Hampshire County Council

Executive Member - Recreation and Heritage Item 8

16 September 2004

Recreation and Heritage Policy Review Committee Item 10

16 September 2004

Library Opening Hours - Future Developments

Report of the Director of Recreation and Heritage

Contact: Richard Ward Tel: 01962 826621

1. Summary

1.1 The following decisions are sought:

i. Libraries be open to the public on Easter Saturday with effect from 2006, at minimal cost

ii A costed plan be developed which would enable the introduction of library opening on Sundays and selected Bank Holidays depending on local need

iii The current pattern of closing at Christmas and New Year be maintained.

iv The Director of Recreation and Heritage investigate a pilot scheme for evening opening in appropriate parts of the County

2. Reason

Libraries are losing readers and one of the key reasons is that they are not open at times the public find convenient. This report recommends examining ways of improving opening hours, and is intended to assist meeting Aim 5 of the Corporate Strategy - Improving services.

3. Other options considered and rejected

None.

4. Conflicts of interest declared by the decision maker or other Executive Member consulted

None.

5. Dispensation granted by the Standards Committee - Not applicable.

6. Reason(s) for the matter being dealt with if urgent

Not applicable.

Approved by: (signature) Date: (of decision)

............................... .........................

Councillor J. Waddington

Hampshire County Council

Recreation and Heritage Policy Review Committee Item 10

16 September 2004

Executive Member - Recreation and Heritage Item 8

16 September 2004

Library opening hours: future developments

Report of the Director of Recreation and Heritage

Contact: Richard Ward (01962 826621)

This report is intended to assist meeting Aim 5 of the Corporate Strategy - Improving services - by improving the opening hours of the library service.

1. Introduction

1.1 When people are surveyed as to why they do not make use of libraries they often quote unsuitable opening hours as a key reason. One of the Public Library Standards is on opening hours and Hampshire does not meet that standard. The performance is improving with extra resources having been made available in 2004/05 to increase opening hours in 19 libraries.

1.2 User satisfaction with opening hours is declining significantly. The key evidence for this is from the Public Library User Survey (PLUS) 2003 - a nationally validated survey. Even though, when the survey was carried out, the new hours were not in place neither had they been reduced, leading to the conclusion that expectations must have risen.

1.3 Traditionally libraries have closed on Bank Holidays and Sundays with their opening hours broadly following those of local shops. However the retailing revolution of the last twenty years has rather left libraries behind. Shops are now open much longer hours and many town centres are lively bustling places at times when the libraries are closed.

1.4 This report recommends that a development plan be produced for library opening hours beginning with all libraries opening on Easter Saturday and following up with an examination of Bank Holidays and Sundays. For reasons covered in paragraph 4 it is recommended that the existing pattern of Christmas and New Year closing be maintained for the time being.

1 Easter

1.1 Traditionally libraries have closed at Easter for Good Friday, Saturday, and Easter Monday. Any library open on Sundays normally would close at Easter. The Saturday is not a statutory holiday and staff hours of duty are adjusted to take this into account.

1.2 The Saturday closing is anomalous and leads to potential and actual customers being disadvantaged when they visit the library and find it closed.

1.3 The Easter Holiday long weekend is a valued time for staff when they all may have the certainty of knowing that on that one weekend in the year they will be able to be with their families. However, this undoubted benefit needs to be compared with the needs of the public service, and those needs should be given priority. Moreover, the expected changes to the academic year with the introduction of six terms will inevitably lead to changes in family holiday expectations.

1.4 Easter 2005 falls within the current leave year, and holiday rotas have in many cases already been made up and staff holidays booked, therefore it is recommended that formal negotiations with the staff are undertaken with the aim of achieving opening on Easter Saturday with effect from 2006.

2 Sundays and Bank holidays

2.1 As a local government service to the public it has always been the case that libraries have closed on Sundays and Bank Holidays. In the past that caused no problems - most shops were closed as well and the libraries, had they been open, would probably have been very quiet. With changes in retail practices over the last few years it is no longer the case that Sundays and Bank Holidays are times when town centres are deserted and it is appropriate to begin considering opening libraries on these days.

2.2 Evidence from those library authorities which have introduced large scale Sunday opening is that it is very popular and attracts different users from those using the service during the week. In Hampshire Havant Library is open on Sundays.

2.3 Major changes such as these are likely to bring more resistance from staff than may be expected over Easter Saturday and it would be unduly optimistic to expect swift progress to be made. It may even be the case that not every library should open on every Sunday or Bank Holiday but it is appropriate to begin the thinking about what will be a radical change to the service, and to the staff terms and conditions. Consultation will take place with staff and their representatives to facilitate the process.

2.4 Each library will require a decision based upon its local needs and in some cases it may be that no overall increase in hours is required merely a re-balancing to make the opening times more suitable.

3 Christmas and New year

3.1 The Christmas and New Year period is traditionally amongst the quietest times for the library service. Experience over many years has shown that book borrowing tends to decline and overall use of the service is at its lowest. Many businesses and commercial organisations seem to close down for ever longer periods to the extent that linking the two holidays is now not uncommon.

3.2 The library service must be open and available to its users at times they find useful and a complete closure of the service between Christmas and New Year would be clearly inappropriate. However, there are three statutory days to be fitted in to the two weeks, and the well-established convention is that libraries, in common with most other County Council services, do not operate on Christmas Eve. There is the further complication that when one of the days concerned happens to be a Saturday or Sunday staff are entitled to compensatory days off.

3.3 The current pattern of closure is shown in the Appendix, and it is recommended that this pattern be continued for the time being at least with any changes introduced, if at all, after the lessons have been learned from other Bank Holiday periods.

Recommendations

That the following proposals be supported and submitted to the Executive Member for Recreation and Heritage for his consideration.

i. Libraries be open to the public on Easter Saturday with effect from 2006, at minimal cost

ii. A costed plan be developed which would lead to the introduction of library opening on Sundays and selected Bank Holidays

iii. The current pattern of closing at Christmas and New Year be maintained.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background papers.

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or in important part of it, are based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

N.B the list excludes:

1. Published Works.

Public Library User Survey 2003. Library Headquarters, North Walls, Winchester.