CILIP Big Day 2012 – Speaker one – Welcome and Introductions

Ged Bell, Deputy Cabinet Minister for Culture & Leisure, Newcastle City Council

Ged noted he was a local resident himself, the importance of culture, his pride in the contribution of the Newcastle public library service to the North East and beyond.

He reeled off a series of very impressive statistics for the service overall and for the Newcastle City Library in alone, including that there were 18 public libraries which had over 2.3 million visitors in 2011/12. He noted that Newcastle City Library delivered a first class professional service to Newcastle and beyond.

He said he wanted to prompt and promote debate so he was going to talk about the volunteers issue and debate. He stated the need was to protect quality front end service delivery in a climate of having a lot less money than previously to do so. In the next three years 90 million in cuts would hit. Newcastle had avoided crisis and maintained a flourishing library service. But no job substitution campaign were not helpful. He saw it as being a lot more complicated than that, a service consisting of staff and volunteers working together in service delivery.

He gave us personal examples as to why he believed in volunteering. He noted he was a full-time professional firefighter also a councilor and worked with firefighters of all kinds of employment status including volunteers. He had no problems working alongside, he trusted in the professionalism of all.

He noted the contribution of delivering the Olympics of volunteers and how successful and appreciated that had been giving personal benefits to the volunteers also.

Therefore he thought volunteering needs discussed and looked at.

He thought the idea of a volunteer being job replacement was a very purist position, yes a volunteer takes a job, but what it’s about is a professional service delivery where volunteers are supported and they get benefits out of it as well.

Contrary to the media portrayal he said local authorities are not happy to see library services run down. However we shouldn’t expect to see community libraries becoming a norm. Community libraries take time, lots of expertise and capacity, need a building etc. They are possible in some communities, but are no quick fix replacement. Newcastle is supportive of libraries, but it needs to follow a co-production model to protect key public services, staff and volunteers working together.