Issue - meetings

That the Committee continues to support progress in developing the library service that will see an improvement in performance in 2016/17. 

The Chair welcomed Kate Leonard, Libraries Development Manager, to the meeting.

                        Councillor Chris Bithell, introduced the report to update the Committee on progress against Public Library Standards.  He provided background information and reported on the performance of the library service against the Standards, as detailed in the report.  Councillor Bithell reported that in 2015-16 Flintshire had met 17 of the 18 core entitlements in full and had partially met 1.  This was expected to be 18 in the next return as all service points would offer Wi-Fi.  He advised that the annual assessment of performance was appended to the report.                 

                        The Libraries Development Manager explained that the concerns which had been raised in the annual assessment were being addressed.  She referred to the under use of ICT provision in some libraries and explained that progress was being made towards enabling service users to access Wi-Fi provision via their own equipment, for example laptop and tablets. 

Councillor Dave Mackie asked if information could be provided to  enable the Committee to compare the improvement in the performance of the library service between this year and the previous year. The Libraries Development Manager agreed to provide comparison data to the Committee.

Councillor Carolyn Thomas commented on the need to promote tourism and leisure services in Flintshire and suggested that libraries could take a more pro-active role in raising awareness.   

Councillor Robin Guest commented that the public library standards report should be put to the Committee closer to publication to assist  consideration of budget matters. 

The Chief Officer (Organisational Change 1) advised that the New Library framework report would be submitted to the next meeting of the Committee to be held  on 6 February 2017.

RESOLVED:

That the Committee continues to support progress in developing the library service that will see an improvement in performance in 2016/17.