Minutes:
Question from Mr Chris
Henderson to Councillor Lorraine Lindsay-Gale
On 10th May the Government
released its roadmap for exiting lockdown, at which point it became clear that Libraries
would be allowed to open to the public from the 4th July. Local authorities
around the Country worked towards this date, Neighbouring Buckinghamshire, for
example, established a select and collect service from 22nd June and had their
entire library network open on 6th July.
Oxfordshire in contrast seemed
totally unprepared. A decision to phase re-opening was made in early May but it
remains unclear upon what basis. Despite a late change in timetable with the
opening date for the first tranche of libraries brought forward from the 31st
July to the 13th July there are at present only plans to have 11 sites open by
20th July with no date given for the rest of the network (at time of writing
this question).
Members of Library staff, keen
to provide a service to their public, were repeatedly told they should say
absolutely nothing about re-opening to the public who pay their wages or to
their Library Friends Groups with veiled threats of repercussions for anyone
who stepped out of line.
No information was available
on the County website until 7th July, in marked contrast to almost every other
local authority.
Can the Cabinet Member explain
what exceptional circumstances exist in Oxfordshire that make it so difficult
to re-open their library service?
Answer
Oxfordshire County Council is
in step with other local authorities in taking a planned approach to
reopening its public libraries and public facilities in a prioritised way,
making sure all staff and our communities are safe when they return to our
buildings.
Public Library services across
the UK are taking a slightly different approach to reopening their
services. Some library services have not
yet reopened, some libraries have opened some of their libraries and some have
offered a click and collect service only.
Derbyshire for example have
reopened a very small number of its libraries initially with residents having
to book an appointment to visit their library, Cambridge / Peterborough
reopened less than 1/4 of its libraries.
Dorset will continue a click and collect service for the foreseeable
future. Kent has reopened 12 of its 99 libraries for a click and collect
service. Milton Keynes and Wiltshire don't yet have a date for their libraries
to reopen.
We are pleased that our
planning will deliver a return to some of the things our residents
value and have missed over the last few extraordinary months. While
some library authorities are just planning a click and collect service, our
priority is to get people back into libraries in a safe and socially-distanced
way, so that they can choose their own books and access the range of other
services that our libraries offer.
They will be able to browse,
select their own materials, check these items out and of course return the
items to the library. All returns will do 72 hours in quarantine. Customers will be able to use the public
computers, and for our vulnerable residents libraries
will provide the bus pass and blue badge validation service. With visits
restricted to 30 minutes, we are maximising the opportunity for all members of
our community to access our libraries.
The first set of libraries opened yesterday; something I am sure you
will join with me in celebrating. And I can reconfirm we will continue a very
measured programme to open subsequent libraries in a planned and carefully
controlled way.
During lockdown our library staff have been very busy behind the scenes
supporting frontline customer services including:
·
Making calls to vulnerable residents
shielding
·
Supporting Registration services
with critical document distribution
·
Marshalling traffic when the
Household Waste Recycling Centres re-opened
I am proud to say that the Library service has also enhanced its ebook provision by £20,000, and has been delivering story
times, a creative writing series, book clubs, Lego clubs, poetry competitions,
origami sessions, podcasts, online homework and study resources, our digital
summer programme and of course our summer reading challenge. 882 people joined
online between April-June.
The Service have issued various social media and print press releases
advising the public that we are working on a phased re-opening. Library staff have been supported in
responding to online queries.
It would be inappropriate of me to comment in detail on internal
staffing matters however please be assured that my senior managers have
thoroughly reviewed information shared with staff both verbally and in writing
and can confirm our staff have been kept fully updated with plans for reopening
and key messages they can share with members of the public and friends of the
library groups. They are disappointed to receive your allegations of behaviour
they do not recognise.
Our focus now must be to get our staff into the libraries set to reopen
our doors to Oxfordshire residents in the weeks to come. As of yesterday,
The following libraries are
open:
· Oxfordshire County
Library with new enlarged lifts…
· Abingdon
· Thame
· Witney
· Bicester
· Didcot
The following libraries will
reopen on the week commencing 20 July 2020
· Banbury
· Cowley
· Carterton
· Henley
· Kidlington
Dates
for the reopening of libraries elsewhere in Oxfordshire will be published
in
due course.
