Plastic Bag Charges

Scotland has seen great success in reducing plastic bag usage through the introduction of a small charge.  This is not a surprise since Wales, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic had the same.  Whilst a minor step, it is an example of how we can reduce waste and this make our economy more sustainable.  I wonder if the Daily Mail will be apologizing for their prediction of chaos?

Community Work Shops at Willesden Library

The Library at Willesden is now displaying the results of the community workshops that fed into the pattern of the mural art at the front entrance to The Library. 

More on Lewisham Libraries

I was interested to see a local perspective on Lewisham volunteer libraries here.  I have suggested before that Lewisham volunteer libraries do not work in terms of a public library service to the extent that some have hoped.  It seems to leave many local people dissatisfied as well. 

Council Tax Support

I wasn't at the Brent Council Cabinet last night, but I was interested to read the report on the Council's Council Tax Support scheme.  The decision to retain this scheme more or less as originally designed suggests to me that the original design process was robust, which pleases me as I was part of it. 

The whole idea of the Council Tax Support Scheme was forced on local authorities.  Accompanied by extra cuts, and almost random changes in policy, it was setting Councils like Brent up to fail.  Successfully avoiding a legal challenge, and implementing such a difficult policy is a sign of the competence of local government officers in the face of what often appears to be deliberate sabotage by central government. 

Bridge Park Redevelopment

Good news is becoming harder and harder to find in local government, so I guess we should welcome the progress on developing a new sports centre at Bridge Park.  This idea has been kicking around for ages.  When I first heard about it was mooted as a thrid swimming pool for the Borough.  That looks as if it is likely to be overtaken by the new swimming pool at Moberly Sports Centre now.

Getting projects such as these to proceed in the teeth of the Tory Party's cuts is a really remarkable achievement, despite the various pragmatic compromises that have to be made to make them happen. 

Cuts to Brent Youth Services

Although Brent Council is doing its best to put a good gloss on it, there is no mistaking the fact that Youth Services are seeing a massive cutback.  It is another example of how having something as a "statutory duty" does not really give the level of protection that people often assume. 

Fulfilling a legal duty can be done in a minimalist way, and that is the route that Brent has been forced to assume with youth services.  Effectively most of the duty is being outsourced, with the Council assuming more of a co-ordinating and supervisory role whereas previously it was a provider.  I suspect that if it were not for the conditions attached to the grant that rebuilt Roundwood Youth Centre back in 2010, it and all the other youth centres would simply be closed down.

The report is also indicative of the dangers around tendering processes.  Securing effective competition for a contract is by no means easy.

Libraries are Good for Your Health

CILIP has an interesting blog on how public libraries support peoples health here.  This is one of the beenfits of libraries that is not always appreciated, no doubt because it is hard to put a number on it. 

Harlesden High Street

Speaking to some one recently I learnt a Costa Coffee is due to come to High Street Harlesden, which sounds like a sign of the area's gentrification.  I hope that that kind of chain doesn't drive out the independent shops which give Harlesden High Street so much of its character.

Brent Library Visits at their Highest Level for Years

I thought it would be interesting to see a slightly longer term perspective on visits to Brent Libraries, so I have dug out the CIPFA figures.  The graph above shows that Brent library visits are now at their highest level since at least 2007/08.  The latest full year figure is 28.8% higher than the start of series.  The latest half year figures give me confidence that this year and the following year will be even higher, thanks largely to the success of Willesden Library. 

The earlier part of the series shows visit numbers bumping up and down, in a way that is consistent with a service muddling along.  It is interesting that the opening of the new library at Kingsbury in 2008 and of the extensively remodelled Harlesden Library in March 2010 don't seem to have made much of an impact on the overall figures.  That is quite different from the post 2011 experience where new facilities have driven the growth in numbers, although it is somewhat masked by the construction period.  Nonetheless, I find it striking that the closure of six libraries in October 2011 is followed by a growing upward trend in library visits.

