What is the Kent Library Campaign?

LIBRARIANS IN KENT TO BE CUT BY UP TO 55%

These cuts are now going ahead with staff who have failed to secure a post in the new structure being told they will be made redundant at the end of August. The level of compulsory redundancies has been reduced by the number of professional staff who have taken voluntary redundancy/retirement or have left to take up other jobs. However, the disenchanchment felt by this group of dedicated prrofessionals is something that KCC's Conservative leaders should be ashamed of.

The result of all this is that by September fewer than 3% of staff based in the libraries in the districts of Kent will be professionals. By no stretch of the imagination could such a library served be regarded as “Comprehensive and Efficient”, as local authorities are required to provide under the provisions of the Public Libraries & Museums Act, 1964.

Between 1988 and 1998 there has been a 14.6% reduction in total staff employed in public libraries in England. The same period has seen a reduction of 22.2% in professional staff employed in public libraries across England.

(Source: LISU Annual Library Statistics 1999. Library & Information Statistics Unit, Loughborough University, 1999)

In 2004 Kent County Council was happy to further this decline with professional posts cut by 33.33%. Since then the remaining staff have been struggling to fill the gaps and reach the targets set them.

And now in 2007 KCC are planning to do it again with letters being sent out in January to 78 staff telling them that they are likely to be at risk of redundancy. The majority of letters were sent to professional librarians and the majority of professional librarians working for Kent have now recieved such a letter, as have Customer Service Managers and other individual memebers of staff. Kent seems to be determined to operate a library service without the benefit of qualified librarians and skilled operations managers by exploiting lower paid staff.

The Customer Service Managers are responsible for the smooth running of the day-to-day operations in each District. Ensuring budgets are balanced, Health and Safety regulations implemented, staff recruited, everything in fact to ensure that the libraries are actually able to open their doors.

The librarians are responsible for stock selection and mangement in Kent's libraries, promoting libraries to the whole community, working with schools to foster a love of books and reading among the children of Kent, providing specialist library services to groups with special needs, working to meet Kent's targets (both nationally and locally set) for social inclusion and literacy, providing specialist training for library staff in all aspects to enable them to provide the service to the public Kent, exploiting Kent's wealth of local and family history services and making them accessible to all customers, and much, much more!

Funnily enough the fat cats on the management team who made the decisions felt no need to slim down the number of their high paid jobs! We are told that they "wrestled with the decision" - I bet they did! So that they made sure they saved their own skins. They say that only way to make the savings required was to "reduce staff in specific areas of our business." The specific area would appear to be libraries - is this the area for Kent Libraries to make the cuts - in it's core service and reason for existance?

These proposals were approved by KCC on 22nd February.

Now is the time to protest!

Follow the "Campaign" link on the left of the page for contact addresses of people to write to. You elected your County Councillors - if you don't like what they are doing - tell them! And remember their actions when the next elections come round and vote accordingly!

Would you use a surgery with no doctors or dentists? Would you want your child attending a school where they shared one teacher between two classes? No? Then why should KCC expect you to want to use a library service with no librarians!

CUT LIBRARY STAFF....

AND SEE WOT HAPPENS!