Corporate report

Seventeenth meeting of the Libraries Taskforce

Published 10 January 2018

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Meeting date: Thursday 7 December 2017: 11:30 to 16:00

Location: Storyhouse, Hunter Street, Chester, CH1 2AR

Attendees

  • Kim Bromley-Derry (Chair) - Chief Executive: London Borough of Newham
  • Kathy Settle - Chief Executive: Libraries Taskforce
  • Paul Bristow - Director, Strategic Partnerships: Arts Council England
  • Mark Freeman - President elect: Society of Chief Librarians; Libraries and Heritage Services Manager, Stockton Borough Council
  • Felix Greaves - Deputy Director of Science: Public Health England
  • Polly Hamilton - Assistant Director, Culture, Sport and Tourism: Rotherham Council and Vice-Chair: Chief Cultural & Leisure Officers Association
  • Ian Leete - Senior Policy Adviser: Local Government Association
  • Neil MacInnes - President: Society of Chief Librarians; Strategic Lead – Libraries, Galleries and Culture, Manchester City Council
  • Simon Richardson - Head of Libraries: Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)
  • Mark Taylor - Director of External Relations: The UK library and information association (CILIP)
  • Liz White - Head of Strategy Development: British Library
  • Sue Wilkinson - Chief Executive: The Reading Agency
  • Helen Williams - Deputy Director, Arts, Libraries and Digital Culture: DCMS (job share)
  • Sheila Bennett - Policy and Secretariat Manager: Libraries Taskforce
  • Julia Chandler - Communications Lead: Libraries Taskforce
  • Foluke Oshin - Business Support: Libraries Taskforce

Apologies

  • Councillor Mike Bell - Local Government Association Culture, Tourism and Sport Board
  • Neil Churchill - Director of Participation and Experience, NHS England
  • Jane Ellison - Head of Creative Partnerships: BBC
  • Roly Keating - Chief Executive: British Library
  • Kate McGavin - Deputy Director, Arts, Libraries and Digital Culture: DCMS (job share)
  • Nick Poole - Chief Executive: The UK Library and Information Association (CILIP)
  • Charlotte Lane - Programme and Project Manager: Libraries Taskforce

Facilitator

  • Stephen Burt - Gibsonstarr Ltd

1. Introduction

During its visit to Storyhouse, run by Cheshire West and Chester Libraries, the Taskforce received a tour of the building. Storyhouse was designed as a combination of a library, a theatre, a cinema and a cafe/restaurant that could work together as a single entity for the people of Chester. It had featured in a recent Taskforce blog.

Rachel Foster, Head of Library Service and Alex Clifton, Artistic Director at Storyhouse, discussed the project with the Taskforce. Storyhouse was the anchor project for a £350 million commercial city centre project. Initial funding had been primarily from council capital reserves, but with contributions from Arts Council England, MBNA (a local employer) and various foundations. Around a quarter of its running costs were met by the council, plus some contributions from ACE, but the majority was met by commercial receipts (the biggest contributors were the theatre and the downstairs restaurant). It had commercial as well as community targets to meet, and Storyhouse was running ahead of both already. The library service promised it would share its work on how it was conducting its social impact measurement.

The development had been achieved by having strong champions at both councillor and officer level, and by having a clear vision to hold the project together. This was based on building relationships with local communities and delivering what they wanted, to achieve positive social impacts; the building, although striking, was only the framework to deliver and support these services. The wider library network was also being used to spread some of the cultural opportunities further across the area, and the project was also being used as a springboard to provide programmes of creative learning, children and young people’s programmes, and community co-curation of events and festivals.

The facility was run with a very strong emphasis on community involvement and cultural democracy. 111 groups used the facility to meet, and parts of it, such as the cinema, ran on a basis of community as well as commercial programming.

The integration of the different elements had worked well in providing efficiencies as well as impact. The library was integrated seamlessly throughout the building, so the presence of restaurant and theatre meant that the facility was open between 8am and 11pm. The Taskforce noted that there were no reception or enquiry desks, meaning that the staff were out and about around the library areas, and also that there was no security. Storyhouse felt that this would act as a barrier to developing local residents’ feeling of ownership of the building and its contents.

The chair thanked Cheshire West and Chester Libraries on behalf of the Taskforce for hosting the meeting, and for the very stimulating discussion and tour.

The chair welcomed Polly Hamilton to her first Taskforce meeting; and also welcomed Mark Freeman (who had attended in his capacity as President-elect of SCL) and Mark Taylor, who was attending to represent CILIP in Nick Poole’s absence.