The full table of figures is here:

Year	Visits to Brent Libraries, 2007-2015	%Growth
2007/08	1,639,270
2008/09	1,573,326	-4.0%
2009/10	1,683,721	7.0%
2010/11	1,701,131	1.0%
2011/12	1,506,852	-11.4%
2012/13	1,526,095	1.3%
2013/14	1,654,807	8.4%
2014/15	2,112,149	27.6%

Audit Committee Mystery

Brent Council's Audit Committee can have much more interesting agendas than one might imagine.  The most recent, back in mid September, seems to have a curious omission in the published papers.  Although the agenda mentions the Islamia School, the actual papers appear not to have a report on the subject.  This is concerning as financial standards in Brent Schools have been a concern for many years.  Such concerns are surely best met by open and transparent discussion.  I am not suggesting a Copland style problem, but given the problems at several Brent Schools in the recent past, the issues have to be resolved as openly as possible.

Brent Library Torch Relay

Martin Francis informs us that there will be a torch relay today.  The theme is "closed libraries," and the organisers don't seem to have moved on from 2011.  I notice that one of the stopping points is Willesden Library at 11.30am.  This is of course an open library, which opens at 10am every Sunday morning as the old Willesden Library did not.  Of course if the organisers were to rely solely on Martin's blog for information, they could easily be forgiven for failing to notice any mention of the opening of a £10 million library in Willesden Green. 

Rather than touring round former library buildings, I would have thought it would be better to highlight Brent's improved libraries _ especially the refurbished Ealing Road library, the extensively improved Kilburn library and the entirely new Wembley Library.  Wembley Library is particularly well used, with 707,125 visits in the first half of the current year.  If that kind of number is repeated in the second half of the year, than Wembley Library by itself will have had almost as many visits as all twelve Brent Libraries had in 2011/12. 

Solving Flytipping Problems

Brent has seen a surge in flytipping incidents recently.  I spoke to someone yesterday who gave me an example of how the new waste & street cleaning contract can make these things easier to deal with.

Under the former contract, there was a rigid system of zones with required number of cleans per week.  Most of the Borough fell under a "zone 5" (residential streets).  Town Centres fell into a different zone, and had a much more frequent cleaning service to reflect the much higher footfall, and therefore the higher rate of littering.  The disadvantage of this system for areas such as the streets off Ealing Road, Harlesden High Street and Willesden High Road was that those streets were counted as "residential" even though they had much worse littering than most of the Borough.  The intention of the new contract was to allow for a greater flexibility of response than the old.  

The example I was given was of Bertie Road just off Willesden High Road.  I go down this road quite frequently, and the corner of the High Road and Bertie Road has indeed been a problem for a long time.  The Willesden resident I spoke to assured me that it has recently improved which is down to (a) more frequent, responsive cleaning and (b) some of the flats above shops being provided with bins where previously they had none.  This seems to be the kind of incremental and piecemeal improvement which too often gets lost in political debates. 

Brent and Lambeth Libraries

I see Lambeth have been going through a major review of their libraries.  Their overarching strategy seems to be to concentrate resources on a smaller number of improved and more flexible buildings with good transport links.  In other words, very similar to Brent's Libraries Transformation Project.  Since Lambeth is also a densely populated urban authority with good transport links I would expect such an approach to be successful (as it has been in Brent).  Lambeth have the advantage that they can look to how libraries have progressed in Brent over the past four years to see how their approach might work.

Where they currently differ from the Brent approach is in their attitudes toward the sites that will cease to be proper libraries.  This must have been a subject of considerable angst I am sure.

In Brent we considered going down the Big Society route only to decide that it would not have been viable on the proposals put forward.  This was a major part of the legal challenge put against the Council, which the Council comprehensively won.  The issue is given extensive coverage on the very good Brixton Buzz blog site. 

Lambeth Council appear to be considering keeping the buildings to be run by Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL) as "healthy living" centres.  I can see the logic of that.  It nods to the idea of libraries becoming more joined up with the public health agenda as indeed local government in general is becoming.  It may have benefits in bringing the sport service in Lambeth and libraries closer together.  It ensures the management is done by an established service provider that the Council has a long standing relationship with. It also, which I suspect is the main driver of the policy, keeps the buildings as Council owned assets.

