The Group Manager – Prevention and Wellbeing presented a report, the  purpose of which, was to present to Cabinet the Council’s performance against the Welsh Public Library Standards (WPLS) sixth framework for the period 2017-18.

He advised that, the provision of public library services in the United Kingdom was made a statutory service for local government as a result of the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964.  The legislation requires local authorities to provide a “comprehensive and efficient library service for persons desiring to make use thereof”.

In order to assist in discharging this responsibility, in 2002 the Welsh Government established a framework of standards for the management of local authority library services, by local authorities, the WLGA and other relevant bodies.  As part of this framework, new targets relating to library provision and performance are reviewed and set every three years.  One of the overall objectives of the standards is that libraries offer all the services and facilities listed as core entitlements within the framework with quality also being measured via a range of performance indicators and impact measures.

On an annual basis, Bridgend Council, as the public library authority is required to submit an annual Welsh Public Library Standards (WPLS) return for consideration by assessors.  A report is issued in turn by the Museums, Archives and Libraries Division (MALD) of the Welsh government, who have responsibility for administering the framework.  The report produced represents the considered view of the assessors on the Council’s performance for the given year.

Attached at Appendix 1 to the report, was the 2017-18 report from MALD in response to the library self-assessment return against the sixth framework of Welsh Public Library Standards (2017-20).

The 2017-18 report highlighted that the service has continued to perform well noting the effectiveness of service points and the contribution of the service to wellbeing, an increase in formal and informal training, growth in attendance at events and also increases in membership and active borrowers.

The MALD report explains that the library service in Bridgend now meets 11 of the 12 core citizen entitlements in full and one in part.  During 2017-18 the public accountability measures for libraries in Wales had changed from estimated library visits to levels of achievement in relation to 10 quality indicators with quantifiable targets.

The evaluation by MALD identifies that Bridgend has achieved 7 quality indicators in full, 1 in part and failed to achieve 2 of the indicators. A comparison as to how Bridgend has compared to other local authorities was provided at Appendix 2 to the report.

The quality indicators not met relate to acquisitions per capita or materials spend per capita (QI9) and also the amount of material budget or spend on Welsh language resources per capita (QI10).

Although Welsh Government utilises data to formulate its assessment the case studies that Awen have provided are of equal importance and include the summer reading challenge to maintain children’s literacy during school holidays, supporting employability, dementia supportive activities in leisure facilities and “live and loud” cultural events in library settings funded by Arts Council Wales.

The Group Manager – Prevention and Wellbeing concluded his submission, by advising of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 implications on the report and the financial implications, which confirmed that there were additional savings of £150k required (impacting upon Library Services) between 2019 and 2021, which may impact upon the overall service.

The Cabinet Member – Future Generations and Wellbeing advised that to counteract any shortfall of books in library facilities, people were accessing books more on-line and a lot of this was out of personal choice in any event.

The Deputy Leader added that Bridgend had an effective model in place in the support of its library provision, notwithstanding the recent dip in the spend on books. He was aware that there was a public demand for books written in welsh in libraries, however this was not the trend in Bridgend.

The Leader concluded debate on this item by stating that he was pleased to note that BCBC was meeting more standards than most other neighbouring authorities were and that the few we weren’t meeting, had largely been due to budget cuts the Authority have had to make.

He was also pleased to see that our main libraries were now more akin to Community Centres, in that they provided other services over and above the provision of books, for example IT facilities to allow young people to have the opportunity to continue their learning, within school holidays; assisting individuals by having access to employment opportunities, and dementia supporting activities.  

RESOLVED:                      That Cabinet considered and noted the content of the report and Appendices, recognising a positive year of progress against the Welsh Public Library Standards.