Privatisation. The big threat to ALL Suffolk's libraries?

Jim Lynch
LSSI

Stuart St. V
Fitzgerald
LSSI

This blog has been detailing the twists and turns of the Suffolk Library consultation. It has been an interesting and twisting tale. To start with it looked like 29 of the 44 Suffolk libraries were under threat and that these would close unless Parish Councils and other local community groups would take them over. It then became clear that the other so-called "county" libraries were likely to be privatised. Now it looks like all of the libraries could potentially be privatised.

This is certainly what the American company LSSI would like as was reported in the EADT on 1 March. Here Cllr Judy Terry Cabinet Lead for Libraries is quoted as saying:

LSSI have come to us and would like to have a meeting. There is also another organisation that has been in touch.

The next day it became clear that Suffolk had actually met LSSI four times already. Now it is apparent they are visiting Suffolk again next week and visiting several libraries.

There is an excellent piece in The Guardian today about what is wrong with the idea of privatising libraries. But the most powerful comment against this idea comes from a somewhat surprising source.

Andrea Hill, Suffolk's CEO spoke at the Guardian Public Services Summit earlier this year and The Guardian published a podcast of what she said that you can listen to here:


She begins early on by saying:

There have been a few myths as I say we're not actually privatising everything at the Council...

Then she says later on in her presentation:

We are not looking to one single private sector company to take our services and run them for a profit using tax payers money that they then return to shareholders. I don't think that's what we should be doing with tax payer's money. We want to keep Suffolk taxpayers money in Suffolk... 

I couldn't put it better myself.

Oh and if you see either Jim Lynch or Stuart St. V Fitzgerald from LSSI (photos above) at your local library please Contact Me!

2nd April - March in Ipswich to Save Suffolk Libraries

Save the date! A week after the big London demonstration there will be a march and protest in Ipswich on Saturday 2nd April starting at Endeavour House at 11am. There will be more information about the route of the march, transport etc available soon.

The march is being organised by the Rosehill campaign so keep an eye on the Rosehill Readers Blog. They are saying:

This is an event for ALL Suffolk library users, as ALL Suffolk libraries are at risk of closure or divestment. Don’t forget that Suffolk County Council have admitted that after the divestment process they won’t directly employ ANY library staff.

Several campaigns across Suffolk are supporting the march and we hope to be organising some transport from Stradbroke as part of our campaign.

Press Office called in to rescue "Epic Fail" Suffolk Library Consultation...

Cllr Judy Terry

Suffolk County Council's library consultation is clearly not going to plan. In fact it is going so badly that they have called in the Press Office to try and rescue it. Given the press office's recent major own goal over the "geatergate" affair things must be really bad.

As I mentioned in my post "Orwellian Doublethink and Suffolk County Council" Suffolk have, shall we say, an interesting relationship with the truth. In any event they are trying to spin what has been what might be described  as the "Epic Fail" of a consultation process that even Andrea Hill accepts hasn't gone to plan.

You can read the Press Release from Suffolk County Council here where it is stated that:

Councillor Judy Terry, Suffolk County Council’s Cabinet lead for the consultation, welcomed the response from over 1300 people and groups so far. But she said she wanted to receive even more input.

Some examples of "innovative ideas already received" are listed such as:

A local school looking to take on their library whilst a local pub wants boost public internet access by creating an internet café

Although there is nothing that sounds very concrete and there is no mention at all of conversations with large American companies or the public outcry that has seen thousands attend public meetings, sign petitions and hundreds take to the streets in protest.

A large number of the 1300 responses are clearly not what Suffolk wanted to hear, hence the call for more responses.

In parallel a series of one to one meetings have now been planned at 19 libraries, it seems unclear why these 19 have been chosen and not the other 25 although it is interesting that the list includes the so-called "county libraries" that were previously regarded as "safe".

The press release ends with some interesting quotes from Cllr Terry that continue to demonstrate that this is not really a consultation at all:

“The days of county councils running public services as they always have are on the way out. We’re looking for new and creative ways of running Suffolk’s libraries, which nowadays serves a much broader function than they used to, and we need the help of Suffolk people. I’m urging everyone and anyone to let us know if you think there is a way to run your local library in a different and more cost-effective way.

You will notice that if you don't agree with this and think that Suffolk County Council should continue to run libraries then Cllr Terry simply doesn't want to know...

Andrea Hill Should Resign

Andrea Hill
Suffolk CC's CEO
Earns £218K a year

Ipswich Spy is today calling on Andrea Hill to resign and I agree. The Blog hits the nail on the head and says:

It is time for Andrea Hill to read the writing on the wall and resign. She has lost the confidence of the public, she has lost the confidence of the staff, she has lost the confidence of senior officers at SCC and other local councils, she has lost the confidence of the opposition parties at the County Council...Time to go, Ms Hill, go and go now.


