Suffolk County Council (SCC) is facing abolition in its current form, being one of the counties fast-tracked for devolution. The local election due in May has been postponed by a year because reorganisation is expected to be imminent.
So, a reasonable person might expect an organisation facing a gigantic upheaval would not start tinkering with a part of its service that is working well. A reasonable person would be wrong.
Public outrage saved Suffolk Libraries in 2012
Back in 2012, there was public outrage at SCC’s plans to close several libraries. As a result a charity, Suffolk Libraries, was set up and awarded a ten-year contract. Suffolk Libraries managed to run the service on some £3 million less per year than it had been costing SCC. This despite keeping the branches open, maintaining the opening hours and introducing innovative services.
Renewal of the contract was delayed by the COVID pandemic, and the procurement process did not start until April last year. It was made clear there would be no new money to reflect rising costs. This meant Suffolk Libraries had to propose some reduction in opening hours despite its reluctance to do so. Suffolk Libraries was the only bidder for the new contract.
SCC’s sudden library takeover
On 25 February SCC announced in a press release it was taking the library service back in-house. Suffolk Libraries was told just 15 minutes before the public announcement that SCC was ending negotiations. Predictably, this caused upset and fury amongst the staff and many volunteers who support the service. It would also cut off access to charitable funding.
There is full background on the situation at Suffolk Libraries website and the blog of the former Head of IT at Suffolk Libraries, James Hargrave. Suffolk County Councillor Philip Faircloth-Mutton has defended SCC’s decision on their website.
Framlingham Library is my local library and I’ve taken part in some of their programmes which are popular with the community. Vivia Bamford is the manager of Framlingham Library, which has raised independently some £40,000 for improvements. This contrasts with SCC’s handling of structural problems at that library, with scaffolding installations and water supply problems that have been unresolved for years.
Bamford has proposed a framework that would involve comprehensive budget analysis, shared decision-making and preservation of local expertise, while maintaining service continuity. She has made this publicly available. The framework is too long to reproduce here, but this is the full text of her open letter:
Suffolk Libraries: a collaborative way forward
Strategic diagnostic proposal
Dear Mr Faircloth-Mutton and Colleagues
I write to you today not as an adversary, but as a committed advocate for Suffolk’s library services – a critical lifeline for our community’s intellectual, social and cultural well-being. I believe it is time for both sides to draw breath, take a strategic view and get back around the table.
I am manager at Framlingham Library and have been asked by many to share my personal view, so am doing so openly in this letter and attachment. There is a risk that where we find ourselves leads to a knee-jerk reaction due to the ticking clock on the existing contract, evidence that no organisation would be able to deliver the current service levels with the existing budget long-term, and the political pressures of local government re-organisation – none of these leads to the best outcomes for the local population.
What I am proposing is not about ‘kicking the can down the road’, but is about taking stock on all sides, fully understanding what to deliver for best value and best outcomes for the people of Suffolk. Something perhaps that should have been mutually undertaken in the last couple of years of the existing contract, indeed some may have been part of setting the contract specification, but to have reached the current impasse suggests the process was not as complete as it could have been.
At present we are working with a budget that is inherited, poorly understood by the commissioning organisation, with inbuilt inflationary pressures and a lack of scope for making long-term savings. Libraries have changed considerably since Suffolk Libraries first formed: some services can be delivered digitally, but the real-life presence of staff and volunteers, a sense of community, and the feel of a real book remains core for vast majority of customers.
A third way: transparency, collaboration, and strategic insight
The current crossroads we face presents an unprecedented opportunity to reimagine library services through a collaborative, transparent and strategic approach. I propose a two-year diagnostic transition framework that offers:
- Comprehensive understanding: A zero budget analysis that provides crystal-clear insights into:
- Income streams
- Expenditure patterns
- Organisational capabilities
- Community impact
- Operational flexibility: retention of Suffolk Libraries’ unique strengths:
- Local community responsiveness
- Agile fundraising capabilities
- Innovative community hub potential
- Evidence-based decision making: a structured pathway that:
- Removes speculation
- Provides empirical data
- Maintains service continuity
- Protects community interests
Proven track record: beyond numbers – by way of our local context:
In less than two years at Framlingham Library, we have:
- Independently raised £40,000 for internal improvements
- Generated additional income through innovative space utilisation
- Demonstrated entrepreneurial spirit and community commitment
- Fully understood how libraries are key at times of significant events, be they personal (grief/health/employment/family breakdown) or community wide (floods)
The contrast:
Current council approach:
- Repeated scaffolding installations
- Unresolved infrastructure issues
- Lost revenue opportunities
- Service disruption
Our proposed collaborative approach:
- Transparent analysis
- Shared-decision-making
- Preserved local expertise
- Potential for enhanced service delivery
- Ability to examine cost savings and efficiencies jointly
The diagnostic transition: a strategiccCompromise
My proposed framework offers:
- A clear, time-bounded assessment period
- Dual potential outcomes
- Preservation of service quality
- Opportunity for strategic repositioning
- Access to potential future funding sources
An invitation to collaborative governance
This is not a defensive stance, but an invitation to:
- Understand Suffolk Libraries true value
- Explore mutually beneficial solutions
- Protect Suffolk’s rich and innovative library heritage
I respectfully request a collaborative review of the attached comprehensive diagnostic transition framework, which provides detailed insights into the proposed approach.
Vivia Bamford
Manager at Framlingham Library
Bamford has received a reply to her proposal. However, it is a reiteration of the points on the SCC website without addressing any of the points she raised.
Yesterday, five Suffolk MPs wrote to the leader of the council expressing their “concern” over the decision and requesting SCC postpones it to allow for “proper public consultation and scrutiny” and to give residents a chance to have their say.
The decision to bring Suffolk’s library service back in-house is to be discussed at the council meeting tomorrow afternoon, 18 March. There is an online petition with over 20,000 signatures: “Stop Suffolk County Council wrecking our fabulous local libraries!“
Chair of the Board of Trustees of Suffolk Libraries Silvia Knights:
