Public libraries - Wirral's fate steps closer
Revealed! The name of the person who holds Wirral's fate in her hands. That is, who is going to head up the DCMS inquiry on Wirral.
It's Sue...
This is quite a year for public libraries. Let's hope it gets us somewhere. After the Budget, it is now clear that 2009 is a sort of holding year. The real wrecking ball starts swinging next year - after the election.
A real collector's item will be the DCMS inquiry into Wirral's determination to close 11 small community libraries in favour of superlibes a bus-ride or 2 away. We now know it aims to report in June.
A proper inquiry under the Act has never been done before, as far as I know. There have been odd skirmishes between DCMS and stroppy councils – but never the full Monty.
It must surely create a precedent for all the other rows we expect, this year and next year. After all, It has a big job to do. We have a libraries minister who is nigh-invisible, and a Sec of State who had to be burnt out of his cave by a mob of screaming citizens before he would act at all.
So it may well end up speaking for DCMS in all sorts of circumstances. So there's lots of interest in who's just been appointed to head the thing up. DCMS says -
"Sue Charteris is a Founder Director of Shared Intelligence, a company which works with a broad range of clients to help them reconsider how they deliver public services and improve delivery. She is a highly experienced Public Policy Consultant specialising in Local Government and Public Service Reform. Building on her previous experience as Chief Executive of Merton and Executive Director of Kirklees local authorities, she was founder member of the Local Government Modernisation Team at DTLR (now DCLG) and Associate Fellow of the Local Government Centre at Warwick Business School. For the past ten years Sue has helped both local authorities and other public sector bodies with policy development and change management, and the creation of practitioner learning networks for knowledge exchange; notably on Local Area Agreements (LAAs) and on Neighbourhood Management. Previous work with DCMS includes design and support of NDPB peer reviews, including those of ACE and English Heritage. Sue is an adviser to the Leadership Centre for Local Government; working with elected members and management teams on implementing change."
If you want to pick over the terms of reference too, you can.
Laura Swaffield