The continuing stories around Ms Hill are distracting attention from the important issues around the New Strategic Direction and the cuts proposed by the County Council to frontline services. This is the real story in Suffolk and Ms Hill has become a distraction that helps neither side of this debate. She has become the story herself and she must resign now before she causes further damage to the County Council.

As the County Council refuse to allow any petitions relating to Ms Hill on their site I have added a poll in the right hand side of my blog so you can have your say...

Orwellian Doublethink and Suffolk County Council

Endeavour House
"The Ministry of Truth"

It is, perhaps, appropriate that the river that runs through Ipswich is the Orwell. To many observers Suffolk County Council's behaviour seems more and more like Orwell's famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by the day.

The gleaming Endeavour House headquarters are perhaps reminiscent of the Ministry of Truth -

The ministry of truth was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidical structure of glittering white concrete soaring up, terrace after terrace, three hundred metres into the air...The Ministry of Truth contained, it was said three thousand rooms above ground level, and corresponding ramifications below. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

If you have read the book you will know that the Ministry of Truth concerns itself with the opposite - lies. In fact it systematically sets out to fabricate history by for example re-writing newspaper stories.

I don't think this is quite what is going on in Suffolk County Council although they did yesterday ban journalist Paul Geater from getting comments from the press office for publishing an article about CEO Andrea Hill wasteful "coaching" sessions that cost the local taxpayers more than £12 000

However I think they have become the masters of Owellian Doublethink. Orwell himself defines doublethink as:

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

To give an example of this, in the Library Consultation document Cllr Judy Terry writes about the possible closure of libraries:

However, should responses to the consultation prove disappointing, it is imperative that we make the necessary savings, meaning that we may have to close 29 libraries.

The very next sentence is:

The prospects are exciting for a library revolution, and I look forward to hearing your views 

So one second libraries might be closed. The next the "prospects look exciting". In the book Orwell describes how the chocolate ration is reduced one minute and then people are on the streets praising the regime for increasing the chocolate ration! This I think is what Suffolk County Council were expecting with their "divestment" strategy - a word for the Newspeak dictionary if ever there was one!

Back in the real world people have been out on the streets in their hundreds protesting about the closure of libraries, thousands have signed petitions against lollipop patrols being axed, the removal of the eXplore card and rural bus reductions as well as attempts to sell off country parks. The mere mention of the CEO's name makes people shout "Hill Out!".

Yesterday Suffolk's Press Office described the response to the library consultation as "fantastic" and then said of it:

The conversation has moved on from the early ‘don’t do this’ stage to people thinking about how we can do it. It’s a fantastic response.

You see if you shut your eyes, ignore the protests, ban journalists that you don't like, ignore petitions from thousands of people you can actually start to believe that this is true "To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient".

UPDATE 8/3/2011 1600

I spoke to soon when I wrote that Suffolk CC did not set out to fabricate history by for example re-writing newspaper stories. That's exactly what they have spent today doing. Having called "Evening Star" journalist Paul Geater and told him he was "banned" from receiving comments from the Press Office they then changed their mind. Only now they are claiming they never told him he was banned in the first place!

Calls to mind the constant change in Orwell's book between the three world powers and who is at war with who. When the war changes and Oceania is at war with Eastasia (not Eurasia as before) it is said:

"Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia"

Or in this case:

"Paul Geater is not banned from receiving comments. Paul Geater has never been banned from receiving comments"

I wonder if they will try and recall all copies of last night's Evening Star to re-print them to "clarify the error" .

Guardian Roy Greenslade Blog
Evening Star Report

Leiston Library March

On Saturday I had the pleasure of joining the march to save Leiston Library and also took the opportunity to look around the library which is housed in a lovely building in the Town Centre. It is a great library with a good stock of books and a dedicated room for children.

There was a good turn out of a few hundred people for the march from the Primary School down to the library. As you can see from the video below there was a really good mood on the march with lots of shouts of "save our libraries" and some really excellent placards.



Towards the end of the video you can hear Steve Smedley the organiser of the march addressing the crowd about Andrea Hill's salary. Every time her name was mentioned the crowd shouted spontaneously "Hill Out!!". It strikes me that there can't be many counties where many people even know the name of the County Council's CEO let alone react in this way to hearing it!

I really enjoyed the march and was it was great to be given the opportunity to speak to the crowd and also to several people after the march was over. Both the BBC and ITV had cameras present. Congratulations to Steve and the rest of the organisers on such a successful march. Let's hope it sends a strong message to Suffolk County Council.

Links

My Flickr photos from the march
Save Lesiton Library Blog