Between February and December 2006 Staffordshire Library Service underwent comprehensive restructuring. This included workforce remodelling and a refined focus on two strategic priorities: children and young people and the learning agenda, which delivered savings of £300,000 to Staffordshire Library Service.
The newly remodelled and refocused service has demonstrated clear improvements in participation from children and young people and in learning activities in the service. As a result, it has attracted £325,000 additional funding from HM Treasury and Adult and Community Learning. For example, the number of participants in Family Learners Week in 2006/7 was 1,117 participants, but by 2008/9 there were 7,238.
Before the changes took place, the library service was in danger of slipping down the hierarchy of the Local Authority decision-making structures and losing funding. It was trying to deliver a wide range of strategic priorities but was not managing to demonstrate effectiveness or impact.
In 2006 Staffordshire Library Service was transferred from the Culture and Property Directorate to the Children’s Directorate as service believed that it urgently needed to refocus so that it was able to deliver against the five outcomes of the Children’s Act and show its contribution.
Vision for service
Before embarking on changes to the service, the acting head of library services set out the vision for service reform. The three key objectives of the restructuring were defined as:
• demonstrating the relevance of the service to the children’s agenda
• improving structures
• delivering cost savings
The new vision for the service was articulated in relation to the Local Authority’s own objectives for culture, education and children’s services to ensure that the library service was well integrated into Local Authority structures. Children, Learning and Reading were chosen as the strategic focus because they defined what cultural services offer through areas of work that were tangible, understood in a Local Authority context, and seen as a good partner for other organisations working within the council.
Workforce evaluation
The argument for change was presented to staff along with a clear timeline of how the reform would be implemented and this was strictly adhered to so that confidence and trust was built and the minimum distress caused.
An evaluation of workforce structures revealed significant overlaps in job roles and far too many decisions about service delivery being taken by senior managers. The number of job descriptions in the service was reduced from 32 to eight with eight district management teams responsible for decisions about service delivery in their area. These are supported by five professional librarians who work across all districts in service development roles.
The newly devolved management teams were then invited to develop their own individual plans to help the service meet its targets. Task groups were set up in each to look at how to equip staff to deliver against the new objectives and put the necessary training and resources in place.
Following these changes, progress on specific objectives was measured and the following results were achieved:
• The number of children participating in the Summer Reading Challenge rose from 1,000 to 9,000 in the first year.
• The number of children aged 0-4 participating in library activities and events moved from 22,000 in 2006-7 to over 40,000 in 2008/9.
Janene Cox, Assistant Director for Culture and Libraries in Staffordshire said: “Developing joint aims and objectives for our service which are clear, defining target audiences and engaging those audiences has been hugely important- stating clearly what we are about and sticking to that message has made a real difference”
For more detailed information on Wigan Trust libraries please visit the case study section on the MLA research website
September 2009