What South Gloucestershire Council library cuts mean for your branch

South Gloucestershire’s libraries will be closed for an extra 40 hours every week in total as part of huge cuts. But that is about half of what was originally proposed.

This is becauser the authority managed to find some savings elsewhere to cushion the blow for the books budget, which was initially going to be slashed by a quarter – £50,000 – but will now go down by £25,000.

Staffed opening times will be standardised in all 12 branches as 10am to 5pm on the weekdays they are open, plus three hours on Saturday. The overall annual cuts to the service were set at £473,000 when councillors approved the authority’s annual budget in February, but the spending reductions will now be £273,000 after officers and leaders found ways to plug some of the shortfall.

However, about 60 per cent of this will be through cuts to staffed hours – which Unison recently warned was “discriminatory” – with many branches set to close earlier than at present. The new opening times will mean Bradley Stoke, Thornbury, Yate, Downend, Filton, Hanham, Kingswood and Staple Hill libraries lose four opening hours a week, while Emersons Green, Cadbury Heath, Patchway and Winterboune lose two.

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The rest of the savings will be made through a management restructure and cancelling the Enquiry Service, which officers described at a recent scrutiny commission meeting as 'Google but with a human' doing the internet searches and is used by only a handful of people. A report to the Lib Dem/Labour cabinet, which is set to rubber-stamp the proposals, said the changes equated to a 12 per cent reduction in staffed hours.

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It said this was likely to disproportionately impact women, young people, over-60s, ethnic minorities – especially men – and disabled people. The report said the original planned cuts were scaled back following feedback from nearly 4,000 respondents during a 12-week consultation from October to January.

It said that initially a full day would be lost each week at Cadbury Heath, Patchway and Winterbourne libraries and half a day at Filton, Hanham, Kingswood, Downend and Staple Hill. The report said: “The feedback from the consultation was against the proposed reduction of staffed hours in favour of Open Access with 57.9 per cent of respondents opposed compared with 26.3 per cent in favour.

“Over half (53.1 per cent) of people who said they would be personally impacted by this change also said they would be less likely to visit their local library or would visit less often if opening hours were adjusted as proposed.” The Open Access service gives borrowers access to any branch after hours up to a certain time with a library card and PIN to enter.

The report said that following the feedback, the proposals changed so that a full-day reduction at Cadbury Heath, Patchway and Winterbourne became only a half day. It said: “Whilst these three libraries currently have the lowest footfall and fewest books issued, the consultation feedback, assessment and analysis demonstrates that local residents in these areas have more need of the support from a staffed library and that library staff would spend more time with people than in other busier libraries.

“The feedback on the initial proposal for libraries to close at lunchtimes in eight out of 12 libraries was that this would have a detrimental effect on children. It was felt that opening libraries at 2pm (following the initially proposed unstaffed lunch period) does not allow sufficient time for an afternoon school visit.

“The overwhelming feedback is that unstaffed hours during the lunch hour would be detrimental to both the public and staff.” The report said the eight branches where a full- or half-day closure was proposed would continue to be staffed at lunchtimes and that the original idea for half days where libraries opened for just three hours had been extended to five hours.

It said: “Consultation feedback showed opposition to reducing the book budget by £50,000 (25 per cent of total budget) with 61 per cent of respondents opposed, whilst only 22.9 per cent endorsed this as an approach. The revised proposal is to reduce the book budget by £25,000.

“There was support from the consultation for a reduction in the cost of the library service management structure. Two thirds (66.9 per cent) of respondents were in favour and only 11.6 per cent were opposed to this suggestion.

“A reduction in management team capacity is feasible and can make an important contribution to putting the library service on a sustainable footing without the risk of further reductions in staffed opening hours.”