Future Services Consultation 2024 - Annual spend on Library Stock Proposal

Insight Summary

Background

From 8 January to 31 March 2024, Hampshire County Council invited residents, partners, and stakeholders to provide their views on options to change and reduce some local services to help the Authority address a £132 million budget shortfall faced by April 2025.

One of the options proposed was to reduce annual spend on new library stock by £200,000 and invited views on preferences for how that be achieved and a number of options the service should consider when purchasing new stock.

Who responded to the proposal?

  • In total, 4,500 responses were received to this proposal via the consultation response form, of which 38 were from organisations and 36 were from democratically Elected Representatives.
  • Responses were received from all parts of the County, ranging from 128 in the borough of Gosport to 620 in the district of East Hampshire.
  • Of those who indicated their age, the respondents were generally evenly spread across the age bands with the exception of those aged under 25, from whom only 49 responses were received.
  • 1,102 respondents were from households with a child or young person under 19 years
  • 3,118 of respondents had used the library service in the last 3 years, 87% of which had used the service in the last 12 months.
  • 3,247 respondents were library members.
  • 2,657 respondents had used physical library books in the last 3 years, 1,039 had used digital library books, 1,060 had used other library information resources and 2,379 had used other library services.
  • Respondents were invited to add further comments to support their views on this proposal via an open-ended question. This allowed people to expand on impacts they felt the proposed changes would cause and suggest alternative courses of action. 1,287 respondents left an open text comment in relation to the proposal. 86 respondents also commented on the proposal to reduce library stock in the any further comments open text box at the end of the consultation, designed to capture any further feedback to any of the proposals in the consultation. All of these comments have been shared with the service for consideration.
  • A further 24 responses were received through direct correspondence via letter or email (unstructured responses) which included comments relating to this proposal. 10 of these were individuals, 11 from organisations and 3 from democratically elected representatives. These included a mixture of support and opposition to the proposal and featured a number of comments and suggestions which are consistent with those made via the consultation response forms and which have all been directed to the service for consideration.
  • In order to help capture the views of young people about the overall FSC consultation, members of the Hampshire Youth Forum (aged between 11 and 18) were invited to consider the proposals, including the proposal on library stock, and attend a discussion group to share their feedback. The comments and suggestions have been shared with the service for consideration.

Levels of agreement with this proposal

Around half of respondents expressing a view (52%) disagreed with the proposal, compared to just over a third (35%) who agreed with it. Of these 28% strongly disagreed and 11% strongly agreed. 13% of respondents neither agreed or disagreed with the proposal.

What is driving disagreement with this proposal?

Certain groups of people disagreed with the proposed funding reduction more than others:

  • Those who had used the library service in the last year were more likely to disagree with the proposal to reduce spend (64%) than those who had used the library in the last 1 to 3 years (40% of whom disagreed). They were much more likely to disagree with the proposal than those who had used the library more than 3 years ago (only 22% disagreed).
  • Those with a membership card/ borrower number were far more likely to disagree with the proposal (58%) than non-members (26%).
  • People under 25 years old expressing a preference were more likely than other age groups to disagree with the proposal (72% disagreed compared with 47-54% in other age groups).
  • Responses on behalf of organisations were more likely to be in disagreement with the proposal (66%), especially charity, voluntary or local community groups (70%).
  • Respondents in Rushmoor were notably more likely to disagree with the proposal (63%) than respondents from other areas (52% overall).

The data suggest that the primary driver of objection to the proposal relates to the impacts it may have (outlined in a separate section below), but perhaps even more so, the wider value many respondents consider the library service as a whole plays to society. Of 659 further comments received on the proposal, 66% described valuable features of libraries as follows (in order of regularity):

  • supporting education, life-long learning and love of reading
  • enabling equality of access to information and services
  • promoting strong communities
  • enhancing well-being and quality of life
  • providing safe, warm spaces
  • promoting prosperity

"Books are educational and encourage people of all ages to broaden their knowledge. This country already has sparse book collections in homes and schools due to austerity and cost of living crisis."

"Concerned about the risk to the social support provided by libraries - and the company and lifeline for the older population. From school uniform donations, to support groups, Internet access to those without Broadband or IT equipment - enabling them to apply for jobs, etc. to early years groups - libraries go far beyond books to support a wide range of our population."

"Being able to read eBooks that I borrow from the library is a lifeline and something that really enhances my quality of life. Already there are sometimes long waits to be able to download books, so I would be concerned if this service was to reduce."

What is driving agreement with this proposal?

The comments in support of agreeing with the proposal fall into four main categories:

  • the specific proposal to reduce stock is preferable to having to close libraries
  • the specific proposal is likely to have little impact on the service received
  • libraries are becoming less relevant so there is little overall impact
  • at the moment, there are more important priorities than library stock for public funds (especially given the consultation was presented as part of the suite of Future Services proposals across all Directorates)

“Not a fundamental change to the service probably only increases waiting time for new items or demands more persistence from users to access or request what they want. No apparent material impact on the vulnerable in our society.”

“Although I am a former public librarian, I think this is an out-dated concept now when people are able to access most of their information needs online and their recreational needs through cheap paperbacks. There are more important things to spend the money on, such as roads that we all need to use and support for the vulnerable and elderly where they genuinely cannot afford it themselves”.

Preferred way to reduce annual spend on stock

Of those who expressed a view, 47% preferred the reduction to be through a combination of physical and digital stock reduction, 27% preferred this to be achieved through digital stock reduction only, and 12% preferred this to be achieved through physical stock reduction only. 15% were unsure.

"My experience as a grandmother is that libraries are used most frequently by young children and older people - and are a fantastically appreciated resource. Both young and old prefer hard copies to digital."

