Bruce Leeke. Photo © EADT
a result, library services are funded from different budget lines depending on the council. Where the money comes from is likely to directly influence the financial settlement for each service. Before any local authority looks at mutualisation, I would imagine their first consideration would be how fundamental their library service is to its overall offer to commu- nities.
In Suffolk we are part of the public health budget and I truly believe in the era of Integrated Care Systems that libraries are at the forefront of preventa- tive health. Whether this is a view held by the NHS or other local authorities is open to question. I think rather than mutual- isation, the future is about value-adding partnerships and optimising anchor institutions like libraries to benefit the community and their health, wellbeing and practical needs.
Should becoming a mutual be an option that authorities and library services in good health consider too?
Our ability to significantly expand services, increase opening hours and develop local needs-based offers through our professional staff is an approach that has worked in Suffolk. We’ve achieved all this and made a ten-year saving of £25 million for Suffolk County Council as the annual cost is now 34 per cent less than when the library service was part of the council. So it’s a model that can certainly deliver more for less.
What advantages do you think Suffolk might have in a crisis like this, compared to local author ity-run services, or commercially outsourced firms?
Our model is all about empowering September 2022
colleagues to work with their commun- ity to provide support and help with the challenges facing local people. In a local authority and the NHS they call it ‘co-pro- duction’. Ironically ‘co-production’ is what we’ve been doing for the past 10 years. The power of this approach in a crisis (or in- deed normal times) is that we understand people’s needs and find flexible and inno- vative ways to meet them. For example, we provide low-cost fresh produce at one of our urban sites, have Sewing Bees sewing therapy in one of our rural sites and a Men Can Talk group in another urban library. All unique programmes designed to meet a specific community need. I would therefore describe our USP as hyper-local, person- alised support for the community, in the community.
Would it help the UK Public Library sector as a whole if more services mutualised? Local authorities want value for money and our experience suggests that’s what the mutual option provides. Our social value work with Moore Kingston Smith continues and we are currently looking to calculate a return on investment number for the entire service. Our approach has often been questioned by traditional voices in the sector, but we are simply trying to
put a credible value against the work we do so that key stakeholders, like our funders, can see our wider impact. It’s far too easy for funders and policy makers to have a narrow view of what libraries do. It’s hard to compare one service against another, but I also know we are having a sustained impact on the health and well- being of our communities. This has been proven by academic research conducted by the University of Suffolk. For example, to me it’s fairly obvious that libraries have been doing ‘social prescribing’ for decades – long before the term was invented in an NHS context. So if our hyper-local approach brings these benefits why would other parts of the sector not consider it?
Because you are up against commer- cial organisations that are looking to grow and sell their services, whose job is it to “sell” the mutual model to the sector now?
Our absolute focus is on our local authority in Suffolk and getting them to understand the amazing value they get from the service we deliver on their behalf. Competition is a natural part of being an independent charity. We compete for different commis- sioned services with other voluntary sector organisations in Suffolk and beyond. So it’s less about our mutual status and more
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