2. Objectives for the meeting

The Taskforce had agreed some time ago to set aside the December meeting to focus on longer-term strategic issues. It confirmed the objectives for the day, which were to:

  • share views and reflect on how the Taskforce is operating and the impact it is having on the ground
  • reach agreement on the progress made over the last year on items in the December 2016 Ambition Action Plan, and on the Outcomes actions that had been agreed at each of its subsequent meetings
  • agree whether the Ambition document remains the right strategic framework for 2018 or if anything needs to be changed
  • decide what actions the Taskforce will focus on during 2018 so a new Action Plan can be drawn up for endorsement by the Libraries Minister and the Local Government Association’s Culture, Tourism and Sport (CTS) Board
  • start to discuss the longer-term future of the (collective) Taskforce and Taskforce team

3. Taskforce work - progress during 2017

The Taskforce undertook a retrospective on its work over the previous year, reviewing progress against the Action Plan and the Outcomes Actions. It also discussed findings from a survey which had been circulated via the Taskforce blog seeking feedback on the Taskforce’s work and its impact at grassroots levels.

As the response rate to the feedback survey had been very limited (22 replies in total), the Taskforce Team had been unable to do any meaningful analysis between sub-groups. However, overall, the survey showed:

  • a good awareness, and use, of Taskforce toolkits and communications channels
  • how the sector values the work of the Taskforce:
    • a significant majority of respondents felt the Taskforce has had a positive impact
    • people felt the Taskforce had provided a unifying force, raising the profile of libraries in government
  • areas where respondents suggested the Taskforce could do more work in 2018 including:
    • producing communications assets which could be used at local levels
    • further promotion of Libraries First to senior leaders and chief executives
    • providing further masterclasses, and exploring running webinars
    • measuring impact
    • more communications aimed at frontline staff

The report prepared for the Taskforce had also included feedback on the 14 masterclasses and sector forums run by the Taskforce during 2017 (covering income generation, makerspaces, creative thinking, alternative delivery models, strategic planning and the benchmarking framework). These events had been attended by over 500 people. The Taskforce always follows up on an event with a detailed blog to share learning with those unable to attend. There were a further 6 masterclasses planned to run before the end of March 2018.

These events had been well received, with feedback showing that:

  • attendees value the opportunity to network
  • they find hands on, practical sessions useful
  • they preferred smaller group sessions with speakers, in preference to plenary Q&As
  • they liked the detailed follow up blogs and notes

The Taskforce also noted usage of the Taskforce’s communications channels. There had been:

The Taskforce noted achievements during 2017, alongside some Actions where there had been time slippages. Whilst progress with the Actions was regularly covered in the 6 month progress reports, the Taskforce agreed that a blog summarising 2017 as a whole would be published in the new year alongside the Action Plan for 2018.

4. The future of the Libraries Taskforce: the Taskforce as a collective entity

The Libraries Taskforce has funding until March 2020 (£500,000 each financial year). However, it confirmed it wished to plan ahead to ensure a smooth transition to whatever it collectively decided - and the Libraries Minister and LGA CTS Board agreed - was needed for the future.

The Taskforce discussed the sector’s future needs, and what needed to be done at a national level to support it. It considered the role it had played to date; what it has achieved; and what might continue to be valuable for the foreseeable future.

It was noted that funding for library services remains constrained - and there are no signs of this changing soon. There would, therefore, be a continued need for services to be supported through action at a national level, although possibly in different ways, by, for example:

  • advocating for library services at both national and local levels - illustrating their impact to, and for, users, communities, partners and decision makers
  • identifying and demonstrating options for library services to operate more efficiently and effectively. This would include showcasing the good practice already identified in the Taskforce toolkits, etc, as well as an increased need to more directly support resource/capacity constrained services to adopt it
  • supporting the workforce to develop their skills and knowledge, using the tools created during 2017; including in emerging areas to enable new ways of working and income generation (for example, building skills in entrepreneurship, communications and marketing, bid writing, etc)
  • identifying and mitigating the challenges to the sector, and providing direct transformational assistance where required
  • securing new national funding streams

There were ongoing changes to various Taskforce member organisations (such as the new National Portfolio Organisation status and funding of the Society of Chief Librarians, the implications of the recent Tailored Review of Arts Council England on its role as the libraries development agency, and the new CILIP membership offer) which may impact on the focus on the Taskforce’s work as a collective body.

