team on the ground – considerations such as, can they share staff facilities like staff rooms and kitchens. These are the kinds of details that are really important to consider. It’s important to have a partner- ship agreement that is as thorough as you can make it, and that both sides sign-off, because it helps to avoid misunder- standings further down the line. It’s also important to have a good relationship with a key person whom you can contact easily, and for that person to be able to contact you if a problem crops up that needs to be addressed and rectified quickly.”
Snapshot
At the time of writing Hertfordshire works with Barclays, NatWest, HSBC and TSB with about 70 hours per week of pop-up banking services. This is spread out across seven libraries.
“So in some libraries the bank is in the library all day, three days a week – in Rickmansworth Library, for example, Barclays is there three days a week 9.30am to 4.30pm, whilst in another library it might be two half days 10am to 2pm, so it does vary,” Russel says.
Bank deal
The benefit for banks is that they have pop up sessions to support their customers when branches close. They offer a non-cash advice service. “In some cases it might be for a short term transitional period, like a limited amount of pop-up sessions over a few months to support bank customers to transition to using online services. In other cases it might be for much longer periods, maybe for over a year, during which time they may be offering a lot more personal banking services.”
Community deal
Russel says: “The benefit for libraries in developing these commercial relationships is that it helps cement our role as community hubs, helping partners from across different sectors to meet their community objectives. One of our roles is to help people to connect – whether that’s with other people, with other organisations or with other services. In this particular case it’s helping people to connect with their banks. So we’re providing a space in which people can be supported in accessing banking services online, and that also links to our digital inclusion strategy.” He says it’s a balance: “Facilitating this initiative as a commercial partnership means us supporting the community whilst also being able to raise additional income.”
Promotion
Russel said originally the banks approached the library service but now the service proactively seeks
opportunities. “We’re open to extending and expanding this project with more pop-up banking in more libraries. But we’re also open for any other commercial organisation that would like to explore the possibilities of using public library space.”
Asked how these kinds of commercial partnerships are promoted he said: “It varies from potential partner to potential partner depending on the scenario and circumstances – it’s more about seeing the opportunity and how we can work with it – so it’s partly about marketing, but also being part of networks across the community. The more we work with partners, and the more people see library spaces being used in this flexible way, then the more other people see the possibilities for themselves.”
Space
“The space requirement for any commercial partner, whether it’s a bank or any other organisation, needs to be carefully negotiated because we always have to go back to our first principle of our public service ethos – that our library space is primarily for providing a service to our library users. It’s about trying to find that sweet spot where the needs of the potential partner can be balanced with the needs of our service. If we can find that meeting point between those two different requirements, then there’s the potential for a new partnership.”
Can you explore price?
“It always comes back to being mindful of our public service ethos and the fact that we are first and foremost delivering a public library service to the community.” Russel says: “The need to raise income cannot conflict with our
values. So, when a potential income generating opportunity arises, the kind of question that we’ll ask ourselves is, ‘Is this new partnership opportunity one that will be in line with our overall service strategy and public service ethos?’ If the answer to that question is ‘yes’, then we can explore with that partner the details of the relationship, and that will include a discussion about price.”
Conclusion
“We have an income generation strategy that covers a number of different elements; working with commercial organisations like banks is one,” Russel says. “It’s important and significant, but it’s within the context of a wider strategy to help us to generate income to support delivery of our services. As well as hiring out library space, working with banks, and delivering commissioned services, charges for services such as printing, reservations and events are also important income generators for us, as are donations and growing income receipts from offers such as our Performing Arts Service. We’ll always look for new opportunities, experiment and evaluate.
“One of the real values of the Libraries Connected training programme was that it was an opportunity to do that training alongside colleagues from across the public libraries sector and so we were also learning about what other library authorities are doing to generate income. My colleagues from the senior leadership team also liaise with other colleagues from across the sector and we are always in touch with each other across library authority boundaries, sharing best practice, sharing what’s worked and talking to each other about what we’ve learned.” BG
21
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
