A TRAFFORD Council internal document about the reshaping of libraries in Trafford paints a grim picture to those buildings that survive the latest purge.

Its aim is to deliver a new organisational model by 2017, which will see this year alone, the closure of Bowfell, Davyhulme and Lostock Libraries and the withdrawal of funding for a toy library advisor from Delamere, slash the book fund by more than one third, employ free volunteer front counter staff, from charity Blu Sci, which helps support people with mental health issues.

It will see the removal of current library staff including team managers(4 posts), training and systems officers (one post) performance analyst (2 posts), toy library advisor (2 posts), customer service specialists (2 posts) and customer service advisor (11 posts), which will help save £618,600.

One librarian who wished to remain anonymous told The Messenger: "Library staff have been dealing with council services over a number of years and we help people with general enquiries including housing benefit, if a street light is out or if there has been a missed bin collection.

"When we first took on these responsibilities we felt it would be another string to our bow but now the idea seems to be to use volunteers from the charity to staff the front counter and depend on unpaid volunteers to deal with the library books across the borough.

Geoff Newell, a library volunteer, who is responsible for coordinating IT advice sessions said he had a number of concerns which could result in a 'hollowed out' library service.

Mr Newell said he had a number of reservations about the plans, which include he felt did not stand up to serious scrutiny He explained: "The proposal to implement the Open+ system at Woodsend, Coppice and Hale libraries is severely flawed.

"Furthermore, I believe that the selection / evaluation process to date, has not been thorough, and would fail an audit.

He added: "I believe that Trafford Council can broadly meet the budget reductions for the library service while providing a library service to be proud of and avoiding some of the risks inherent in the current proposals."

 

In a statement to Messenger, Trafford Council said: “Libraries are a statutory service and Trafford is committed to providing a quality library service for customers, with at least 11 libraries remaining across the borough. There are no plans to replace all staff with volunteers.

“During the first phase of consultation over 1,400 responses were received and one of the outcomes was a strong endorsement of the option for basing libraries in the same buildings as other services and working with partners to reduce the cost of the service.  As a result the council has received a number of approaches from different organisations.

“One approach was from blueSCI, a Trafford based not-for-profit Social Enterprise that supports people who may be experiencing emotional or psychological distress. Although blueSCI operate from a number of locations within Trafford they would like the opportunity to expand their services to Coppice Library.

“The council and blueSCI are currently in discussions in this regard and the customers of Coppice Library will be kept informed at each stage.

“Any blueSCI volunteers based in Coppice Library would receive the same comprehensive training that all library volunteers receive. In addition, the Friends of Coppice Library group is keen to be involved and is liaising with the Council and blueSCI to see where it can play a part.

“There has also been an approach in terms of Lostock library which is also under consideration.

The library consultation closes on February 27.