Council decisions

This report sets out the Council’s decision to commission an independent facilitator to run consultation events, analyse feedback from the public, and produce a final report on the 2014-15 consultation on Barnet’s future library service.

One tender was received in response to this exercise, from Opinion Research Services (ORS) in partnership with the specialist library consultancy firm Shared Intelligence.  The proposed approach was of high quality and offered value for money.

The Council took the decision to award the contract to ORS and Shared Intelligence at a cost of £80,930.

Councillor Reuben Thompstone introduced the report and moved reception and adoption. Councillor Thompstone further moved the amendments in his name.  Councillor Anne Hutton moved her amendments. Debate ensued.

Votes were taken on Councillor Thompstone’s amendments. Votes were recorded as follows:

For: 32

Against: 31

The amendments were carried and became the substantive motion.

Votes were taken on Councillor Hutton’s amendments. Votes were recorded as follows:

For: 31

Against: 32

The amendments were lost.

Votes were taken on the recommendations as amended. At least ten members called for a formal division on the voting. Upon the vote being taken the results of the Division were declared as follows:

For: 32

Against: 31

Absent: 0

TOTAL: 63

RESOLVED that:

1.    Council agree the proposed vision, outcomes and objectives for the library service as set out in section 1.2 of the report.

2.    Council agree that the options set out in section 1.23 of the report – or a combination of the three – should be the preferred options for the library service and approve the commencement of consultation on these options in accordance with the consultation plan as set out in section 4.2 of the report, subject to Option 1 being amended so that the first sentence of the second bullet point reads: “Outside these four libraries, the library space within each building would be reduced in size depending on requirement, leaving a minimum of 540 square feet on average”.

3.    Council agree that an open library will be trialled at Edgware library at detailed in section 4.6 of this report.

4.    Council note that following this period of consultation, a report will be presented to a future meeting of the Children’s, Education, Libraries and Safeguarding Committee. It is intended that this would be in Spring 2015.

This report attaches an assessment of an application for a grant in support of the SPACES High Barnet resident group who are seeking to take resident action to improve and maintain a public area within the Chipping Barnet library grounds.

Libraries calls, along with children’s service duty rota and fostering calls were identified in the contract as “Deferred Services” within the Customer Service Output specification and should have been transferred as an agreed change following service commencement. However, due to the delays in signing the contract the calls were transferred into the contact centre by the Council prior to the Contract Service Commencement Date for CSG and without formal agreement. This now necessitates a formal variation to the contract to adjust for the increased call volumes.