Why reading is central to libraries’ purpose: policy and performance drivers

Policy context

Creating a modernised reading service helps library services deliver on national and local policy priorities

Paul Coen, Chief Executive of the Local Government Association

Paul spoke at the Love Libraries seminar about how libraries’ work with readers delivers on local policy priorities and how it can improve local authories’ performance. He identified how this work contributes to quality of life, a sense of place, health and educational attainment.

Download Paul Coen’s Love Libraries seminar presentation

The seminar briefing for the LGA showed how libraries’ reading work contributes to educational attainment; cohesive communities and place shaping; quality of life, health and well being; the economy and tackling worklessness.

Download TRA briefing for LGA on how libraries’ reading work contributes to local authority agendas Top

Strong and prosperous communities - The Local Government White Paper

The Government White Paper on Local Government (October 2006) aims to give local people and local communities more influence and power to improve their lives. It is about creating strong, prosperous communities and delivering better public services through a rebalancing of the relationship between central government, local government and local people. It gives local government, communities and other public service providers more freedom and powers to bring about the changes they want to see.

Included in the White Paper are proposals for a new Performance Management Framework for Local Government for introduction in 2009. The proposals are centred on the removal of separate service based indicators, targets and frameworks (for libraries the Public Library Service Standards) and replaces them all with one single ‘placed based’, outcome focused framework for all local authority services. The details of this framework are still being developed, but we know that the Local Area Agreement (LAA) themes of Children and Young People; Healthier Communities and Older People; Economic Development and the Environment, and Safer and Stronger Communities are the areas where performance will be assessed. Libraries’ modern reading service contributes in all these areas, and where libraries work together their combined results are impressive, providing valuable evidence of outcomes (e.g. Summer Reading Challenge; The Vital Link).

Download Local Government White Paper: http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1503999

Tony Durcan, Head of Libraries and Information, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

The Local Government White Paper stresses the importance of real community engagement in shaping public services. Libraries’ reading work can be a powerful and creative springboard for genuine community involvement. Take a look at Tony Durcan’s speech at the Love Libraries’ seminar and TRA’s briefing sheet on reading and community engagement, and go to the community engagement section of this site for more information.

Download Tony Durcan’s speech Top

National Policy Priorities

At the 2006 Love Libraries seminar Sue Wilkinson, Director of Policy at MLA, spoke about how a modernised reading service would support authorities in meeting policy priorities.

Sue Wilkinson, MLA’s Director of Policy

Sue said “libraries’ work with readers should be political dynamite”. She showed the links to Every Child Matters and Youth Matters, and to supporting formal and informal learning and opportunities linked to curriculum reform. She highlighted the policy relevance of libraries’ reading work to the government’s adult basic skills agenda, to Local Area Agreements, the Local Government White Paper and the Olympics.

Download Sue Wilkinson’s Love Libraries seminar speech Top

Contributing to national priority outcomes

Within Securing excellence: delivering for communities, MLA refers to the development of an outcomes framework that will demonstrate the sector’s best contributions to the high level themes of central and local government, to help influence key discussions about LAAs.

Links to national priority outcomes can also be found in the Society of Chief Librarians documentation on the modern reading service as well as the quality improvement frameworks developed for the national programmes for key audiences.

Download SCL checklist on the modern reading service Top

Performance drivers

Libraries and the new Performance Management Framework for Local Government

As negotiations continue about the detail of this new Framework we cannot yet be definitive about all of the ways that Libraries will be positioned. For the latest as this develops see the Communities page on the Policy section of the MLA website here http://www.mla.gov.uk/website/policy/Communities , which describes key areas such as Local Area Agreements with further links to both the DCLG and IDeA websites.

The best summary of the latest position can be found in the following MLA publication: Securing excellence: delivering for communities this sets out a strategic approach to the contributions that the sector makes, and also an approach to performance management and support for self improvement to better fit the sector to deliver.

The new performance management framework for public libraries, which is proposed in this document, will be in place for April 2008. It will provide managers of library services with a tool to help them measure and understand the performance of their library services in key areas of access, resources, quality and efficiency. The Framework will allow both library service managers and users to track their own service’s performance over time and to compare it to that of other authorities. These assessments will both reflect and support the core reading service. The consultation document on the libraries performance management framework can be found here:

http://www.mla.gov.uk/website/programmes/framework/framework

In the meantime...

Until the new performance management framework is established, library performance continues to be assessed annually through measures which form part of the annual CPA Cultural block assessment, which contributes to the local authority’s overall CPA score. The public library standard indicators currently form the core of this assessment, with additional indicators for resident satisfaction, cost per visit, and active borrowers, all of which can be influenced positively by improving the reading service.

The modernised reading service can also contribute to the areas considered in the Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOE) for cultural services. The KLOE are used by the Audit Commission to inspect local authority services.

Download CPA Cultural block assessment
Download Audit Commission KLOE for the inspection of cultural services Top