That last point is one I see as wrongheaded.  I don't think that keeping buildings in Council hands should be an end in itself.  Building cost time and money to maintain and manage. If they are not being used for Council services, it would be better to dispose of them, and use the money to make the existing buildings fit for purpose.  Look at our experience in replacing the old Brent Town Hall Library with Wembley Library and watching the number of visits increase sixfold.

The dangers of trying to cling to the old buildings and use them to provide services are:

• You start to design your services around protecting buildings rather than actually meeting community needs.
• You may get into a procurement middle as in Lincolnshire and be subject to legal challenge.
• You may give an unwarranted soft deal to one provider.  Brixton Buzz suggests that GLL is getting those buildings on a 25 year lease at a peppercorn rent.  If true that does not sound to me like a good use of a public asset.  I suggested in another case that such deals may not even be lawful for the Councils concerned to enter into. 
• Anecdotally, I have been told that where inexperienced volunteers have taken over libraries, they often expect advice and support from the Council library service which under pressure Council services struggle to provide.  This can easily turn into a negative relationship where the staffed service feel that they are constantly having their energies draining away into supporting volunteers and that the Council's own services suffer as a result.  Conversely, the volunteers often feel that the level of support given is inadequate, leaving neither side happy.

This will be a potential danger in the recent decision to awarda contract to the organisation led by former Lib Dem councillor Paul Lorber in the Barham Park complex, although disposal of that building was never an option in that case.

One final point of interest is the proposal to adopt the Merton model of volunteers.  This retains Council buildings and some Council staff, but with a much wider role for volunteers.  Given the fashionability of volunteering in the library sector, I am surprised that it does not get more coverage as it seems more viable than the "Big Society" stand alone model.  

Barham Saga

The final part of the Barham building complex is apparently to be leased this afternoon.  Reading the report, it sounds like the process has been excessively convoluted, which is very much in line with the whole saga. 

Early Success for The Library at Willesden

The immediate success of Willesden Library in its new form is obvious from the early visit and loan figures.

	Willesden Library Visits, July to September 2015	% Change
July	21,143	3.9%
August	31,003	60.7%
September	38,496	95.4%

The percentage change is compared to the same month last year.  The loan figures also show a big jump.

	Willesden Library Loans, July to September 2015	% Change
July	10,972	21.0%
August	17,181	110.6%
September	18,219	110.6%

Altogether, encouraging early success.

Brent and Lewisham Libraries

Brent and Lewisham were the first two London Boroughs to seriously tackle their library strategy as the Tory/Lib Dem cuts began to bite.  The two took very different approaches, with Lewisham going for a volunteer or community based model.  I suggested before that Lewisham seemed not to have had the success that they may have hoped.  Nonetheless, they seem to be extending the volunteer model to more branches.  This is a fairly controversial route. 

Brent's more old fashioned approach of maintaining staffed, extended libraries at fewer locations seems to have resulted in higher user satisfaction and better performance in terms of key metrics. 

Brent Library Loans and Visits Up Yet Again

The latest half year figures for Brent libraries are now out.  Once again both loans and visits are up.  Loans for the half year ending 30 September 2015 were 532,951 (3.2% increase) and visits were 1,199,815 (12.4% increase).  They therefore follow the upward trajectory one might expect from the full year figures. 

Charging for Plastic Bags

In Harlesden Tesco recently, I saw they have big signs up reminding people about the new 5p charge for plastic bags.  This already seems to work quite well in Scotland in reducing waste, which is an important part of the waste hierarchy concept that underpins most waste policy in Europe.  In the past, people seem to have been very resistant to abandoning disposable bags, but habits can change.

Stop the Tax Credits Cuts

Seema Malhotra MP has launched a campaign to stop the Tory cuts to Tax Credits this morning.  Just in Brent Central, there are more than 12,000 families claiming tax credits and they account for more than 17,000 children.  The average cut in income under the Tory plans is said to be £1,300/year.  That is a huge impact on a big number of people. 

I certainly hope that Seema's campaign forces the Tories to move on this.

New Photography Exhibition in Willesden Green

The art gallery at Willesden Library has a new photography exhibition officially opening tonight.  Following on from the Urban Loneliness exhibition

The piece I liked best was actually a piece of sculpture: