Author: Simon Perry
Council To Fight Libraries Legal Injunction
2:52 pm Tuesday, 12th July, 2011, Isle of Wight
ShortURL: http://wig.ht/28Gr
Read More- Budget Cuts, Island-wide, Law & Order, Library, News
Isle of Wight council have decided to fight the legal action being brought to oppose the closure many of the Island’s libraries, VentnorBlog has discovered.
VB‘s been asking IWC if they plan to fight the injunction brought by a Island resident, but to date they haven’t confirmed it – they’ve only acknowledged receipt of the legal papers after it was confirmed that legal aid was granted enabling the action to start.
Buried away
Hidden away in the latest Delegated Decision on the libraries (below) is the following paragraph, mentioned after the letter of representation from Solicitors, Leigh Day and Co …
The Council have responded to the letter advising that it would be opposing the applications being made to the court and that it is satisfied that it will continue to meet its statutory duty in the provision of a library service. It also advised that it has consulted and taken decisions appropriately, taking into account relevant communications
Confirmed
We spoke to Robert Norgrove at Leigh Day, who confirmed that the council wrote to them yesterday saying that they’d fight the action, but didn’t provide any detailed reasoning. It’s expected that it will follow shortly.
We followed up with the council to confirm it is how it reads and are awaiting their reply.
Extending The Support To Community Libraries – Record of Decision
Image: Antmoose under CC BY 2.0
The amount of momey this Council will spend on legal advice etc would probably be enough to keep the libraries open. It’s total hypocrisy for them to cut the public library service to make savings when at the same time can find money to fight a legal case.
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Er, aren’t they only having to fight the case because they’ve been challenged in the courts? In which case it’s the challengers that are making them spend the money.
If the Council should never defend itself in the courts, I think I’ll put in a claim that I own all Council properties. If the council can’t challenge the claim then I can freely sell them all off and keep the money. Then I can move down to Barbados where the sunshine is a bit more reliable than it has been here the last few weeks.
Fine by you?
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But you cannot prove your title to the properties, therefore you have no claim.
The Council have a duty to provide a Library Service to the people of Bembridge, the challengers say they are not and say they are able prove that claim.
The Council now have a choice, keep the Libraries open or waste the same (or even more) money fighting to close them. They are choosing the latter
Fine by you?
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I curse our Council!
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Please VB, ask them if they have set a budget for this new legal acrtion? If not, what do they expect to spend? They must have a figure ?
You can’t just go legal and leave the astronomic costs open-ended? That is how they ended up spending millions of our pounds on Undercliff Drive lawyers.
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This council never discusses money (well not until after they’ve wasted it on hair-brained schemes). Everything is fine, they do a brilliant imitation of a flock of ostriches pretending that if they cannot see it, its not going to happen. This could ending up costing more than the library closures will save! What sort of high risk economics it that?
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What a total and utter waste of our money – the people of the island want to keep all our libraries open, run by professionals and funded centrally. The council are going against that and are using our money to do so. Barking.
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It’s a bit like paying £1.00 a go on a slot machine that only pays a 50p jackpot.
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How absurd! They are using money from public library cuts to fund legal advice about public library cuts so they can make public library cuts.
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i normally hate council bashing but in this case bring out the baseball bat. What an incredible waste of money. The invertebrates dont even have the balls to announce their decision and instead bury it away in paperwork.
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Anon: Yours must be quote of the month?
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nah.
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“invertebrates”
:-)
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we have 2 full time libraries, 4 part time that we have for the forciable future in the councils own words, and 5 under threat of closure , we are going round in circles as sooner or later we may still end up with only 2 libraries for the whole island, can we just sit back and hope it doesnt happen,,,
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if the council fight the injunction, then its obvious they will then be just as heavy handed on the community groups to sign up the leases as quick as possible, without them getting a real opportunity to think about what they are signing up to for years to come, even with legal advise, its a daunting responsibility, to be responsible for your community library if it all goes wrong,
just where is all the money going to come from, to support the full maintenance and insurance,
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well if the council cannot afford to hold onto at least the library building how do they expect local people to find the money, especially as they have already paid out on council tax they will be paying twice , on princible they should refuse to sign these leases the council are treating everyone as idiots. they would have to retain them then, otherwise how will they argue this in court that they are offering a comprehensive service if we lose 5 and 4 more are in doubt.
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They’re trying to do now what they should have done before to make their legal case stronger-ie,hold a proper consultation excercise. I think we need to be paying attention to this.
