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Labour's Librarygate Exposed
February 5, 2009 1:01 PM
Liberal Democrats have unearthed strange going's-on in Lambeth Libraries that the national and local media have dubbed Librarygate One & Two.
What can these be? A sudden and long-overdue consignment of new books, perhaps? Or could it be investment in new heating systems to save Lambeth library users the nuisance of turning up to find them closed due to boiler failures?
Perhaps Lambeth Libraries have seen repairs to plasterwork, or leaking roofs, or modern makeovers to mitigate teenagers' views that these learning 'centres of excellence' are actually gloomy and decaying places that they wouldn't be seen dead in?
No, not a bit of it - Lambeth Labour has been mustering all of its library management forces to find new and interesting ways to pull the wool over the eyes of Government inspectors who dole out the gold stars.
Labour knows that funding, or liquidity as we now have to call it, is frozen - at least so far as libraries are concerned - and that this threatens their coveted CPA Ratings. And as they're not going to magic-up more money any time soon, they've had to find new and inventive ways to make it appear that Libraries in Lambeth are not on their knees but standing tall like beacons of good practice.
First of all was the realisation that having closed two libraries (in Clapham Park and Streatham Vale) they were desperately short on opening hours for a critical test. Their answer was to create several phantom or ghost temporary libraries at vast expense that only had to stay open for as long as the nosey inspectors were around.
Being New Labour, of course, some glitzy, pioneering name was given to them in order to make the inspectors feel that something really marvellous was going on in this benighted borough.
That was Librarygate One.
Then we discovered that Labour had another marvellous wheeze up their sleeves to sign-up as many of the Lambeth workforce as possible as New Library Members to promote an illusion of the citizenry stampeding to use its crumbling facilities. Naturally with the added bonus that this boosted the library users statistics for the upcoming inspection.
There were even reports that some managers used strong-arm tactics - sorry persuasion - to get the maximum numbers of staff to comply with this ruse. It was even suggested that one over-enthusiastic manager thought they should recruit the entire Lambeth workforce and only 'un-join' them if anyone complained. Wiser heads thought that even the Audit Commision might smell a rat over this idea.
Thus Librarygate Two was exposed to an unsuspecting world.
Does any of this matter? The simple answer is yes.
Yes because this is a Council obsessed by image and star ratings. Yes because Labour would rather spend public money and huge management resources on gaining or keeping stars than on the service itself. Yes because the library service in Lambeth has been stripped to the bone by Labour and deserves better.
Yes most of all because Labour consistently denied their undercover activities to manipulate the system until Freedom of Information Requests exposed a trail of emails showing exactly what they were up to.
And yes, because such gross manipulation of the system that is supposed to show whether Council services really have improved, undermines the public's confidence in Lambeth's ability to shake off its seedy history and provide a thoroughly decent, modern and efficient service.