Northamptonshire County Council is facing unprecedented financial challenges as it has to face up to huge reductions in government funding and a massive increase in demand for its services. An estimated £136 million needs to be saved over the next four years.

To have your say about the draft budget proposals for the Library Service listed below, please visit the You Choose website www.youchoosencc.wordpress.com/ .

How much do we need to save?

• Your Library service spends £6,309,198 a year.
• £956,060 of this is income generated by the service.
• This means the actual cost is £5,350,138.

It is proposed to contribute £937,000 to our financial challenge in the following ways:

Closure of Libraries - saving £177,800

We are consulting on the following closures and savings:

 

Library	Savings	People who only borrowed from this library in past 12 months
Finedon	£24,800	230
St James	£25,200	307
Irchester	£36,900	401
Danesholme	£19,200	407
Woodford Halse	£26,800	432
Roade	£38,500	458
Moulton	£45,000	518
Wollaston	£31,200	550
Total	£247,600	3,303

 

About 6,000 people borrow from these 8 libraries. However we know that 3,303 people have solely used these libraries.

As you can see from the difference between the total saving required and the total saving from these eight libraries, we really do want your views on which libraries to close.

Reducing the mobile libraries from four to two - saving £66,700

Many of our customers borrow from a mobile library and a static one. We will focus the service on those customers who only borrow from a mobile library. This is largely in the rural areas where access to services is limited.

Reducing our Professional Librarians - saving £285,500

The One to One service will be withdrawn. However there will still be 17.5 librarians covering children and young people, work in the community, local studies, information work at our central library and individuals to co-ordinate work and business support, health and well being, inter-generational and work with newcomers to the county.

Reducing our management and support staff - saving £297,000

This includes management posts, caretakers and a range of support staff in order to protect the frontline services as much as possible.  Customers are likely to experience some service delays.

Efficiency savings - saving £10,000

We intend to achieve this by only contacting you through e-mail or mobile phone.

Stopping the further roll out of Discovery zones - saving £100,000

Our Discover Kettering zone is a great place to discover the past of your town. We will complete Discover Northampton by the end of March and then cease the programme.

Predicted income shortfall met by saving £150,000

We struggle to meet out income target currently and predict this will worsen in cash-strapped times for everyone.

Protecting opening hours and the book and media fund
 

Opening hours

We know that customers most value access to libraries through convenient and easy to remember opening hours and most value the range and choice of books and other media they find there.

We significantly improved the opening hours in 2008 thanks to the introduction of self service. We are keeping the opening hours because if there are fewer libraries, you will need to rely on good opening hours so that you can reach and use alternative ones.

The book and media fund

Our Book and Media fund currently invests £1.2 million each year. This is £100,000 less than it should be for our current population. As our county grows, we really need another £400,000. 

Each year, people take out over 3 million loans and this is currently growing by 6%. On average, each item is borrowed 7 times. 

We get the best value for money by buying in a consortium with 40 other library services. This is the lifeblood of the service and  still the reason to come to their library for the majority of people."

End

IF YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS OR OBJECT TO ROADE LIBRARY CLOSING PLEASE LOG ONTO www.youchoosencc.wordpress.com/