Potential Effects of the Autumn Statement/Spending Review

STV BULLETIN 198, 3rd

DECEMBER 2015

Compiled by David Owen

Potential effects of the Autumn Statement/Spending Review

Naturally, we awaited the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Autumn Statement and Spending Review on 25th November for the period up to 2020 with concerns about its potential effects on library and information services and for disabled people.

For public library services, certainly in England, the prospects are dire. Sadly, local government funding via central government grant has again taken the biggest percentage cut. According to the Local Government Association the cut is a further £4.1 billion or 24% in real terms on top of the 40% cuts made between 2010 and 2015.Local authorities will be able to increase council tax by up to 2% but this is hypothecated to contribute to the increasing costs of adult social care. They will in future retain 100% of their business rates income and be able to set a local rate in some authorities but the obvious conclusion is that this will only increase the income gap between the wealthiest and the poorest authorities where the need for local services, such as local libraries, is the greatest. The famous postcode lottery is about to be expanded!

Consider the response of Lord Porter, Chairman of the LGA:

“Today’s Spending Review has handed down a difficult £4.1 billion funding cut over this Spending Review period for our residents and comes on top of almost £10 billion in further demand-led cost pressures facing councils by the end of the decade. The consequences for our local communities who will suffer as a result should not be underestimated.

It is wrong that the services our local communities rely on will face deeper cuts than the rest of the public sector yet again and for local taxpayers to be left to pick up the bill for new government policies without any additional funding.

Even if councils stopped filling in potholes, maintaining parks, closed all children’s centres, libraries, museums, leisure centres and turned off every street light they will not have saved enough money to plug the financial black hole they face by 2020.

These local services which people cherish will have to be drastically scaled back or lost altogether as councils are increasingly forced to do more with less and protect life and death services, such as caring for the elderly and protecting children, already buckling under growing demand.”

CILIP also responded by warning that the statement “will create a ‘perfect storm’ where the demand for Government services through public libraries outstrips the capacity and funding to meet them.” This is because the Government Digital Service is receiving an extra £450 million to get more services online but 11% of the population has never used the internet and 12.6 million adults do not have basic digital skills. CILIP also points out that “In the light of the additional expectations that libraries will have to meet, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport need to be clear how they will meet the Government’s legal obligations to oversee the improvement of public libraries in England. Currently the Government has no clear policy, plan or strategy in place for delivering on their legal obligations to oversee the improvement of library services in the public interest.”

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UKAuthority.com also highlighted the treatment of the Government Digital Service in its analysis, “Spending Review: who gets the digital money?” GDS receives the additional £450 million out of a total £1.8 billion investment in digital transformation because of the Government’s digital by default policy and there is also digital investment in HMRC, the NHS, emergency services, the Prison Service, courts, borders, cyber defence and DWP but nothing for local government to support its digital programmes.

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The situation in Scotland, Wales and Northern Irelandis, of course, different with devolved responsibility for libraries. They also have a mix of clear policies, plans, strategies and standards for libraries. The national funding under the Barnett Formula will reduce in real terms by 2020 by 5% for Scotland, 4.5% for Wales and 5% for Northern Ireland but it is for the devolved administrations to determine the amounts made available to the local authorities.

As for university libraries, the position is less clear. The overall budget of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has been cut by 17% but the research budget of £4.7 billion is protected in real terms. Furthermore, the Chancellor confirmed that the Government has accepted the recommendation of the recent Nurse Review and is merging the research councils to set up Research UK. However, the teaching grant of £1.4 billion will be cut by £120 million in cash terms and the student opportunity fund for the poorest and disabled students worth about £380 million within the overall teaching grant will be cut. Current students and graduates who took out loans after 2012 will have to pay more in repayments via a freeze in the £21,000 repayment threshold until April 2021.The Government will introduce postgraduate loans from 2016-17 and maintenance loans for part-time students in 2018-19. Nursing students will have tuition fee grants scrapped and replaced with loans, with the cap on places removed.

What this will mean for the take up of student places, the overall budget of individual academic institutions and their allocation of funding to their library and information services remains to be seen.

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Funding for Further Education and Sixth Form Colleges was not subjected to further cuts and has been protected in cash terms and Sixth Form Colleges can now apply to become academies so that they would not pay VAT. The basic budget for schools has also been protected in cash terms and all schools will be encouraged to adopt academy status, thereby further diminishing the education role of local authorities.

On the other hand, the Chancellor has protected arts and sports funding saying “One of the best investments we can make as a nation is in our extraordinary arts, museums, heritage, media and sport.£1billion a year in grants adds a quarter of a trillion pounds to our economy- not a bad return. So, deep cuts in the small budget of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport are a false economy.” Naturally, Sir Peter Bazalgette, Chair of the Arts Council, was delighted saying “This is an astonishing settlement for the arts and culture” as the small £10 million increase in cash terms each year to 2019/20 is a reduction of only 5% in real terms. However, it now needs “to understand the settlement for local authorities. Our team across the country will be having place by place conversations. We cannot replace their revenue but we’ll keep investing where Local Authorities keep faith with culture.”

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It is not difficult to understand. The bulk of the Arts Council investment will remain in London; elsewhere wealthier authorities will be better able to maintain their investment to secure matching investment from the Arts Council; local community arts provision will all but disappear in poorer areas and the loss will be compounded by the disappearance of their local libraries. A truly post code lottery provision!

Leadership for Libraries Taskforce’s Report

With immaculate timing the Department for Culture, Media and Sport published the “Leadership for Libraries Taskforce: six month progress report (April-September 2015)” the day after the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement/Spending Review!

The report’s introduction sets out the role of libraries; the establishment of the Sieghart independent review by DCMS and the Department for Communities and Local Government to explore how best to maintain them “in challenging economic times” and the establishment of the Taskforce as recommended by Sieghart.

It then provides an update on its achievements in its first six months pointing out that it was mindful of the perception that there have been many reports but little action.It therefore focused its limited resources on actions that start to deliver. It lists its successes to date including the £7.4 million funding for universal WiFi coverage in public libraries in England; the two year BT/Barclays pilot project to provide digital support in 100 libraries and community centres; its partnership with Tinder Foundation’s project on digital inclusion in 16 libraries; assisting the British Library’s Enterprising Libraries project with six major city libraries; meetings with various Government departments; exploration of co-location of services and shared services opportunities; developing best practice guidance and supporting workforce development in partnership with the SCL.

It goes on to provide a “Summary of existing Taskforce activity” citing the investigation of options to upgrade the digital infrastructure in libraries to support digital inclusion and assisted digital; supporting SCL to establish a unified digital platform and continuing to develop and expand e-lending following the pilot project “in a phased approach on a voluntary basis.” It wishes to draft an “Ambition for Public Libraries in England: Making it Happen” which would be a document that sets out the Government’s and Taskforce’s shared vision and how it would be achieved.

It then sets out its proposed next steps and areas for focus over the next six months with eight action points. Number three is “consider how upcoming government policy initiatives (such as the outcomes of the 2015 Spending Review) will influence library services and the future work of the Taskforce”!!

It finally provides annexes on the background and structure of the Taskforce; a list of the meetings with Government Departments and a list of meetings with key partners and library visits.

The Government’s response to the progress report was published at the same time. The Minister, Ed Vaizey said:

“The Libraries Taskforce has today recommended that a document setting out Government’s and the Taskforce’s shared vision for public libraries in England would provide a shared direction and purpose by highlighting existing good practice and providing a focus for collaborative action.

I strongly support this recommendation and I can confirm today that the Government has agreed to publish such a document setting out best practice by summer 2016. It will be produced in dialogue with the Libraries Taskforce, particularly the Local Government Association, Society of Chief Librarians, and Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals as the key representatives of local government and the libraries sectors.”

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On the same day Kathy Settle, the Chief Executive of the Taskforce, published a blog in which she stated “In light of these continued demands, we were particularly pleased to receive confirmation from the DCMS yesterday that funding for the Taskforce will continue to be available for the next four years if required.”

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Latest research publications

On 18th November RNIB published “My Voice 2015: the views and experiences of blind and partially sighted people in the UK” [50 pages]. The report is based on the findings of telephone interviews with a random but balanced sample of 1,200 registered blind and partially sighted people aged 18 and over. The interviews were carried out by NatCen Social Research between November 2014 and April 2015.

