The Cambridgeshire Libraries Service annual report paints a miserable picture of underfunding

Posted byCambridge Town OwlPosted inUncategorized

It didn’t need to be like this but successive governments and councils have cut the libraries and archives service to the bone – to the extent that it can barely provide the bare minimum. Yet some of the Closer to Communities pilots show it’s not all bad news – as young people from Fenland and East Cambs have shown

You can read the Libraries and Archives Service Report from Cambridgeshire County Council at item 8 here. Councillors on Communities, Social Mobility and Inclusion Committee will be debating the findings on 16 January 2025 at their HQ in Alconbury, which is ***ages away*** from Cambridge and has no decent public transport service. Which is why I hope the overhaul of local government being brought in by the new Government will get rid of this Tory nonsense of having the county HQ in a miserable anonymous identikit squat little building stuck out on a business park in the middle of nowhere. Mindful that no one has come up with a decent proposal for old Shire Hall. My view remains that a new City Hall should be built for the new proposed unitary council as part of a second urban centre and that Shire Hall on Castle Hill should be turned into a heritage site as part of wider reforms that would enable the new unitary council to tax the wealth being generated within its boundaries to pay for the nice things that successive Chancellors of the Exchequer won’t let us have because lobbyists have convinced them to think about the poor rich people first.

There. Rant over.

Central Library Cambridge changes

Appendix 1 of Item 8 talks about the Libraries Plus Investment, but in the grand scheme of things it isn’t investment in the service, rather it’s investment to generate more generic revenue streams in the face of 14 years of austerity.

There is hardly anything mentioned for teenagers in the central library even though during the daytime they make up a sizeable proportion of the Central Library’s users

This really should be acknowledged in the annual report – and also it should attempt to find out and explain why this is. For example by asking them both in surveys and face-to-face when they are in the library itself!

“Over the past decade, I’ve noticed the Cambridge Central Library becoming increasingly popular with teenagers. Why? Student T told me that it was because there are not nearly enough group working facilities for teenagers in their colleges. Not only that, their own college libraries close far too early for commuting students. They told me that once they turn 18, those in year 13 use local pubs as places for study as well as socialising because that is how acute the shortage of space is.”

CTO 18 June 2023 – listening to a then sixth form student talking about the lack of independent study facilities for teenagers in Cambridge

If Cambridgeshire’s further education and sixth form colleges think public houses that serve alcohol during the day are suitable study spaces for teenagers, that’s their call. But I wouldn’t want to stand for election on such a platform!

The Cambridgeshire Collection doesn’t even get a mention, even though its resources are becoming increasingly important for civic celebrations given the various centenary anniversaries taking place this decade

I don’t blame the staff – the Collection has been under-resourced for years and there is no mechanism for the Archives Service to tax the developers and their professional consultants for making use of the information held within it. Given the consultation on raising planning fees that ended recently, I hope that local government could arrange for some of the new revenues that come in can be allocated to the Cambridgeshire Collection if only to pay for one additional full-time-equivalent member of staff to focus on housing, planning, and transport items and make the materials more accessible not just to the developers but also to the public that as we have seen are passionately interested in protecting our town historical environment. (See Hobson Street Cinema, Wilton Terrace, and the Save the Flying Pig Pub campaigns).

There is huge potential for the Cambridgeshire Collection, but it cannot be achieved because amongst other things:

  • the local history scene is so underfunded and fragmented
  • there is no routine and comprehensive co-ordination between local history organisations and schools
  • many teachers who teach in Cambridge cannot afford to live in the city, so therefore they get little opportunity to engage in the out of school civic and cultural activities – especially if they live outside of the county (as my Year 9 form tutor did even back in the 1990s!)
  • the lifelong learning and adult education service has very little provision for local history
  • the Universities have minimal coverage of local history in their syllabuses despite the welcome creation of the paper from the Cambridge University History Faculty on the women in Cambridge in the first half of the last century.
  • the fact that Cambridge does not have a civic museum that tells the story of our city – even though the Shire Hall / Castle Hill site would make for an ideal spot to expand the existing Museum of Cambridge / County Folk Museum.
In other news, the county council’s closer to communities pilots

Item 5 of the same set of meeting papers of the same committee.

Ignoring the Government’s proposals on restructuring local government in England, this is one of the areas that has seen welcome and much-needed progress in Cambridgeshire – and county councillors in the joint administration should take credit for driving this through. Essentially the programme involved county council functions working much closer to where people are, and working with and through district and parish/town councils and third parties rather than out of a remote centre. Part of the challenge was finding out which services the county council provided or commissioned that could make for pilot schemes.

The evaluation paper – item 5 Appendix 1

Have a browse from p32 of the above paper – and look at the case study of the Detached Youth Work pilot, the result of working with a local secondary school and the Romsey Mill has meant that instead of employing a security guard at Arbury Court Library (to deal with anti-social behaviour) they are considering employing a librarian who specialises in engaging with children and teenagers.

“This pilot offers Cambridgeshire County Council a valuable insight into potential
opportunities in promoting community safety and well-being, highlighting the
importance of devolved power and decision making, enabling holistic support,
community driven solutions and collaborative partnerships in addressing serious
violence. This is evidenced by local expertise, trusted relationships, and tailored
interventions, creating lasting positive impacts and sustainability. Overall, extending
the impact of this work far beyond the initial 18-month project duration, leaving a
legacy of empowerment, trust, and resilience among the young people and
communities.”

Cambridgeshire County Council CoSMIC Cttee 16 Jan 2025. Item 5 App1 P34

Another youth example is with Fenland and East Cambridgeshire

Have a look at the Fenland Youth Advisory Board here, and scroll down to watch the video in the link. This has a similar feel to what Cambridge City Council’s Youth Assembly at The Junction covered in this video here back in November 2024.

That work now needs rocket-boosters underneath it – not just from local councils but from businesses and philanthropists too. As Anne Bailey of Form the Future will tell you, it’s not simply a case of throwing money at a problem. If Cambridge is as great as the publicity says it is, then more of the talent in and around our city needs to get involved in the activities supporting children and young people rather than assuming that it’s only the responsibility of parents, teachers, and charities.

Because I know what it’s like when a city stops supporting its young people and when the opportunities dry up.

I lived it in 1990s Cambridge.

As I mentioned in earlier blogposts, this week I bumped into an old classmate from that era who shared some of that lived experience, and sadly for him it absolutely crushed him even though he wasn’t at fault. Politicians chose to underfund the essential support services. Not enough adults were willing to step up and provide the activities that might have been that lifeline for so many of us who were from families that did not have the means to pay for the few things that were provided commercially.

Furthermore, pilot schemes are only that. As the report and evaluation states, one of the successful case studies was only successful because there was a follow-on programme for the individual to go on. There will inevitably be many more who don’t have follow-on programmes to go on. One of the persistent criticisms from the voluntary and community sector is that all too often pilot schemes that demonstrate success are seldom turned into mainstream activities in local government. The funding is seldom there, and ministers change seats and priorities and suddenly there’s a new funding pot to chase after which a new pilot scheme has to be invented for to achieve similar things. (Hence why the proposed multi-year settlements for local government are ever so important).

Much of the longer term success will depend on the structure of local government that ministers choose to go with, along with revenue-raising powers that Treasury ministers choose to grant to the new unitary councils.

If you are interested in the longer term future of Cambridge, and on what happens at the local democracy meetings where decisions are made, feel free to: