NEWS FEATURE ‘‘
Publishing the national strategy appears to have been interrupted by the Labour Party leadership change over the summer – one of the ramifications of which has been a reshuffle at DCMS with the minster responsible for libraries changing from Baroness Twycross to Baroness Mackenzie.
their representation decreases in senior leadership roles… simultaneously, the profession faces a lack of gender diver- sity at entry levels, with young men being notably underrep- resented.” It means that “Efforts to create opportunities for young men to enter the library workforce should occur in tandem with initiatives that empower women, particularly those from underrepresented ethnic minority backgrounds, to advance into leadership.” And to achieve this it said: “Sector bodies and employers
must develop strategies that can address multiple dimen- sions of diversity.”
Recruitment constraints It also pointed out that the potentially wide variety of local recruitment policies – and the lack of data on them – has presented other challenges to creating a sector workforce strategy. It said: “It is also important to note that recruitment approaches and practices vary across local authorities. While this local flexibility is valuable, it presents challenges in
building a clear national picture. As such, this issue also falls beyond the scope of this piece of work.” However, the strategy “is designed to be used flexibly, allowing library leaders to refer to individual sections as needed, depending on their specific organisational needs.”
Elephant in the room Viv Hill, Chair of CILIP’s Public and Mobile Library Group, said: “The strategy is thorough and detailed, highlighting the gaps in workforce skills and the varied routes which could be used to fill them” but added “the elephant in the room remains. Narrowing in on the workforce and workforce gaps takes away much needed focus on what the employers and government need to provide to support staff.” She said: “Without space to learn and valuable incentives
in place… there is little to motivate staff to undertake them”. She said public libraries used to have an hour each morn-
ing for staff team meetings and training and sometimes closed for a day for in-house training. She said: “If there was a culture shift to bring these back in… this would help, simi- lar to the mindset around teacher training days.” IP
August-September 2026
INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 13
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