Having introduced the aim and objectives of the research; existing research and the need for this research project the report then sets out the methodology and structure of this report. It then sets out the findings on 12 topics which are:

1. Relationships and household.
2. Sight conditions and sight loss.
3. Early support.
4. Health and wellbeing
5. Domestic life.
6. Learning and work.
7. Finances and benefits.
8. Transport.
9. Access to information and services.

10. Technology.

11. Discrimination.

12. Social contact, choice and control.

The report then provides the findings from “open response questions” covering:

1. Early support.
2. Making everyday life better.
3. Other important areas of life.

It finally sets out the next steps and has an appendix of references and supporting documents.

There is a mass of data in this report and the sections on access to information and services and technology [pp33-37] are particularly relevant. However, the report states that “This is only the first My Voice UK report, and it only offers a small insight into all the data from the My Voice 2015 survey. One of the best ways to access a wide range of data is to use the interactive tool that has been published alongside this report. This tool gives you access to all the questions asked in the survey.”They can be cross tabulated in a number ways.

There will be a series of regional events to present the findings and in early 2016 RNIB will be publishing a report with the voices of some blind and partially sighted people who were unable to take part in this research such as people with a severe hearing impairment and sight loss, people who do not speak English and the carers of people with complex needs. The report also states that “My Voice is a longitudinal study, and almost all participants agreed that RNIB could keep in contact with them for future research. We plan to conduct a second wave of My Voice interviews with the whole sample in 2018.”

This is the most comprehensive general research project since the publication of the Network 1000 report in 2006 and the report merits more detailed study in order to attempt to provide a useful summary of data particularly relevant to our sector in the next STV Bulletin. In the meantime the full report and a summary, in both Word and PDF format, and the Excel Interactive Tool can be found at:

The Thomas Pocklington Trust has published “Assistive and inclusive home technology for people with visual impairment.” This is an eight page summary report of an overview research project on high and low tech technologies and devices which found that there have been many high-tech innovations in recent years. Some of them open up exciting access opportunities for visually impaired people while others offer the functionality of traditional assistive technology at lower cost. However, increasing visualisation of information, inaccessible touch screens and miniaturisation of devices can create barriers while mainstream trends towards integrated tech devices, user-friendliness and personalisation represent opportunities for a revolution in inclusivity.

On balance, the outlook for AIT is positive because the market leaders in the technology industry are now paying serious attention to inclusive design and will set the trend for smaller players. There is still a gap between the availability of useful and accessible AIT and its use.

I could not find this report or any other details on the Thomas Pocklington Trust website but the home page warns that the website has unexpectedly had to be moved to a new host server and some page links and downloads have been corrupted in the transfer. The report can be accessed via Vision2020UK at:

UK information workforce survey

The budget reductions reported above will lead inevitably to a considerable reduction in the library workforce but will this result in a better balanced, more representative workforce than we currently have? On 24th November CILIP and the Archives and Records Association [UK and Ireland] published the results of their survey of 10,623 workers in libraries, archives, records, information and knowledge management across the public, private and voluntary sectors. The headline findings highlighted by CILIP include:

• 78.1% of the workforce is female but male workers earn more than women and are twice as likely to hold senior management roles.
• The workforce has lower ethnic diversity than the national UK Labour Force Survey statistic, with a 96.7% white workforce, almost 10% above the national workforce average!
• The sector has an ageing workforce with the highest proportion, 55.3%, in the 45-55 age band.
• The workforce is highly qualified with 61.4% holding postgraduate qualifications but average wages in the sector are only around the same as the UK average as a whole.

The full report is not yet available on the CILIP website but a 4 page Executive Summary is available. This states that 15.9% of respondents suffer from long-term health issues compared with 18% nationally but this does not seem to affect career progression. This does not identify the proportion of the workforce which is disabled and their disability.

For more details and a link to the summary see:

Supporting library users with hidden disabilities

On 18th November CILIP published a blog by Moira Johnson which reports on a conference which she organised for CILIP’s Community, Diversity and Equality Group at PortsmouthUniversity in September. The event addressed how to support library users with a range of hidden “impairments” which may not be immediately visible or obvious to library staff such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia and speech and language impairments. There were three main themes: