Do Volunteer Libraries Save Money? (Again)

The recent Budget Panel appeared to be under the impression that volunteer libraries save money.  I really don't think that is the case.  Certainly back in 2011, the various proposals did not save money and that was with some extremely "optimistic" assumptions about their costs. 

I have been unable to find any hard evidence of either money saving or service improvement through the use of volunteer libraries.  Any assertion that a library is doing better as privatised library rather than a public library seems to be based on the assertions of the groups themselves rather than measured fact.

The reason is of course that these groups often expect Councils to pick up the building costs (which means direct costs like utilities and opportunity costs such as foregone rent.  They also tend to expect help with other things such as equality training, advice on how to get libraries to function, IT support and so on.  Indeed so many costs are added on that I am not sure that any savings are made at all in some cases.  The same may well be true of the business rate "smoke and mirrors" savings. 

In terms of performance, Brent currently has a position (which is generally true across the sector) that whatever happens in volunteer libraries is not part of the public library duty, which means that they do not contribute to the impressive visit and loans figures that Brent libraries can show.