Councillors have called for a pause to plans to close three libraries after a backlash from the public.
And they pointed to positive potential changes in the library service budget before long as a £57 million contract to finance and build the Jubilee Library nears its end.
The contract started in November 2004, to run over 25 years, meaning that the total cost should be repaid four years from now. It was known as a private finance initiative or PFI deal.
Officials were asked about the implications at a meeting at Hove Town Hall yesterday (Monday 10 November) but were unable to set out the amounts.
The meeting ended with Brighton and Hove City Council’s People Overview and Scrutiny Committee recommending that the council’s cabinet put any closure plans on hold.
At the start of the meeting, the committee heard from some of those campaigning to keep three libraries open – Rottingdean, Hollingbury and Westdene.
Councillors then asked a series of questions about the proposed closures which were part of a package of measures intended to save £250,000 a year from the £6.1 million overall libraries budget.
A report earlier this year said that the service generated an annual income of £2 million, making the net budget £4.1 million.
Other money-saving measures included a proposed cut in hours at the Jubilee Library, in Brighton, and the Carnegie Library, in Hove. The cuts were voted when the council set its annual budget in February.
Since then, the council has carried out a consultation. Yesterday, councillors were told that there were 2,711 responses to an online survey. The council received 164 emails – and 374 people attended nine public meetings.
About two thirds of those who responded “strongly disagreed” with the plans to close the three branch libraries.
Green councillor Sue Shanks was the first to query the implications for the end of the PFI contract in November 2029.
Councillor Shanks called on the council’s cabinet to pause the closure process until officials could spell out how much difference it would make financially.
She highlighted potential job losses and the effects on the community and won cross-party backing, with a unanimous vote in favour of her suggestion.
She said: “Probably, the adult social care budget would be helped if you keep libraries open.
“This is a very small cut in terms of the council budget. To the rest of us £200,000 is a lot of money. It’s not a lot of money in the context of a council budget.”
Labour councillor Maureen Winder said that people would engage better with the consultation if it was not a “blank brick wall” with nothing in the future.
Councillor Winder said: “It’s going to be really important to make people feel this is not just the end.
“It’s the beginning – and we ought to be looking up. And we want to engage people with what a future library service might look like and offer them.
“At the moment it just feels like everybody is on a downward trajectory and feeling really dismal about it. We need to turn that around.”
The committee was told that council is preparing a new library strategy which is due to be published next year.
The council’s director of commissioning and communities Anna Gianfrancesco said: “We’re in that unfortunate position where the decision was made last February to make a cut within the libraries at a point when we hadn’t started thinking about our future strategy.
“But we were already thinking about the conversations around the PFI ending in 2029. The strategy is going to take us over that period.”
She said that it would address ways to ensure libraries were financially sustainable and what the future of the library service would look like.
She added: “Unfortunately, the budget position we’re in now happened before we’ve progressed those conversations.”
Labour councillor Jackie O’Quinn, who chairs the committee, asked how much money the council would save once the PFI contract ended.
Councillor O’Quinn said: “It has been incredibly expensive. Is the money we’re going to save … going to go back into library services in this new way of doing things – innovation?
“Or is a lot of it going to go into the general council budget because we’re not getting a lot of money? I’m interested because it should be a substantial saving.”
Ms Gianfrancesco said that the PFI worked well in the council’s favour and the savings would be “substantial”.
She said that the cost was expensive but it had given Brighton a modern library and the payments also covered the building’s security and cleaning as well as newspapers, the book fund and ebooks.
The People Overview and Scrutiny Committee’s recommendation for a pause is due to be considered by the council’s cabinet on Thursday 11 December when senior councillors are due to decide whether or not to shut the three libraries.
It’s absolutely appalling that the Labour council proposed library closures in the first place and it’s madness that their councillors are now trying to distance themselves from their Party’s OWN DECISION.
The council officer quoted in this article says “We’re in that unfortunate position where the decision was made last February to make a cut within the libraries at a point when we hadn’t started thinking about our future strategy”. It was a Labour budget, and Labour councillors voted through the budget cuts to library spending. Where did they think the council would find ‘savings’. It is not rocket science to think that if you vote to reduce the libraries budget it will impact on the library service and that would likely mean closures and reduced hours. If councillors didn’t understand that concept at the time of the budget in February, then it’s really quite shocking and worrying they don’t get that’s how things work when you push through cuts to areas of council spending.