Supplementary
I am delighted that we now have dates for
the opening of 11 Libraries in Oxfordshire.
Can you tell me when you will haves dates for the opening of the other
33 Libraries in Oxfordshire?
Answer
No, I’m afraid I cannot at the moment, but we
will be announcing them as soon as they are ready to open. The staff were working hard as a task force,
putting in all the safety measures that were now required in a calm and
measured way.
Question from Mr Peter Barnett
to Councillor Yvonne Constance
Following the disappointing allocation of Tranche 1 Emergency Active
Travel Funds (EATF) from DfT and, while I understand
the laudable intention of OCC to spread the funds in the bid evenly across the
county, will OCC commit to fully involve and consult, not just county
councillors, as in the EATF Tranche 1 bid, but also the various cycling and
other expert groups such as Cyclox and Build Back
Better - Oxford, in the development of the bid for EATF Tranche 2 funding, and
further will OCC commit that these groups will actually see the EATF Tranche 2
bid before it is submitted so that further mistakes are not made.
Answer
The Emergency Active Travel Fund was intended to enable walking and
cycling as lockdown restrictions were eased through ‘swift and meaningful plans
to reallocate road space to cyclists and pedestrians, including on strategic
corridors. Oxfordshire was given an indicative allocation of £597,000 for
tranche one. The conditions we were asked to comply with included spending the
money within eight weeks, and we were given 1 week to submit our proposal.
In developing the Oxfordshire proposal, officers started by reviewing
the outputs of the recently undertaken active travel member survey to ensure
that our bid reflected their priorities. We then shortlisted these based on the
measures we believed were consistent with the grant conditions and those that
were aligned with the priorities of the district and city councils. We also
ensured that the needs of the entire county were considered. In addition to new
temporary measures, we also proposed that we would add to any money from
Department for Transport (DfT) by reprioritising our
maintenance programmes, and also sought other funding
to enable more to be done, including the use of developer’s contributions. This
process was designed to ensure that we developed a package of measures that
would best meet the needs of Oxfordshire’s residents and communities as
lockdown restrictions were eased.
When we received formal notification of funding, we were advised that DfT had decided to award authorities either 25%, 50%, 75%
or 100% of their allocation. In some cases, authorities could receive more than
their indicative allocation. This was not stated in the original grant
conditions.
Oxfordshire received 50% of its indicative allocation. Feedback from DfT, suggested that they didn’t feel all
of our measures would achieve the meaningful shift to cycling and
walking. They said that “we did not see sufficient evidence of this in your
proposal and noted that a number of measures were around maintenance of
existing lanes and repainting of existing cycle lanes which is not the primary
purpose of the fund, so were not able to agree to the full indicative
allocation”. We suspect the approach of looking across Oxfordshire as a whole rather than concentrating on main urban areas may
have also had a bearing. This does seem to have been an issue across the
country, with many counties receiving approximately 50% of their allocation,
and many urban metropolitan areas receiving either 100% or 111% of their
allocation.
As set out above, the Active Travel Fund was just one of a number of funding sources that we are using to deliver
this programme, and I can confirm that all the measures we identified for the
tranche one programme will be still delivered. It is clear from the feedback
from DfT that any additional funding we could have
received from them would have had to be spent on measures that are in addition
to what is already planned, and so wouldn’t have reduced the financial pressure
to deliver our current programme.
We will be looking to increase our funding in tranche two, for which our
indicative allocation is £2.3m, and we will liaise closely with DfT to ensure we maximise our chances to achieve that. We
have not yet received any information from DfT on
tranche 2, but are told that it is imminent.
Supplementary
Will you commit to involve the coalition of Oxfordshire of Healthy
Streets and Active Travel (CoHSAT) in the development
of the Tranche 2 plans?
Answer
We will consult with as many groups as possible in the time allowed.