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Also they’re tring to do a bit more of a facilitation excercise with some of the more friendly groups-be afraid-the legal department is.
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That would be ‘trying’.
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A council spokesman said today, “Even though the Council have wasted millions of pounds of council tax payers money on the Ryde Esplanade Gateway, annual parking charges, propaganda, refurbishing County Hall, consultations on PFI, ECO and other madcap schemes, directors and executives salaries, perks, brown envelopes, expenses and much more, they are committed to providing value for money public services”.
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You really couldn’t make this up if you tried. Here we have a Council who are apparently prepared to write an open ended cheque for legal fees.
The Chief Exec. of the Council, our Mr.Benyon has presumably authorized this,(our money), to be flushed down the toilet.
If you want to read some real twaddle, see if you can get a sight of the newsletter he puts out by email on a regular basis.
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Mr Beynon may sign off on this internal newsletter but he doesn’t write it. Most staff don’t believe a word of it and many bin it without reading it in order to avoid an increase in blood pressure. A particular cause of high blood pressure is him banging on about how valued staff are. Pull the other one mate.
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Just for you Fred, here is today’s muse..
Dear Colleague
This week the Prime Minister launched the Open Public Services White Paper, outlining Government’s intention to open many areas of public sector activity to outside providers.
The Government has promised a ‘wide ranging discussion’ up to the end of September, during which further details and a timeline for implementation will emerge.
In essence, the White Paper seeks to evolve the current model of public service – which the Government perceives to be too centralised and prescriptive – into one in which communities and individuals have more choice and decision-making power.
Running parallel with this philosophy is also the recognition that public services must change because of the need to reduce the national deficit.
Certainly on the Island, measures have already been taken that clearly accord with the principles set out in the white paper. Indeed the schools re-organisation which has established us at the first UK LEA to have its entire secondary education provision outside of direct local authority control (we retain accountability of course) shows we are ahead of the game in this respect – a point that has been noted by Government.
Whilst many people will have differing views on (and indeed different interpretations of) ‘Big Society’, this is clearly the direction in which public service is heading. Our requirement is to make sure we respond to this change in a manner that ensures the standard and range of local services – however they are provided – remain both comprehensive and of good quality.
As mentioned last week, we have this week extended the time available to those groups we are supporting in taking on the running of five community libraries. This process is a complex and detailed one and there are numerous issues that have to be addressed before what may initially appear to be straightforward changes can be brought to fruition.
In some ways, the library experience may be a timely harbinger for the realities of the localism agenda. We await further details of this white paper with great interest.
In the meantime I would like to highlight three areas that remain not just very much in our remit but also distinct priorities for us.
Firstly Ofsted yesterday announced the results of its annual unannounced inspection of contact, referral and assessment arrangements within our children’s services. The inspection identified two areas of strength along with areas that met requirements and also some areas for development. The inspection acknowledged previous areas for development had been addressed in the main and also noted the success we have had in the crucial area of staff recruitment and retention where vacancy levels have fallen from 41 per cent in 2010 to just four percent at the time of the inspection.
While there is clearly remains work required both in maintaining our strengths and in addressing development areas I would thank all those involved who have contributed to the undoubted improvement in this crucial service area.
I would also like to mention that two bids for funding under the Regional Growth Fund (RGF) have been submitted. The first is a tourism-related bid to establish a £1.3 million investment fund, offering Island businesses matching funding to help upgrade their premises. This could include hotels providing additional facilities to achieve a higher star rating.
The second bid is for funding to develop a Solent Ocean Energy Centre to provide facilities to test prototype tidal energy devices and develop a commercial tidal energy facility off the south coast of the Island. We are seeking a £1.2 million contribution to support a total investment of £3.4 million towards the energy centre development. It refines an unsuccessful bid to the RGF earlier this year and is bolstered by support from potential partners in what is an exciting and imaginative concept.
I would like to thank staff for their work in developing these bids which will, if successful, make a real contribution to our regeneration aims and to the Island.The third area is our ongoing commitment to invest in family and adult learning. We published our latest adult learning plan this week whilst holding two events where Cllr Cousins has presented certificates and awards to those families and adults who have gained recognition and accreditation through our courses over the past school year.
Working in partnership with schools and children’s centre this service has worked with over 600 families this year and through their efforts have helped to raise the self esteem and confidence of both children and their parents. It was good to see the involvement of some grandparents too who were able to share their experiences with younger parents in supporting their children in basic literacy and numeracy whilst having fun in games and activities that the whole family can share. My thanks also to staff working so effectively in this area as well.
Steve Beynon
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