPH completely, offering no support to the local community during the transition period. It seems to be accepted that some support will be needed, so that figure of £57k can be reduced to, what, £20k? And that is the "saving" that is driving the current administration to risk losing such an excellent local facility? If that is so we must be really highly thought of at Lampton Road these days. We in the ICG are not convinced that savings cannot still be made within the Civic Centre bureaucracy. The Chief Executive's Department still commands a significant slice of the cake and next to nothing has been offered up from Finance. Of course it suits chief officers to offer up savings that have no negative impact on their own empires but to what extent are Lead Members challenging them? Why is the local community being blackmailed into submission by emotive talk of it being a straight choice between care services and community facilities, with no mention whatsoever of any possible further savings to be made in the back offices? No, as a lay member of the public I cannot offer any costed proposals, but neither has anybody shown me any evidence to suggest that chief officers have been sufficiently challenged. We have ward councillors who cannot speak up for local people due to the party system. I make no criticism of them as individuals, indeed my opinion of them has grown considerably since they were first elected, but councillors are supposed to provide community leadership and ours are effectively excluded from doing so because if the decision of the Labour Group is to close libraries then they will need to support this position. If this had happened last year we would simply have said "no", and it would have been done with. Again, I challenge you to tell me that isn't so. Destroy the community's ability to meet and to organise and you destroy any opportunity it has to defend itself in the future. I dare say I am not the first person that this thought will have occurred to. |