Our colleagues at FOLOB (Friends of the Libraries of Birmingham) have written an open letter to Birmingham City Council in anticipation of the second stage of the consultation on Birmingham's Library Service, which is due to take place throughout September 2024.
The Save Birmingham campaign supports the request for sharing the findings of stage 1 of the consultation (within the parameters of GDPR compliance), and how this has shaped the proposal that will be presented during stage 2.
A copy of the letter from FOLOB as follows:
OPEN LETTER TO BCC LEADER & CABINET MEMBER RESPONSIBLE FOR LIBRARIES
Dear Councillors Cotton and Suleman,
1) In September the second stage of the consultation on Birmingham's library service will begin. We are writing to ask you to ensure that this is a two-way process of information exchange
2) Essential to this final stage of consultation is that BCC shares with the public all of the findings of the previous consultation - the survey plus the related individual submissions from library users, all of whom spent considerable time to provide BCC with their considered views on the future of the library service. It is necessary to know how or whether the findings have changed BCC's plans as outlined in the Strategic Framework document. Users themselves will need to assess whether the findings affect their views on the future of the service
3) Library users and the public generally will also need information on the bids and expressions of interest which BCC has received to date from individuals and organisations wishing to run individual, and groups of, our libraries. This will enable us to give informed views on the likely outcome of the current exercise as we respond to this second phase of consultation. The essential information should include:
i) number of bids received;
ii) the range of numbers of libraries which bidders and interested parties have specified. This would provide an indication of whether there might be many libraries run by leaseholders with only one lease, or a small number of leaseholders running groups of libraries;
iii) any other information which has emerged during this part of the exercise, especially anything which has changed BCC's thinking as set out in the Strategic Framework document or which might affect the contributions of library users to this second phase of consultation
iv) in addition, the public (who own Birmingham's libraries) should be informed as to the general financial terms on which offers will be based. Our understanding is that leaseholders would be responsible for fully funding the library 'hubs'. From where would they be likely to acquire the funding for this, without adding commercial activities to the hubs? We assume that there will be no BCC funding going to the leaseholders - if such funds were available, you would surely be using them to support the status quo.
4) One reaction to this request might be a concern about potential breaches of commercial confidentiality. That is why the information for which we are asking is of an overall, general and statistical nature, from which no individuals or groups could be identified. It is important that this information should be shared with the public as we approach the decision-making stage of this exercise - it would not be reasonable to withhold it.
You will be aware of the very strong and widespread reaction across the city against what is currently being proposed.
Best wishes,
Friends of The Libraries of Birmingham