"We need to have physical books - not everyone can access digital copies."

Certain groups of people had different preferred ways to achieve the stock reduction than other groups:

  • Over two and a half times more respondents said they had used physical books in last three years than had used digital books. Those who had used digital books were more likely to prefer a reduction in physical stock spend than digital (19% vs 16%), and those who used physical stock would prefer the opposite (8% vs 34%). However, the strongest preference of both groups was for a combined reduction (47% and 44% respectively).
  • Those who had used library services more recently were more likely to prefer the spend reduction to be achieved through digital only than those who had used library services less recently (32% for those who had used in the last 12 months, 21% for those who had used in the last 3 years and 16% for the who had last used over 3 years ago). However, the first preference for all these groups was for a combined reduction.
  • Organisations were notably more likely to prefer the savings were met from digital stock only (45% compared with 27% for all respondents), this being their main preference.
  • Elected members were significantly more likely to prefer to see a combined stock reduction (74% compared with 47% for all respondents).

Considerations when purchasing new stock

  • 81% of respondents indicated the service should consider buying mostly paperback rather than hardback books when purchasing new stock, with no single group less than 73% in agreement.
  • 72% of respondents indicated the service should consider buying a variety of items rather than the most popular items when purchasing new stock, with no single group less than 63% in agreement.
  • 92% of respondents indicated the service should consider buying a wider range of titles with fewer copies of each title, rather than a narrower range of newly released titles with more copies of each, with no single group less than 86% in agreement.

"It’s important to keep as diverse a range of material as we can. Cut down the number of Fastbacks, worrying less about new releases."

  • 66% of respondents indicated the service should consider focusing wholly on books rather than also including other resources such as newspapers and magazines. All groups were in agreement, with the exception of democratically Elected Representatives (46%, with 54% preferring a range of resources) and those who had used other resources in the last 3 years (43%, with 57% preferring a range of resources).

"The focus should be on making sure libraries have lot of fiction and non-fiction books. Magazines are less important."

Priority considerations for reducing spend on stock

310 respondents also put forward specific alternative suggestions for managing stock reduction for the service to consider. As well as comments which repeated or expanded on the points raised above, the most frequently mentioned point (21% of the alternative stock management suggestions) was to prioritise stock to support the encouragement of reading for children.

"Children's books should not be affected by cuts. This is so important to give all children an equal chance."

"I am the librarian in a Hampshire primary school; we make regular use of the School Library Service, borrowing up to 500 books per year. This year we have also introduced the pupils to Sora, the online library, which many of the children are now using, particularly for audio books and magazines. Hampshire SLS always provide us with a wide range of up-to-date fiction and non-fiction titles that would be impossible for the school to purchase. Please ensure funding for Hampshire libraries will be sufficient to maintain a wide variety of genres for children to borrow, to enhance their learning and encourage reading for pleasure."

Main impacts of the proposed change

The overall comments provided about this proposal were also analysed to understand what potential impacts the proposal could have if it were to be implemented.

260 out of 1,286 people (20%) who chose to provide comments on this proposal mentioned a potential impact of the proposal in their feedback.

  • The most frequently highlighted impact (53%) was that the proposal would damage access to an important public service, and some felt that this would also render the service less relevant (14%) which would result in fewer people using the service.

"The cuts to library services have already been shocking with reduced hours and branches closed. The library is a vital service and stock budgets should not be reduced."

“The result will be the hollowing out of the library service such that it will become pointless.”

  • A small number of comments mentioned that reducing the stock budget would prevent access to some titles (7%) and that it would impact on waiting times and the availability of popular titles (7%).
  • 9% of comments felt that the impact would be low.

Impacts on protected characteristics

934 respondents indicated in the Response Form which characteristics or issues they felt would correspond with the impacts of the changes proposed for reducing spend on library stock. Respondents were able to select any of the protected characteristics covered by the Equality Act 2010, as well as poverty, rurality, and environmental impacts. Of these responses:

  • 45% indicated the impact related to age
  • 45% related to poverty
  • 35% related to disability
  • 27% related to rurality

Other characteristics were mentioned at lower levels.

When providing comments on the proposals, 260 respondents mentioned likely impacts, of which 43% specifically related to specific groups who depend on the library who would be affected including:

  • people in/near poverty or on low incomes
  • both older people and children
  • those with no internet/IT access at home
  • neurodivergent people

"One of my children is autistic… She cannot be using digital books at night-time before sleeping or in the middle of the night when she can’t sleep as technology at night isn’t good for her eyes. We are encouraging our children to read rather than using phones tablets etc. Taking books/libraries away will have a detrimental effect on children. I couldn’t afford to let her read the amount she does if it wasn’t for having access to local libraries. This also massively helps calm her….”

"Cuts in this service will disproportionately affect users who are unable to access the internet."

"Removal of this service would unduly affect those less well-off within the community."

Suggested alternatives to the proposal

681 out of 1,286 people (53%) who chose to provide comments on this proposal provided suggested alternatives to the proposal or suggestions for how the service could be carried out differently.

Aside from the comments relating to stock reduction processes outlined above, the most frequently mentioned suggestions were to:

  • make better use of second-hand material (24%).
  • develop more income generation opportunities or chargeable services (17%)
  • join forces to manage stock (e.g. rotating between libraries, working with other councils to procure or share stock, co-ordinating with school libraries) (6%)
  • find other efficiency savings including in the wider council to avoid the need for stock reduction (5%)

There were a wide range of additional and detailed suggestions which have been passed to the Directorate for consideration, both in relation to preparing recommendations on this proposal and for managing the service generally.