There was a strong consensus that the Taskforce had achieved a lot during 2017, and would continue to have a valuable role in the future, as a sector-led body that, in particular:

  • brings together the main organisations delivering library services, partnering with and supporting the sector, so they can share information and perspectives on major issues facing the sector, and identify where closer partnership working might lead to greater success and impact (acting as a network of delivery organisations)
  • acted as a sounding board/critical friend for projects being progressed by member organisations
  • provided a focal point for potential partners, who can then talk to the library sector as a whole rather than having to approach a number of organisations separately

In performing this role, it also considered how the Taskforce might adopt different approaches to how it operates; for example, experimenting with some different meeting formats, including spending more time looking at local arrangements and initiatives where Taskforce meetings were hosted by library services around the country.

The Taskforce agreed that:

  • the secretariat should collate the feedback from the discussion, develop proposals on how the Taskforce might work in future, and circulate these around the Taskforce by email for comment and endorsement
  • the chair and chief executive would discuss these proposals with the Taskforce’s joint sponsors (the Libraries Minister and the LGA CTS Board) to get their agreement to any proposed changes

5. Libraries Deliver: Ambition - 2018 Action Plan

The Taskforce then moved on to consider whether the Libraries Deliver: Ambition document needed to change in light of any developments in the external environment, and to workshop ideas for what should feature in the Action Plan to be delivered in 2018. They began to define:

  • actions to be included, based on the needs of the sector
  • who should lead on each action, who should support and what their contribution could be
  • any critical timings or dependencies that would affect certain activities

The Taskforce recognised that, as it hadn’t got the resources to provide one-to-one support to every service, it had needed to focus much of its efforts to date on provision of advice and guidance that could be used by all/most services, for example, the wide range of Taskforce tooklits and case studies that had been produced, and masterclasses run. During 2018, its Action Plan would look to narrow down to a smaller number of bigger strategic actions where the Taskforce, working collectively, could have the biggest impact and add the most value.

The Taskforce agreed that:

  • the Libraries Deliver: Ambition document remained appropriate as the strategy for the public libraries sector for the coming year
  • the secretariat should collate the feedback from the discussion about actions for 2018, hold further one-to-one discussions with Taskforce members, and draft a revised Ambition Action Plan
  • the secretariat should circulate the draft 2018 Action Plan around the Taskforce by email for comment
  • following this, the proposed 2018 Action Plan should be submitted for agreement by the Libraries Minister and the LGA’s Culture, Tourism and Sport Board, prior to being published on GOV.UK

6. The future of the Libraries Taskforce: the Taskforce Team

As described in item 4 above, the Taskforce felt that it was important to start considering how, as capacity and capability is built up in some Taskforce members’ organisations, these changes would impact on the role of the Taskforce team in future. It was also keen, as it matured as a group, to move on to a position where the Taskforce was clearly sector-led.

The Taskforce noted the functions currently carried out by the Taskforce team. It agreed that Taskforce members would start to consider whether it would be appropriate for certain activities to be ‘mainstreamed’ into their own organisation at some point in the future, and when this might sensibly occur.

The Taskforce agreed that:

  • Taskforce members should consider whether, and at what point, certain activities currently undertaken by the dedicated Taskforce team might be incorporated into their own organisations in the future, and bring forward their ideas to the chief executive
  • the secretariat should:
    • discuss further with any organisations coming forward with proposals to become new activity owners the implications and possible timings of such a move
    • develop a proposed change plan (including details of the communications that would be needed to support this)
    • circulate the draft plan to Taskforce members for further comments before finalisation
  • the chair and chief executive would discuss the outcomes of this process with the joint sponsors (the Libraries Minister and the LGA CTS Board) to seek their agreement to any proposed changes

7. Communications update

The Taskforce Team communications lead provided a brief update on communications projects, plus the regular update on communications activities and Taskforce communications channels.

The Taskforce noted these updates.

8. Taskforce meetings and governance

8.1 Taskforce minutes

The Taskforce noted that the minutes of the last Taskforce meeting (held in Custom House and Canning Town community neighbourhood centre on 4 October) had been cleared by correspondence and published on GOV.UK.

8.2 Future meetings

The next meeting of the Taskforce would take place on 7 February, at the Woolwich centre library (35 Wellington Street, Woolwich SE18 6HQ).

9. AOB

It was noted that Ian Leete had been representing the LGA at the Taskforce meetings and is now stepping down, with Cllr Mike Bell taking over as the lead LGA representative. The chair thanked Ian for his contribution to Taskforce discussions, and particularly for his lead role on the data elements of the strategic planning toolkit.

The chair also recorded the Taskforce’s appreciation and thanks to Stephen Burt for so ably facilitating the meeting.

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